It is the San Diego Comic Con 2024 and Marvel came out with many goodies. It was so impressive that I got all teary-eyed. There were announcements about Captain America’s Brave New World, The Fantastic Four, The Thunderbolts, and much more.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
The Fantastic Four is one of the movies I have been waiting for for ages. Yes, there were a couple in the past, but they were not set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and that doesn’t make them bad, but I want The Fantastic Four to interact with the MCU characters.
During the SDCC 2024, more details were revealed during the Marvel Panel. First of all, the movie is set in the 1960s. This was already buzzing among the fans who noted that the poster released earlier this year on Valentine’s Day, the Thing is seen reading a copy of Live that was issued in the 1960s because it had Lyndon B. Johnson on the cover.
Matt Shakman, director of the Fantastic Four: First Steps movie, told at the SDCC that the movie would be set in the 1960s and better yet: A more modern and futuristic 1960.
There was leaked footage from SDCC 2024 but it was all taken down due to copyright violations on X. It is understandable but according to descriptions, the team was seen before the rocket launch that gave them their superpowers and the last thing the footage shows is that the team takes off to space.
The movie stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm. Over the past few months, the cast has added Ralph Ineson as Galactus and Julia Garner as The Silver Surfer.
The movie is slated to release in July 2025.
The Thunderbolts could become The Dark Avengers
The Thunderbolts was announced in 2022 and the team is comprised of anti-heroes who do work for the government. The members are ones we have seen in the MCU before and some even in very prominent roles.
We have Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova and David Harbour as Red Guardian.
The ensemble cast is completed by none other than Seinfeld and Veep legend Julia Louis-Dreyfus who will continue as Valentina Allegra. Allegra is responsible for putting the team together, much like Nick Fury did with the Avengers.
In the comics, The Thunderbolts are criminals who group up only to find that they would rather help people instead of robbing them. The movie, of course, will be entirely different.
During the panel, not much information was released, and not even the added asterisk to the title was explained.
What was indicated is that the movie be the end of Marvel’s Phase 5 and it will premiere in May 2025.
Captain America: Brave New World
Captain America: Brave New World has released a new synopsis:
“The story follows Sam Wilson, who after meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, finds himself in the middle of an international incident. Sam must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.”
It was revealed that Adamantium will finally be introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This will be done through the body of Tiamut, the unborn Celestial we saw at the end of The Eternals.
Will this mark the return of The Eternals or at least some of them? The movie wasn’t a big box office hit and Bob Iger and Kevin Feige have been in talks about a sequel but still, the movie proved to be useful because of the introduction of Adamantium.
Harrison Ford took over the role of General Thadeus Ross and will be the Red Hulk. Ford took over the role from the late William Hurt who sadly passed away.
Giancarlo Esposito, of Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian fame, will play Sidewinder, the king of the Serpent Society.
Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars
The biggest reveal of the night was not that The Russo Brothers would make a comeback to the MCU but that the villain named Doom was going to be played by none other than Robert Downey Jr.
With the Time Variance Authority and the TV show Loki, the MCU has opened an infinite number of possibilities to revive or twist characters in a certain fashion.
This has been highlighted by Dr. Strange’s travels through reality where he met Mr. Fantastic or more recently when Chris Evans played not Captain America but the Human Torch.
Robert Downey Jr. is going to be a twist on his character. Not a good man this time but an evil mind trying to take over the world and possibly the entire universe.
With the announcement of Robert Downey Jr. and the return of The Russo Brothers, Marvel also announced that there will be another Avengers movie coming up: Secret Wars.
The comic book version of the Secret Wars involved a cosmic being named The Beyonder and he transported the heroes to a planet named Battle World where they would fight the death. Secret Wars was the Marvel answer to Crisis on Infinite Earths back then and it also marked the time of the start of multi mega crossovers in the comics after publishers figured out that they could earn a lot more money back in the day.
Both the movies are slated to be released in May 2026 for Doomsday and Secret Wars will premiere in May 2027.
So what happened to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty?
While I am very happy with all of Marvel’s announcements, I do wonder what happened to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
Doomsday was originally going to be The Kang Dynasty featuring Kang the Conqueror. Kang was played by Jonathan Majors in Ant-Man: Quantumania as well as in both seasons of Loki where he played various versions of himself.
However, after a Manhattan jury found Majors guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and guilty of harassment Marvel fired him.
There were several options for Marvel to solve this. Hire a different actor and Marvel has done this in the past with the likes of Edward Norton who was replaced by Mark Ruffalo and Cuba Gooding Jr. for Don Cheadle. Hiring a different actor who was fired notoriously for the crimes he committed doesn’t exactly attract the big stars.
Instead, Marvel came up with the perfect solution by rehiring The Russo Brothers and Robert Downey Jr. thus taking a different direction and putting the Kang character on ice.
