Marvel has a storage closet somewhere filled with unresolved post credit scenes, half-finished character arcs, and one deeply confused Harry Styles wig.
The MCU loves introducing huge characters like they just walked into the room carrying the keys to the future of the franchise. Then three years pass. Five years pass. Kang gets rewritten in real time. Suddenly everybody is acting like nobody ever heard of Clea, Scorpion, or the giant Hulk son who appeared for thirty seconds and looked like he lost a fight with unfinished Play-Doh rendering software.
That is the weird magic of mcu abandoned characters. They are not always bad characters. Sometimes they are important Marvel figures with decades of comic history behind them. Sometimes they are attached to giant teases that felt universe changing at the time. Then Marvel gets distracted by multiverse spaghetti and everybody moves on until a random fan account tweets “remember this guy?” at 2 AM.
The funny part is that some of these characters still matter a lot. A few are probably being saved for future movies like Avengers: Secret Wars or Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Others feel like Marvel accidentally left the stove on and quietly walked out of the house.
Side note: We absolutely need to talk about Clea because Marvel dropped a mystical reality tearing sorceress into the MCU and then vanished into another dimension before answering a single question.
What Actually Counts as an MCU Abandoned Character?
Fans throw around “forgotten” a little too aggressively now.
A character disappearing for two years is not abandonment. The MCU timeline moves slower than George R.R. Martin finishing a book. Some characters are clearly in holding patterns until the right project arrives.
So before the pitchforks come out, here’s the difference.
| Type | What It Means |
| Abandoned | Introduced with clear setup. No follow-up. No confirmed return. Fans left staring into the void. |
| Delayed | Marvel obviously still has plans, but development hell happened. |
| Underused | Character still exists but gets almost nothing meaningful to do. |
| Resolved off-screen | Story technically ended without much fanfare. Not satisfying, but not abandoned. |
That distinction matters because the list of mcu forgotten characters gets really messy otherwise. People scream “Marvel forgot Wong” every six business days despite the man appearing in half the franchise like a magical Uber driver.
The characters below all have one thing in common. Marvel teased something important with them. Then the payoff either stalled, disappeared, or entered witness protection.
The Biggest MCU Abandoned Characters Still Waiting for Payoff
The MCU currently has enough unresolved setups to start its own support group, complete with Mordo sitting in the corner wondering why everybody forgot his entire villain arc.
Clea
| Scorecard | Details |
| First Appearance | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness |
| Last Seen | Same post credit scene |
| Unresolved Setup | Incursions and multiverse collapse |
| Return Chances | Extremely high |
| Why Fans Care | She is one of Doctor Strange’s biggest comic relationships |
Marvel introducing Clea in a post credit scene felt enormous at the time. Then the MCU immediately wandered off to fight about timelines for three years.
In the comics, Clea is not some random sorcerer cameo. She is deeply tied to Doctor Strange mythology. She becomes Sorcerer Supreme. She rules the Dark Dimension. She marries Strange. This is not background NPC material.
The MCU version arrives through a portal, tells Strange he caused an incursion, slices reality open with purple magic, and disappears. End scene. Credits roll. Everybody loses their minds for a week.
Then nothing.
Fans still obsess over the clea mcu setup because it clearly points toward larger multiverse consequences. The problem is that Marvel’s multiverse plans became shakier than a Jenga tower during an earthquake once the Kang storyline imploded.
Still, Clea feels delayed rather than truly abandoned. Marvel did not cast Charlize Theron for one joke scene. That would be like buying a Ferrari to drive to the mailbox.
Eros / Starfox
Eros entered the MCU in Eternals like Marvel had absolute confidence everybody would instantly accept Harry Styles as Thanos’ brother.
Bold strategy.
The bigger issue is that Eternals itself became one giant unresolved filing cabinet. Giant celestial sticking out of Earth. Missing Eternals. Cosmic implications everywhere. Then Marvel quietly backed away from the whole thing like it accidentally sent an embarrassing text.
