More Marvel news (ft. the X-Men)
Sarah
August 17, 2026
– 5 min read
Two weeks after their star-studded presentation at Comic Con, Marvel doubled down at Disney’s in-house fan convention, D23, continuing to tease Avengers: Doomsday, introducing VisionQuest, and announcing the first round of new, MCU-branded X-Men casting. Let’s start with Doomsday.
They dropped a “special look”—don’t call it a trailer, I guess, even though it is a trailer—centered on Robert Downey, Jr.’s return to the MCU, but this time as villain Victor Von Doom. Lainey is an optimistic Avengers fan, she loves that first movie lots and has a high tolerance for MCU nonsense, about as high as I’ve seen in a fan who came in through the movies, not the comics. And yet she texted me on Saturday: OMG is that Doomsday trailer real because it looks terrible!
If you’ve lost Lainey, I fear you have strayed too far from the path. Doomsday looks like a huge bummer, that’s for sure. And I know just what I want during the holidays in the year of our lady 2026 is a massively downbeat superhero movie! At least on this, Doomsday and Dune: Part Three are in agreement, no one should be happy during the holidays (it’s not like Dune is going to be the feel-good movie of the year). Who’s releasing a comedy during Christmas? You’ll have my sword!
Also, on the subject of RDJ’s non-denominational Eastern European accent that everyone says is “bad”, I don’t care. Victor Von Doom is from Latveria, Latveria is not a real place, I don’t give a sh-t that his accent is just generically “Eastern European”. I think I’d rather RDJ lean into a deliberately vague accent than try to nail something specific anyway. There’s something more comic booky about it. Also, do you remember how bad Elizabeth Olsen’s and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s “Sokovian” accents were in Avengers: Age of Ultron? I sort of like that bad accents are an MCU style choice. It’s cute.
Speaking of Age of Ultron, though, I was not expecting a trailer for VisionQuest, a Disney+ series centered on Paul Bettany’s Vision. James Spader returns as Ultron, and holy SH-T does this look GOOD.
First of all, I like that they’re going for it and calling WandaVision, Agatha All Along, and now VisionQuest a “trilogy”. And these are united narratives, as each one is inching us closer to having teen Avengers Speed (Tommy Maximoff/Shepherd) and Wiccan (Billy Maximoff/Kaplan) in the MCU. It’s a long way to go to get these characters onto the board, long enough that it tells me the Young Avengers are DEFINITELY coming down the pike.
But I also like the thematic ties. WandaVision is about grief, Agatha is about discovery, and VisionQuest is emphasizing family, so there is a nice journey there about the forces that shape us and the generational impact of family trauma. Very interested in VisionQuest, much more interested in that than Doomsday, frankly. Though there is a rumor that VisionQuest will be the last TV series to connect to the films in the MCU. Moving away from “it’s all connected” is not a bad idea, they HAVE to reduce the feeling of doing homework for the MCU, but let’s not pretend like they haven’t made some excellent f-cking television—WandaVision and Agatha chief among them.
But then there was the Big News, which is that Marvel is casting up the first MCU X-Men movie. Sadie Sink is already in the universe as Jean Grey, now she is joined by Christopher Abbott as Professor X, Kit Connor as Cyclops (they’ve captured the Heartstopper pair!), Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Maya Boyd as Storm, Adam Driver as the villainous Mr. Sinister, and hot off her defining performance in Obsession, Inde Navarette will star as Rogue.
Christopher Abbott appeared in Kraven the Hunter, a fact he probably hopes we don’t remember, and he literally just had a baby with Aubrey Plaza, so he’s got to get that Marvel money locked down to feed his family. (Plaza is also in the MCU, as Death.) And Kayleigh Donaldson called Adam Driver re-upping with a Disney franchise a “recession indicator” in the Squawk chat, but that’s not far off. The last time Hollywood went through a major contraction was the 2000s as digital cratered physical media sales, which in turn killed residuals, and everyone sprinted to get their franchise deal locked down to guarantee a steady paycheck through the chaos.
Now, the industry is contracting again, and we have a fresh wave of talent signing up for franchises. I’m just not sure it will work out the same in the 2020s as it did in the 2010s. Depends on the franchise, I guess. The X-Men are probably safe, like Batman and Spider-Man, they’re perennially popular and people will be curious about a new iteration of the group. The untitled X-film is due in May 2028—which means Marvel is now slated for three films in 2028, getting away from the slimmed-down slate they presented at Comic Con—and it will be directed by Jake Schreier. He previously directed Thunderbolts*, if that gives you an idea of how he handles an ensemble.
If the movie doesn’t suck, there is a very good chance X-Men 3.0 will work. But the calendar creep has already started. I was intrigued by Marvel scaling back, but they look a little less scaled back now. Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider doesn’t have a set date in 2028, though, so there is still a chance it could get bumped, and frankly, I think it should. I think Marvel should be doing everything they can to lighten the load on audiences and make going to see Marvel movies fun again. I have to say, Doomsday really isn’t helping with that.
Since we don’t have any photos available to us from D23, here is Christopher Abbott in New York last week.
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Intro for August 17, 2026
Dear Gossips,
Sarah posted on Friday in this space about how 2026 has been, so far, a strong year at the box office, bolstered by the success this summer of The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day back-to-back. But also Obsession and Backrooms. And The Devil WearsBy Lainey•Aug 17, 2026 09:18 am
