With the end of the Sokovia Accords revealed in She-Hulk, the world of the MCU is about to become more volatile and dangerous. Drafted from a public need for accountability, as the fallout of civilian casualties escalated, the Sokovia Accords aimed to give the U.N. the power to govern the Avengers and register any other superpowered being, controlling how superpowers are deployed on the international stage. In a world without the Sokovia Accords, the lack of centralized regulation will only serve to incite an arms race for superpowered beings, further dividing the major players in the MCU.
Similar to how the introduction of Iron Man led to a proliferation of arc reactor technology, which will lead to Armor Wars, as seen in Iron Man 2, or how the introduction of Wakanda led to an increased demand for vibranium in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the dissolution of the Sokovia Accords will only lead to an increased demand for superhero teams in its wake. Under the Sokovia Accords, the nations of the world were forced to agree on common goals and criteria if they wanted to utilize the Avengers, and superheroes who did not wish to comply would be restricted from acting, which both reduced the number of superhero incidents and curbed the ability for individuals to pursue superpowers. As superheroes are no longer bound to the Sokovia Accords, their intervention and potential collateral damage will increase, and as nations no longer have a unified authoritative body, they will begin to seek their own applications of superpowers, which will exacerbate those dangers.
The Sokovia Accords Ensured No Nation Became A Literal Super-Power
As the Sokovia Accords granted authority to a U.N. board and not a specific nation, the power to determine the application of superpowers was wielded multilaterally. The world had to share the Avengers along with any other individual players, and that restrained any government from using their access to superpowers to gain an advantage over another. This inherent cooperation also prevented any individual nation from claiming a monopoly on superheroes as the requirement for all heroes to be registered under the Accords meant that no superhero could legally be kept secret from another nation.
The Thunderbolts Set A Dangerous Precedent For The MCU
With the introduction of the Contessa and her intentions to sign up new members for the Thunderbolts, the MCU takes its first step towards escalating a potential superhero arms race. Never before has a nation in the MCU held singular authority over the composition and actions of a superhero team, and now that the United States has its own team, surely other nations will want to follow suit to even the playing field. This mad dash to assemble a national superhero team will no doubt leave the superpowered individuals of the world vulnerable to registration and conscription as the demand for their abilities grows to a national security level. The world of the MCU itself will then experience a new kind of brinksmanship, with each nation tottering on the new, unproven grounds of mutually assured destruction by way of superheroes. The MCU witnessed the Avengers under Iron Man create Ultron, which nearly ended the world, and now with multiple teams led by various nations, the dangers of world-ending events are likewise multiplied.
Ultimately, the end of the Sokovia Accords only increases the risk of superpowered conflicts and, by extension, the scale of potential collateral damage. As the Contessa creates her Thunderbolts team, other nations, following her lead, will attempt to match. The mixture of increasingly decentralized regulation with further diversified political agendas and the intrinsic catastrophic scope of superpowers marks the end of the Sokovia Accords as a step backward in the MCU.