Starfox matters in comics because he connects cosmic Marvel lore, Titan history, and occasionally deeply uncomfortable comic writing choices from the 1980s that we do not need to unpack today unless everybody wants the FBI monitoring the article.
The setup teased a rescue mission involving the captured Eternals. Fans expected movement by now. Instead the character has been frozen in post credit purgatory.
Chance of return feels decent because cosmic Marvel still needs connective tissue. Also Marvel did not survive years of Harry Styles fan discourse just to waste the cameo completely.
Hercules
Hercules appeared in the post credit scene of Thor: Love and Thunder looking like Zeus commissioned an Olympic level himbo assassin.
Comic fans immediately understood the importance. Hercules is a major Avengers character in Marvel history. Sometimes rival. Sometimes ally. Sometimes the guy who turns every room into a frat house with godly strength.
The MCU teased him hunting Thor after Zeus got humiliated.
Then Thor vanished from the release schedule for a while and Hercules entered the same mysterious waiting room as every other mcu loose ends casualty.
Marvel clearly intended this setup to continue. The issue is tonal whiplash. Thor’s corner of the MCU became so aggressively comedic that fans are not even sure what kind of Hercules story would fit anymore.
Still, this one feels salvageable. Hercules is too big in comics to disappear permanently.
Skaar
The MCU introducing Hulk’s son during the finale of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law genuinely felt like Marvel was testing the audience’s blood pressure.
No buildup. No explanation. Just Bruce Banner casually returning from space with a son like he picked him up at Costco.
Comic readers know Skaar can be important. He comes from the Planet Hulk storyline and carries serious rage issues. The MCU version currently looks like he was rendered on a laptop fighting for its life.
The problem here is timing. Hulk stories in the MCU exist in permanent legal weirdness because Universal still complicates solo movie rights. So Skaar currently floats in narrative limbo.
Fans care because Hulk mythology in the MCU has felt strangely unfinished for years. Skaar represented movement. Instead it became another dangling thread.
Scorpion
Scorpion has officially spent longer in prison than some actual movie franchises lasted.
Introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Mac Gargan clearly seemed destined to become Scorpion. The post credit scene even teased revenge against Spider-Man.
Then Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man plans transformed into a rights negotiation roller coaster designed by chaos demons.
Fans still care because Scorpion is one of Spider-Man’s classic villains. Also Michael Mando was genuinely perfect casting. The energy was there. The menace was there. The bald intensity was absolutely there.
Now the MCU has moved through multiverse crises, symbiote teases, and reality resets while Gargan apparently remains trapped in the same prison cafeteria.
Mordo
Baron Mordo might be the patron saint of characters marvel forgot.
The first Doctor Strange ends with Mordo deciding the world has “too many sorcerers.” Massive setup. Huge ideological shift. Perfect future villain material.
Then Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness skips right past our MCU Mordo and gives us a different universe version instead.
That is cold.
Especially because early reports suggested the real Mordo originally died off-screen before Marvel cut it from the film. Imagine spending years waiting for your villain arc only to get deleted in a draft like a typo.
Comic Mordo is one of Strange’s definitive enemies. He absolutely deserves more than becoming multiversal background noise.
White Vision
| Scorecard | Details |
| First Appearance | WandaVision |
| Last Seen | Flying into the horizon like a confused philosophical drone |
| Unresolved Setup | Identity, memory restoration, future allegiance |
| Return Chances | Very high |
| Why Fans Care | Vision remains central to Wanda’s story |
White Vision literally regains his memories and flies away. That is it. Marvel treated the emotional consequences like somebody closing a laptop mid-sentence.
This one at least has movement now because Vision-related projects continue developing behind the scenes. Still, fans spent years joking that White Vision was circling the Earth trying to process Ship of Theseus dialogue.
Comic fans especially care because White Vision historically represented Vision stripped of humanity and emotion. That story can get very dark. MCU barely scratched the surface.
Shang-Chi’s Ten Rings Signal
The ending of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings sets up one giant mystery.
The rings are sending a signal.
To who?
