The One-shots

WILLIAM HURT’S THADDEUS ROSS IS BACK. WHAT HOPE FOR MARVEL’S OTHER BIG-NAME ONE-TIMERS?

TOMMY LEE JONES

Putting his intimidating bark and deadpan stare to good use as super-soldier-program boss Colonel Chester Phillips in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Jones was left on the runway in the 1940s. His best chance of an encore is a flashback cameo. Well, either that or time travel.

CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON

In Thor: The Dark World (2013), Eccleston subsumed himself in prosthetics as dark elf overlord Malekith. He’s probably not in a rush to return to the make-up chair, and was definitively squished by his own spaceship at the climax. Yet villains have survived worse. Malekith could return… AS FLATMAN!

HUGO WEAVING

Another First Avenger alumnus, and another actor who performed villainy under prosthetics, as Hydra-führer Red Skull. But he was disintegrated by the Tesseract, right? Or was he just teleported somewhere? One current fan theory suggests he’s already returned, in a new form, in TV’S Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

SAM ROCKWELL

Tony Stark’s weaselly business rival Justin Hammer was imprisoned at the end of Iron Man 2 (2010), giving him plenty of time to brew resentment, hatch an escape plan and find other Stark-haters he can pimp with advanced tech, just as he’s done over and over in the Iron Man comic books.

JENNA COLEMAN

Think Karen Gillian is the only Doctor Who assistant to appear in the MCU? What about Jenna Coleman, who popped up in The First Avenger as Connie, one of Bucky’s dates. Who’s to say Thanos hasn’t turned her into a space-assassin ‘daughter’, like Gillan’s Nebula in Guardians Of The Galaxy? WHO’S TO SAY?