Marvel Studios is being careful about marketing Avengers: Doomsday. The powers that be are aware that the discussion surrounding their franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, isn’t nearly as positive as it once was. Phases 4 and 5 did serious damage to the MCU’s reputation, and the only way forward seems to be to move backward. The Russo brothers are back in the director’s chairs for the fifth Avengers film, and they’re bringing a couple of familiar faces along with them: Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. Getting the band back together will give Doomsday a real shot to compete in a suddenly competitive superhero landscape.
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But focusing on MCU favorites isn’t enough. After all, Doomsday and its sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars, are going to wrap up the Multiverse Saga, which has already featured its fair share of shocking appearances from Marvel characters. Hugh Jackman’s Logan is back in the fold after Deadpool & Wolverine, and the MCU is already treating him better than some of its home-grown talent. In fact, the X-Men teaser for Doomsday goes a long way toward fixing a Wolverine problem that plagued Fox’s franchise for years.
The MCU Is Taking the Right Approach With Wolverine
The third trailer for Doomsday is now playing in theaters, and it hands the spotlight over to Marvel’s most important mutant team. Magneto narrates the clip, highlighting that no one can escape death, no matter how hard they try. He and Charles share a touching moment before the heat gets turned up, with Cyclops letting an optic blast out on the battlefield. A few seconds later, the Doomsday logo appears, along with the timer that counts down the days until the movie’s release. Miraculously, the screen fades to black before any version of Wolverine shows his face, a rarity for a live-action X-Men project.
Since the MCU already has Wolverine running around with Deadpool, it’s clearly comfortable leaving him out of Doomsday‘s X-Men-based marketing. That’s a good thing because, in Fox’s movies, Logan overstays his welcome, headlining nearly every project and becoming the de facto leader of the team. Of course, Jackman is a fantastic actor, so it’s not like he doesn’t deserve all the opportunities he gets. However, he casts an enormous shadow, and it’s going to be nice to see his former castmates step out from it. One, in particular, might even reach new heights.
Wolverine’s Absence in Doomsday Will Allow Another Mutant to Shine
As sad as it is to say, Cyclops’ big moment in the Doomsday trailer, which includes him wearing a comics-accurate suit unlike anything he’s worn before, is one of his best moments in live-action. The original trilogy just isn’t interested in fleshing him out as a character, attaching him to Jean Grey’s hip and never letting him go off on his own. It gets so bad that Scott Summers doesn’t see any action in X-Men: The Last Stand, dying while searching for his beloved, who seemingly died at the end of X2.
What the Doomsday trailer appears to be telling the world is that all the baggage Cyclops has been dealing with for years is gone. He’s ready to get into the middle of the action and prove why he’s the X-Men’s equivalent of Captain America. And hopefully, the MCU stays on its path when it comes time to cast its own version of Cyclops. That’s not to say he and Logan won’t butt heads again on the big screen, but it doesn’t need to be the focus of the X-Men’s story anymore.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18, 2026.
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