How Marvel TV is tweaking its playbook in 2025

Back in January 2021, the Marvel Cinematic Universe began a fresh chapter with Disney+ originals. And WandaVision, Marvel’s first show on the streamer, turned out to be a thoughtful deep dive into an established character that also paid genre-bending homage to sitcoms. Despite not being intended as the initial MCU TV release, it set the tone for distinctive episodic stories with a mainstream impact on the franchise at large. This was noticeably different from Marvel’s Defender Saga, which ended in 2019—and included all three seasons of Daredevil proper. WandaVision represented cautiously optimistic risk-taking (and an obvious attempt to boost a platform, of course). However, four years later, the series feels like an anomaly, matched in quality and ambition only by two seasons of Loki. 

Both their critical and mass success stemmed from a specific approach to reframe Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Loki Laufeyson’s (Tom Hiddleston) psyches in a way the movies hadn’t and would never have explored. And a winning small-screen formula was achieved: tell a focused and fun arc, introduce other comic-book players, and find a sensible film connection. In WandaVision’s case, it was a seamless tie-in to 2022’s Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness. (Loki’s planned Kang The Conqueror adventures came to an understandable halt.) However, this seemingly well-rounded strategy dissipated over time thanks to an overwhelming barrage of creatively inconsistent, disjointed projects. Enter the term “superhero fatigue,” which has somehow already worn out its welcome. 

This raises the question: Can the company reset in 2025? There are some positive signs that it just might: This year, Marvel is letting go of legacy characters to zap some new energy into its TV brand. While Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) debuted in 2022’s theatrical Wakanda Forever, her imminent TV series isn’t related to Black Panther at all. Meanwhile, Emmy winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will commence his turn as Wonder Man, and Charlie Cox returns as vigilante lawyer Matt Murdock, adding a glossy MCU sheen to his gritty Netflix drama. Plus, Marvel Animation is gearing up for its biggest year with three shows to hopefully shake up the status quo. 

It’s still to be seen how memorable these launches will be, but the 2025 slate reveals that Marvel executives have realized not everything can be potent or good just because a familiar face is attached to it. Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) functioning without Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) or Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) taking center stage in an espionage thriller were enticing ideas on paper. But the uninventive scripts and stakes made The Falcon And The Winter Soldier middling at best and Secret Invasion the absolute worst. 

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, Ms. Marvel, and Hawkeye were entertaining, but even they couldn’t escape the cameo agenda with appearances from Mark Ruffalo, Brie Larson, and Florence Pugh, respectively. To make matters worse, who knows if Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) will actually pop up again. (Where’s that Young Avengers update for the latter two, Kevin Feige?) Meanwhile, other promising one-season shows like Moon Knight also feel largely forgotten, their MCU fates still up in the air.

This disjointed overarching plan has morphed into a wearisome viewing experience that demands excessive homework. Hence, the question: Can Marvel’s 2025 launches toe the line to overcome the absence of beloved film heroes? Thankfully, some long-brewing live-action originals will arrive to test the waters, starting with Daredevil: Born Again in March. After going through a creative overhaul during filming, this drama hopes to be a bridge between nostalgia and a new beginning for Disney+. Hell’s Kitchen’s finest fighter suits up again after recent appearances in She-Hulk and Spider-Man: No Way Home. (Yes, the events of Netflix’s Daredevil are canon.) Born Again picks up several years after Avengers: Endgame to reveal how Matt, Foggy (Elden Hensen), and Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) have dealt with The Blip, further contextualized by Matt hooking up with Jennifer and giving legal aid to Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. Daredevil’s sworn enemy, Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), is running for mayor, as seen in the post-credits of Echo’s finale. 

Similarly, Riri’s life-changing events in Wakanda Forever, like meeting Shuri (Letitia Wright), losing Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and being taken to the underwater kingdom of Talokan, will add to her interiority in Ironheart, which premieres in June. The show centers on Riri going back to Chicago after her expulsion from MIT. There, she teams up with dark-arts practitioner The Hood (Anthony Ramos) to perfect her exo-suit. When he turns into a foe, she goes on a quest to right her wrongs. Much like with Ms. Marvel’s charming coming-of-age arc, Riri’s journey also shows a Young Avenger coming into power, with Thorne clarifying that her TV persona is noticeably different. With parts of her backstory established, Ironheart could also plant a clue or two about her Armor Wars future as WV did for Scarlet Witch in MOM. 

The last live-action, small-screen project that Marvel brings us this year is Wonder Man, a show developed by Shang-Chi’s Daniel Destin Cretton that arrives in December. It faces the Moon Knight/Echo dilemma of making viewers care about a fresh face: Simon Williams (Abdul-Mateen II). The details are under wraps, but the synopsis suggests a quirky tale of a superpowered actor auditioning to be in a big-budget movie. Simon gets assistance from Iron Man 3’s Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), and the series’ ensemble includes Ed Harris, Demetrius Grosse, and Josh Gad. Wonder Man marks a collaboration between Marvel and Onyx Collective, a Disney brand launched to support programming made by and focusing on people from underrepresented groups. The collective’s previous Hulu efforts, UnPrisoned and How To Die Alone, both boasted confident voices and nuanced themes, which bodes well for this superhero comedy.  

As for Marvel Animation’s landmark year, it starts with Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man on January 29. The 10-part season frees itself of Holland to introduce Hudson Thames as Peter Parker in a different timeline. He’s mentored by Norman Osborn (Colman Domingo) instead of Tony Stark, which sends him down a divergent path. No Way Home already had alternate universes colliding, so there’s a good chance Thames’ Peter will show up in a future live-action Spider-Man movie. (The show really does look like a comic book come to life.) This summer, Ryan Coogler drops  Eyes Of Wakanda, which expands his vision of the Black Panther universe and chronicles warriors hunting for Vibranium. And finally, the Halloween-timed Marvel Zombies brings the undead heroes from What If…? season one back, voiced by Olsen, Steinfeld, Vellani, Pugh, Randall Park, Simu Liu, and David Harbour. Consequently, this feels like the first time Marvel is fully leaning into its animated series, which make up half of its new 2025 shows. If the triumph of X-Men ’97 is even the slightest indication of the direction and creativity of these upcoming shows, we’ll remain cautiously optimistic.