Mephisto has now made his official MCU debut in Ironheart, and everyone is wondering where he might show up next. Spider-Man? Ghost Rider? Possibly. Disney definitely could do that.
Or, is there a chance that Marvel is planning to turn the character, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, into the next big Avengers villain who could then replace the scrapped Jonathan Majors/Kang storyline? It’s more likely than you might initially think.
One of Mephisto’s recent storylines deals with the multiverse, just like Kang
Mephisto has been a part of Marvel’s lore for decades, as the character was first introduced back in 1968. And he’s caused all kinds of trouble for various superheroes; everyone knows you probably shouldn’t make a deal with the devil, but sometimes, when he comes calling, you’ve got to at least entertain the notion.
In a relatively recent Avengers storyline by Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness, Marvel introduced the Council of Red. The Council of Red is an army of Mephisto variants who assemble together to attack Earth-616 and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
There are some time-travel shenanigans that happen, and the whole thing (perhaps somewhat predictably) ends badly when the variants start to turn on one another, but it’s a pretty gigantic storyline as there are also heroes and villains from other multiverses (including the prehistoric Avengers — that’s a thing) who are pulled into the action.
This is similar to the Council of Kangs, as the titular conqueror also brought different variants of himself together. Like Mephisto, it was somewhat inevitable that they’d turn on one another, but they posed a pretty big threat to the Avengers for a time.
Mephisto might be Disney’s way of sidestepping the firing of Jonathan Majors
Marvel Studios tried to set up a Council of Kangs storyline in the MCU, as the post-credit scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania saw a bunch of different versions of Jonathan Majors’ character assemble together. That didn’t go anywhere, however, as Majors was fired by the studio after he was arrested for physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Plans to make an Avengers: The Kang Dynasty movie were then canceled, as we’re now getting Avengers: Doomsday instead.
We likely won’t see the Council of Kangs in the MCU again; however, Mephisto’s Ironheart introduction could be a way to sidestep that, as he could create his own multiversal army, defeat the Kangs (a plot point that will likely happen off-screen), and then attack the Avengers. This would allow Marvel to retool whatever they were planning for The Kang Dynasty; only, now, it’s Mephisto instead of Kang.
A recent MCU rumor floating around is that, after Marvel is done telling cosmic and mutant stories, the next saga the studio plans to focus on will be the supernatural. That supernatural saga is when Mephisto could make his grand return; there’s the opportunity to give him a Thanos-like set-up, here, as Cohen can be operating in the shadows until he’s ready for a grand attack.
If that is the direction Disney goes in, it could lead to some more fun surprises, too: Mephisto has a large role to play in Johnny Blaze’s origin story, so if Mephisto is perusing the Marvel multiverse looking for his variants, maybe Cosmic Ghost Rider could show up, too.
