Marvel’s Fantastic Four To Fight The Devil?
A new unconfirmed report suggests Mephisto will be the next MCU big bad.
It turns out the devil really is in the details. There’s a much-overlooked plotline going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which was hinted at in both Spider-Man: Homecoming and Ant-Man and the Wasp — a mysterious “benefactor” who purchased the Avengers Tower and was trying to acquire Hank Pym’s quantum tunneling equipment. Cosmic Circus reports that this benefactor is Mephisto, Marvel’s equivalent of the devil, and he’s going to be the franchise’s next big villain.
According to Cosmic Circus, Mephisto will first appear in the upcoming Ironheart, based on the character who first appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The report claims that for the most part, Mephisto will appear as a man in business attire — supposedly inspired by the Netflix show Lucifer. Mephisto’s full-blown demonic form will appear in the series, but only on rare occasions.
If the report is correct, and Mephisto will become Marvel Universe’s primary villain in the next phase, more of the MCU‘s big heroes will likely face off against the demonic force. Since Mephisto, (along with many of Marvel’s supernatural elements) is explained via interdimensional travel, other dimension-hopping heroes are likely to face the villain. Possible candidates include Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and the upcoming Fantastic Four.
Mephisto was first introduced to Marvel comics in 1968, in the third issue of The Silver Surfer. He would go on to oppose Thor, The Fantastic Four, and The Scarlet Witch throughout the 1970s. In 1981, it was revealed that Mephisto was the entity to whom Johnny Blaze sold his soul in Ghost Rider, retconning the original comics, which simply said that Blaze sold his soul to Satan.
Currently, Marvel’s big bad is the multidimensional conqueror Kang, who was introduced in Loki and appeared as the main villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While Marvel might be looking to recast Jonathan Majors‘s role amid abuse allegations, the character is still set to be Phase Five’s major villain in 2025’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. However, after Kang’s inevitable defeat (these are Superhero movies, after all), a void will be left for a new antagonist to fill, and Mephisto is a fitting contender for that role.
With his infernal powers and manipulative nature, Mephisto would add a dark, metaphysical element to the MCU — something that’s more in line with the villains seen in Eternals, Shang-Chi, and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and the original Doctor Strange. This will be a shift in tone for the wider Marvel universe, as a whole. Whether this direction ends up producing positive results for the slowly-declining franchise is another matter.
Of course, Phase Six of the MCU is still a long way off, and there has been no official confirmation of Cosmic Circus’ report. While the site has a decent history of breaking true stories, they aren’t perfect and have reported stories that were ultimately proven false. As always, Marvel fans will have to either wait until Ironheart, releases or wait for official sources to confirm or deny the claim, before they can know the truth.
