What will happen to the MCU without Jonathan Majors? How Marvel might shake things up

It’s been a bleak year for Marvel Studios. Majors, who made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut during the first season of “Loki” in 2021, was arrested in March just one month after impressing audiences with his turn as the villain Kang in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” It’s another blow for the venerated and lucrative studio that built its brand on cinematic superhero excellence and setting a new bar for interconnected franchises. For the most part, Marvel had remained mum about Majors’ status in the franchise following his arrest and subsequent reports alleging a history of abuse — even as the actor returned to “Loki” for its second season playing Victor Timely, an eccentric late-19th-century inventor and alternate version of Kang. A long-standing Marvel comics character, Kang the Conqueror had been touted as a key player for the MCU’s Phases Five and Six as it built toward “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” scheduled for 2026. The departure of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” director Destin Daniel Cretton, who had previously been attached to “The Kang Dynasty,” and the hiring of “Loki” and “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” scribe Michael Waldron to take over screenwriting duties on the film, now reportedly referred to simply as “Avengers 5.” Waldron had already been tapped to write “Secret Wars.” As Marvel adjusts its plans, the studio is even launching a new banner next year, Marvel Spotlight, to highlight titles that do not require up-to-date knowledge of the MCU before watching — in other words, a fresh start.