Meet the New MCU Characters in Phase 4

MCU Feature

Who are the main characters of the MCU?

• Iron Man. Tony Stark/Iron Man Pepper Potts/Rescue Happy Hogan Ho Yinsen Nick Fury. …
• The Incredible Hulk. Bruce Banner/Hulk Samuel Sterns Leonard Samson. …
• Iron Man 2. Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow Peter Parker/Spider-Man. …
• Thor. …
• Captain America: The First Avenger. …
• The Avengers. …
• Iron Man 3. …
• Thor: The Dark World.

With that in mind, we’re putting together a team list of all the major Phase Four characters to date, and we’ll be updating it regularly. It’s our hope that this can fill in some blanks for anyone who has skipped a few movies or shows but who still wants to keep up with the sprawling MCU landscape. Now, notice we said “major” characters back there? There have been plenty of other characters in Phase Four that are not listed here yet, but these are the ones that it feels like we should definitely be keeping an eye on in terms of future appearances!

Yelena Belova

The first movie of MCU Phase Four was Black Widow, a swansong for Natasha Romanoff who sacrificed her life in Avengers: Endgame. The project was a prequel, which meant we got to see what Natasha was up to between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. This adventure marked the end of Natasha’s quest to wipe out the red in her ledger from years of unpleasant missions that occasionally ended with innocent blood being shed. Here, she was seeking to put an end to the Red Room – a top-secret Russian training program for young girls – once and for all.

Along the way, we met Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who once posed as Natasha’s sister when they were working undercover in America as kids. They were both trained in the Red Room, but Yelena had continued working for the Russians after Natasha defected. Yelena’s mind was being controlled by the leader of the Red Room programme, Dreykov, but she managed to finally escape his grasp and met up with Natasha while she was on the run. Amidst the destruction of the Red Room, the two mended their bridges, so Yelena was upset and angry when she found out that Natasha had died soon after. When she was told that Clint Barton aka Hawkeye was the one responsible for Natasha’s death, Yelena picked up an offer to assassinate him in Marvel’s Hawkeye, but the truth eventually emerged and she let him go.

Taskmaster

Natasha thought she had accidentally killed Dreykov’s daughter Antonia (Olga Kurylenko) in a bombing when she was a child, but it turns out that Antonia had survived the blast. She was maimed, however, and a disappointed Dreykov had then raised Antonia to be a weapon against his enemies. Under the moniker “Taskmaster” Antonia can mimic opponents’ fighting styles, and has been shown using battle techniques copied from the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, Spider-Man, and Black Panther.

We haven’t seen Taskmaster re-emerge since the events of Black Widow, but Taskmaster is regularly an iconic villain (and sometimes an anti-hero) in the pages of Marvel Comics, and will be a part of Phase Five’s Thunderbolts lineup.

Red Guardian

In a coup by Marvel Studios, Stranger Things star David Harbour joined the MCU as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian in Black Widow. Alexei is a super soldier, and is known to rattle on about his heyday as Russia’s version of Captain America. He even claims to have fought Captain America in the 80s, but this has been disputed by people who knew that Steve Rogers was still in the ice back then. He may be telling the truth, though, and we go into that further right here! Red Guardian was an ally to Natasha Romanoff, and may continue to be an ally to Yelena Belova. He originally masqueraded as the pair’s fake father when they were sent on an undercover mission to America in the 90s.