On Wednesday, March 26, fans of the MCU were treated to an unexpected surprise. At 10 A.M. CST, a livestream went live across all Marvel socials. The ones curious enough to tune in that early were greeted with an empty sound stage with only background static noise. Now, this would change as a person would bring in a cast chair with the name Chris Hemsworth on it. This led to speculation of Thor 5 possibly being announced. However, that theory was short-lived when the next chair, Vanessa Kirby joined the stage. This largely confirmed we were in store for an Avengers lineup, but the stream would go on for over five hours only revealing a new character every ten to fifteen minutes.
The Heroes
Oh yes, the heroes were plentiful in this one. It included members from your typical Avengers team, the newly revived Fantastic Four, and even the upcoming “anti-hero” team of the Thunderbolts. Not all of them have been hard established but here is the list so far of the incoming heroes.
· Chris Hemsworth as Thor
· Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman
· Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America
· Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes
· Letitia Wright as Shuri/Black Panther
· Paul Rudd as Ant-Man
· Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
· Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing
· Simu Liu as Shang Chi
· Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova
· Lewis Pullman as Sentry
· Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres/Falcon
· Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch
· David Harbour as the Red Guardian
· Winston Duke as M’Baku
· Hanna John-Kamen as Ghost
· Tom Hiddleston as Loki
· Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Now a lot of these characters have not debuted or even returned to the MCU in a number of years but lets be honest, there is no better time to bring the heavy hitters than a Avengers movie. Now this isn’t all. They also are returning some downright shocking additions to where it had to truly be seen to be believed.
The Mutants
You are reading that correct, the mutants are coming to the MCU. Now they have made a appearance in Deadpool and Wolverine and even in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but they were nothing more than cameos or one off appearances. Marvel is looking to change that with their next ensemble movie. Now, don’t get confused those one offs are back but so are some other HUGE surprises. Here is the list of the returning mutants presented today.
· Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
· Kelsey Grammar as Beast
· Sir Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X
· Sir Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
· Alan Cumming as Night Crawler
· Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
· James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops
· Channing Tatum as Remy LeBeau/Gambit
Now as you can see from this list, it contains actors and characters that had not been seen in a Marvel movie since the X-Men movies published under Fox. This will not only be a beautiful fan service that many fanatics have wished for years to be a reality, but it will be the largest debut of mutants in the MCU to date showing a true shift that mutants are here to say. Now we are wrapping it up with the finale of the announcements and this one did not come as a surprise.
The Villain
Obviously with the title, there is one major villain in all this and Marvel could not let the cast list wrap up with anyone but the main star.
· Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom
Yes, it is a bit odd that although he played such a titular character in the MCU already they would bring him back as such a major villain, but the Russo Brothers have done it anyway. They are adamant that he is the man to carry this large universe forward and it could honestly be a hit or miss in an already volatile time in the MCU right now.
Now this isn’t the end of the cast list because not long after the stream had ended Robert Downey Jr. would comment on the Marvel Studios Instagram video recap saying “That’s what u call a deep bench of talent… actually its more like a row, but an extra long one… That must be it… right?” Where Marvel Studios themselves would respond with tagging the actor and stating “there’s always room for more…” This could only mean that, although this stream was five hours and announced 27 different actors, we could be seeing the largest roster of A-list actors in a single movie ever. There will be updates in the future to this story and to the cast list.
Avengers Doomsday is set to release on May 1, 2026 and will be directed by the Russo Brothers. They previously directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. They are also set to direct the follow up Avengers: Secret Wars which is slated to release on May 7, 2027.