Great question. Marvel would also love to know.
This is one of the strangest mcu loose ends because the movie openly frames the rings as something ancient and potentially cosmic. Wong, Captain Marvel, and Bruce Banner all seem alarmed.
Then silence.
Comic lore gives Marvel plenty to work with because the Mandarin’s rings have alien connections in certain storylines. Fans assumed this tease would rapidly connect to larger cosmic arcs.
Instead the signal has been broadcasting into empty space for years like the world’s most expensive voicemail.
Black Knight
Black Knight barely even got started before Marvel parked him in eternal setup mode.
Introduced in Eternals, Dane Whitman discovers the Ebony Blade while Blade’s voice appears off-screen asking if he is ready.
Fans exploded because Black Knight is a significant Avengers character in comics. Medieval cursed sword energy mixed with superhero nonsense. Extremely comic book. Extremely fun.
Then absolutely nothing happened.
The Blade reboot delays probably hurt this setup badly. Marvel clearly intended crossover momentum that never materialized.
Xu Xialing
Xu Xialing quietly runs one of the MCU’s most interesting unresolved storylines.
At the end of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, she takes control of the Ten Rings organization. The movie literally tells us the Ten Rings will return.
That felt huge. A morally ambiguous power player with global influence. Family tension. Criminal empire politics. Potential future villain arc.
Then Marvel disappeared into multiverse traffic again.
Fans care because Xialing has actual narrative potential beyond “supporting character who stands beside hero.” She could genuinely reshape Shang-Chi’s corner of the MCU.
Forgotten MCU Supporting Characters Who Could Still Matter
Some characters are not headline teases. They are just weirdly abandoned supporting players with unfinished potential.
The MCU has a habit of introducing excellent side characters and then throwing them into the Phantom Zone.
Doc Samson
Doc Samson appeared in The Incredible Hulk before the MCU fully became the MCU.
Comic readers immediately recognized him because Doc Samson becomes a gamma-powered psychiatrist with green hair and major Hulk connections.
The MCU version never reached that transformation stage. He simply evaporated from existence like many Incredible Hulk era characters.
Dr. Helen Cho
Remember when Helen Cho helped create Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron?
Marvel barely does.
Comic fans know Amadeus Cho connections alone make this character potentially important. Especially with younger hero setups expanding across the MCU.
Instead she vanished completely after helping birth one of the franchise’s most important androids. Rough career trajectory.
Betty Ross
Betty Ross became one of the original examples of mcu forgotten characters.
Then Marvel suddenly remembered she existed.
Her return matters because Hulk mythology has been fragmented for years. Betty connects emotional history, Red Hulk storylines, and gamma world building that Marvel keeps circling without fully committing to.
This is exactly why calling every missing character “abandoned” gets messy. Sometimes Marvel remembers people seventeen years later out of pure spite.
Justin Hammer
Justin Hammer remains one of the MCU’s funniest wasted assets.
Sam Rockwell absolutely cooked in Iron Man 2. The character works because he radiates insecure tech bro energy before tech bros became society’s dominant supervillain class.
Hammer has appeared in smaller projects since then, but fans still want a real comeback because the MCU desperately needs grounded human antagonists again.
Also his dance scene remains cinema.
Mitchell Carson
Most casual fans completely forgot this guy existed, which honestly proves the article’s point beautifully.
Mitchell Carson steals Pym Particles at the end of Ant-Man and escapes.
That should matter a lot. Pym tech in the wrong hands is terrifying.
Marvel never followed up meaningfully.
Sonny Burch’s Employer
One of the weirdest unresolved setups in the MCU.
Sonny Burch keeps referencing a mysterious buyer during Ant-Man and the Wasp. Fans immediately theorized Norman Osborn, Doctor Doom, or some larger criminal network.
The MCU never answered it.
This is the kind of dangling mystery that drives comic fans insane because it feels intentionally important.
Liz Allan
Poor Liz.
Imagine finding out your dad is the Vulture, your boyfriend is Spider-Man, and then the universe deletes everybody’s memory of Peter Parker.
