The Marvel Cinematic Universe has weaved together the stories of its heroes for over a decade now. With so many stories and setups in the mix, some have slipped through the cracks, not leading to the things some fans thought they might, at least so far.
Some of them have faded from memory, not likely to show up again, but some of them could still materialize into new characters and stories for the Marvel movies and tv shows to explore. As the universe continues to grow, these dropped plot points could become very important all over again.
8 Hints of Atlantis
Since Iron Man 2, and the first look at Nick Fury’s SHIELD map with its blinking point of interest in the middle of the ocean, fans have wondered when Namor would join the MCU. Many have theorized that the underwater earthquakes in Avengers: Endgame were a sign that the Marvel Atlanteans were up to something.
Unfortunately, Marvel execs have talked repeatedly about how the rights to Namor, and his stories are a complicated situation, so it’s unlikely that these Easter eggs will pay off any time soon.
7 Nick Fury’s Hunt for Hydra
After the fall of SHIELD—and his faked death—Nick Fury informed Captain America that he was going after the rest of Hydra. While Hydra does indeed show up again in Avengers: Age of Ultron, in the form of Baron Von Strucker and Doctor List, nothing else of Fury’s hunt for Hydra has been shown.
Even in the Agents of SHIELD universe, there are only brief mentions of him looking for agents in trouble—like Fitz and Simmons—but very little on the Hydra powers he must have taken down around the world in his travels.
6 Extremis' long-term effects
AIM's exploding super soldiers were a big part of the fight in Iron Man 3, but this kind of enhancement hasn't been seen since. It did show up in the Centipede program in Agents of SHIELD, but as that is not currently MCU canon, it’s hard to know what has become of this process, or, for that matter, the effects of Pepper Potts’ having been exposed to it.
While Tony Stark said he could “fix” it, how that happened or what a stabilized version of it looked like was never dealt with past Tony’s own full recovery from his original injuries.
5 Where is Lady Sif?
After Thor: The Dark World, Lady Sif seemed to disappear from Asgard. Though she made a few appearances on Agents of SHIELD, she was noticeably absent from Thor: Ragnarok. She did cameo as a memory in Loki.
With Thor: Love and Thunder filming, and her return to the MCU proper in the works, this dropped story could be picked back up again, but with the focus on Jane Foster and her transformation into Thor, the story of where Sif has been might not be addressed with more than a passing line or two.
4 Thor goes looking for the Infinity Stones, but doesn’t
Seeing Thor determined to see his vision through in Avengers: Age of Ultron seemed like the perfect set-up for the threats the Avengers would face going forward. That search for answers, however, never materialized.
The only sign of the Infinity Stones in Thor: Ragnarok was the Tesseract, and that didn’t figure in any of the actual stories until the end and Thanos’ attack on the fleeing Asgardians. Thor’s travels around the universe were framed as cleaning up Asgard’s messes rather than a life-or-death search for the next big threat.
3 Did Ghost survive the fallout from the Snap?
In Ant-Man and the Wasp’s final scene, Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, and Hope Van Dyne are sending Scott Lang into the Quantum Realm to collect healing particles for Ava “Ghost” Starr, so that her phasing condition can be treated. Unfortunately, just as Scott leaves, Thanos’ Snap turns the Pym-Van Dyne family to dust. Scott’s return shaped the race to get them, and the rest of the snapped people back, but one question is never answered; what happened to Ava?
Whether she got her treatment some other way, or just faded away, as she was likely to do without these treatments, is never addressed. She hasn’t been seen since either, so it’s unclear if she was indirectly another victim of Thanos’ Snap.
2 Adam in the Golden Cocoon
At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, a somewhat off-her-game Ayesha, ruler of the Sovereign race, presented the perfect version of her people, in a golden birthing pod. She dubbed him Adam. Comics fans celebrated that Adam Warlock was finally coming to the movies.
It hasn’t happened yet. Theoretically, he could still be in the pod, waiting for the next volume of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. It has been brought up in interviews repeatedly, but there has yet to be any confirmation that the pod will open any time soon.
1 The potential for the Leader
In the 2008 Incredible Hulk, Dr. Sterns helped Bruce Banner as he searched for a cure to his Hulk problem and eventually caught the attention of would-be super-soldier, Emil Blonsky. His work with Blonsky caused the Abomination mutation and was exposed to the Hulk’s blood. The last viewers saw of him with a pulsing head wound and a big grin.
While, so far, Thunderbolt Ross has been the only hold-over from the MCU’s early Hulk adventure, the set-up for the Leader has been one of the most significant dropped plots in the MCU so far.
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