[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Just Passin' By

That was a sequel to a smaller 1st movie, so it's still apples to undersea boulders.

I get that you're trying to prove a point, but if Marvel had intended for either Black Panther or Captain Marvel to act as a lead-in to the climax of Phase 3, then I think they would have given either or both of the characters a substantial role in either Infinity War or Endgame. And they did not. So if they were lead-in movies for anything, it's Phase 4, when they become the new Avengers.

Now, did they put their release date in a window where the two Avengers movies might boost their box office numbers? Absolutely.

And they did the same thing for Ant Man and the Wasp, which is the only movie we're talking about here that actually was a lead-in to either Infinity War or Endgame.

In fact, if we are comparing apples to undersea boulders, you've managed to reverse the two. Because Ant Man and the Wasp is the only one that actually fits the argument you were trying to make, as a movie definitively leading up to Endgame, whereas the two much more successful moves were not. They actually had to shoe-horn a larger presence for both Captain Marvel and Black Panther into the movies later, because their box-office numbers so far exceeded their expectations. And both characters still had minimal roles.