Captain Marvel may have ruled the box office this spring, but Avengers: Endgame was still Iron Man and Captain America’s show. So when female fans woke up last Sunday to the news of a female Thor, a Black Widow movie and a bisexual Valkyrie, some wondered if they were still dreaming. The announcements at San Diego Comic-Con about Phase 4 of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) appeared to promise a more gender-balanced future.

The most prominent was that Natalie Portman’s Dr Jane Foster would take the hammer from Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, becoming Mighty Thor. Social media exploded and divided, with fanboys declaring that Marvel had gone “feminist”. There was an easy comeback: the Thor story is based on an existing comic book plotline in which Foster temporarily acquires Thor’s powers. But the decision to use that specific story still speaks volumes. It is far less well known than the Captain Marvel series and could easily have been overlooked in favour of another story with Hemsworth front and centre, keeping Portman’s character as the astrophysicist love-interest (or out of the picture entirely, which was the case in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok).

“This shows Marvel’s commitment to showing diversity and opening the universe out to all the iterations of the characters we’ve seen in the comic books,” says Jane Crowther, editor of Total Film magazine, who put Brie Larson as Captain Marvel on the cover. “Phase 4 is all about new beginnings, and what better way to commit to that than really shake up Thor by bringing in a female lead?”

Others suggest a financial incentive. “I think they’re following the box office,” says Mia Bays, director-at-large at Birds Eye View Film, an organisation supporting films by women. “Diversity is good business. Marvel saw that with Black Panther and Captain Marvel, and we’ve seen it with Wonder Woman for DC.”

Even if this were a wholly cynical decision, it is surely time that studios recognised the value of female role models in family-friendly fare, which the likes of Geena Davis have been campaigning for this for decades. Film critic Amon Warmann, who contributes to Talk Sport and Empire, thinks it’s high time. “Marvel caught flak – and rightly so – for being too white in the MCU’s early years,” he says. “But they deserve credit for being at the forefront of representation in mainstream media. The good that comes from movies such as Black Panther, not just for the movie itself but for the extremely positive effects it can have on the industry, far outweigh any perceived element of box-ticking for me.”

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Photograph: Jay Maidment/AP

Retaining the director Taika Waititi for Thor: Love and Thunder is a significant move. The part-Maori New Zealander has long made films about outsiders, from Eagle vs Shark and Hunt for the Wilderpeople; he brought a more inclusive sensibility to Thor: Ragnarok. “He genuinely moved the Thor franchise on, in tone and storyline, so he’s a safe pair of hands to move it on again into this new arena,” says Crowther. She adds: “I hope he reflects the storyline from the comics of Jane battling breast cancer at the same time as being a kick-ass hero. That really would be a departure.” Marvel has also hired female directors for a number of projects: the Australian Cate Shortland is helming the long-awaited Black Widow prequel starring Scarlett Johansson and Chloé Zhao will direct Marvel’s ensemble film The Eternals, featuring Angelina Jolie and Richard Madden. This marks the first time a woman will direct a Marvel film solo, after Anna Boden co-directed Captain Marvel with Ryan Fleck.

There may be pressure from within the MCU cast to give female actors bigger roles. A scene in Avengers: Endgame, in which the women rose up together, felt well-intentioned, but clumsy. Was it a hasty response to requests from the Valkyrie actor Tessa Thompson to be cast directly alongside her female colleagues? A more elegant scene in Endgame appointed Valkyrie as ruler of Asgard. It was a stirring sight to see Thor, a white male born into privilege, graciously handing the baton to Valkyrie, a born leader from an underrepresented group. Now it has been confirmed that Thompson’s character in Thor: Love and Thunder will honour the comic book character’s bisexuality, too. Thompson, who is bisexual, is also a vocal supporter of the Time’s Up movement, spearheading the “4% challenge” by committing to announce a female-directed project within the next 18 months. “Tessa Thompson, Brie Larson and Natalie Portman are all founding members of Time’s Up and strong advocates of diversity and equality, with huge social media followings,” says Crowther. “Their involvement in the MCU gives me hope that Marvel is doing the right thing for the right outcome.”

Let’s hope that Thompson and Portman’s characters in Thor: Love and Thunder get to work together in more than a token fashion, building on the quiet bravery of the Captain Marvel film, which put female friendship at its core. Larson raved about the relationship between Carol/Captain Marvel and her friend Maria (Lashana Lynch) when I interviewed her for the Girls on Film podcast. “The great love that is lost and found in this film is with her best friend. It’s such a powerful thing for me … It’s weirdly new, despite it being something we all understand.”

While the Time’s Up movement has doubtless fuelled the engines, these developments are not that sudden: superhero blockbusters take many years to produce. “The MCU has always been extremely pragmatic in planning and they have world-building finessed to a science, so these new films will have been a long time coming,” says Crowther. And, of course, comic books can be produced much more quickly to keep up with the times, as Warmann points out. “We still haven’t had the MCU introductions of Ms Marvel – a Muslim superhero – or Miles Morales, who got a lot of shine in Into the Spider-Verse last year. I haven’t even mentioned characters like Jennifer ‘She-Hulk’ Walters, Amadeus Cho, and Riri Williams.”

If Marvel’s plans are all based on existing comic books, why is toxic masculinity still an issue within the Marvel fan community? “Possibly because of an illogical fear that stories featuring women within the MCU is a reframing of the whole Marvel universe as feminist or ‘woke’, which will, in turn, dilute, change or ruin the Phase 1 characters they love,” says Crowther. But she thinks the naysayers are in a minority. “Although they’re loud, they’re a pretty small group and their efforts to derail Captain Marvel’s release via Rotten Tomatoes failed. And, although many of them are threatening to boycott this phase of films, there are new generations who have grown up with the MCU universe who will want to watch these stories.”

Is Marvel becoming feminist? Maybe, if feminism is about gender equality, not the female dominance the trolls are fearing. Hemsworth is still the lead in Thor: Love and Thunder and other announced Marvel films include Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “I doubt anyone at Marvel is framing this as a ‘feminist’ overhaul internally,” says Bays. “It’s about changing the dominant view. It’s about equality for the audience in terms of choice. They’re wisely refreshing the brand because it needs it and they’re realising that the usual recipe – white, brawny, male-centred, world-saving super-bro – is tired and doesn’t appeal to a lot of the audience. The international audience, especially, is coming out for the films that feel fresher.”

“I hesitate to pat Marvel on the back too much because we had to wait 20 or so movies to get here,” says Warmann. “But as the biggest thing in cinema right now, it has more of a responsibility than most to depict a world that represents its hugely diverse audience. And it seems it’s taking that to heart.”

Anna Smith is host of the Girls on Film podcast