Liz Allan could still return because Spider-Man stories thrive on emotional fallout. Especially now that Peter has lost basically everything.
Also comic readers know Liz eventually connects to major corporate and symbiote storylines.
Which MCU Loose Ends Feel Most Likely to Return?
Here’s the current ranking based on Marvel’s active direction, comic importance, and how expensive the actors probably are.
Most likely to return soon
- Clea
- White Vision
- Hercules
- Xialing
- Betty Ross
Probably returning eventually
- Starfox
- Black Knight
- Skaar
- Mordo
Currently trapped in Marvel limbo
- Scorpion
- Sonny Burch’s employer
- Mitchell Carson
- Doc Samson
The funniest part of the MCU is that random forgotten setups can suddenly matter again after a decade. Tim Blake Nelson returned as Leader after ages in the wilderness. Daredevil came back. Abomination returned for comedy therapy sessions.
Marvel operates less like a clean cinematic universe and more like a guy rediscovering unfinished side quests.
Why Marvel Leaves So Many MCU Characters Hanging
Some of this is intentional. Some of it absolutely is not.
The MCU expanded too quickly. Disney+ created massive story sprawl. Multiverse storytelling exploded the number of active plotlines. Then release delays, rewrites, strikes, and shifting audience reactions hit the franchise like a truck made of scheduling conflicts.
Marvel also loves planting seeds before knowing exactly when they will pay off.
Comic books do this constantly. A character appears. Years pass. Suddenly somebody revives the storyline because a writer had a cool idea during lunch.
The difference is that comics release monthly. Movies take forever.
So fans experience these gaps as abandonment even when Marvel internally considers them dormant setups.
That said, some characters absolutely fell through the cracks. Especially side characters from older phases before Marvel fully understood how interconnected the universe would become.
Which Forgotten MCU Characters Deserve a Comeback Most?
Mordo deserves actual closure. That one hurts the most because the setup was genuinely excellent.
Scorpion deserves a real villain arc because Michael Mando was born to play dangerous weirdos.
Clea deserves immediate follow-up because introducing one of Doctor Strange’s most important comic relationships through a single post credit scene feels borderline disrespectful.
Justin Hammer deserves freedom because the MCU needs more entertaining human disasters.
And honestly? Xialing might have the highest ceiling of the entire group. A morally complicated leader controlling the Ten Rings organization could become one of the MCU’s strongest long-term supporting players if Marvel actually commits to it.
Also somebody please check if White Vision is okay.
FAQs
Who is the most forgotten MCU character?
Probably Mordo or Scorpion in terms of major unresolved setup. Fans expected both characters to become important future antagonists. Marvel instead left them floating in narrative limbo for years.
Did Marvel forget about Clea in the MCU?
Not likely. Clea feels delayed rather than abandoned. She connects directly to Doctor Strange mythology and larger multiverse consequences. Marvel almost certainly has plans for her future appearances.
What MCU post-credit scenes have not paid off yet?
Some of the biggest unresolved teases include:
- Clea warning Doctor Strange about incursions
- Hercules hunting Thor
- Starfox meeting the Eternals
- Scorpion seeking revenge on Spider-Man
- The Ten Rings sending a mysterious signal
- Black Knight discovering the Ebony Blade
The MCU currently has enough unresolved post credit scenes to build an entire Disney+ support group.
Is Mordo still alive in the MCU?
Yes. The main MCU version of Mordo is still alive. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness only featured an alternate universe version of the character.
Will Starfox return to the MCU?
Probably. Eros connects to larger cosmic Marvel storylines and the unresolved Eternals plot. Nothing official confirms his return yet, but the setup clearly implied future appearances.
Why do MCU loose ends take so long to resolve?
Development delays, shifting movie schedules, actor availability, rights complications, and Marvel’s constantly evolving plans all contribute. Comic storytelling also naturally plays the long game, which the MCU tries to imitate. Sometimes successfully. Sometimes like a raccoon trying to assemble IKEA furniture.