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In the superhero industrial complex, recasting a character is a matter of rote—we’re about to have our third Fantastic Four team in 20 years, after all! Marvel’s multiverse has provided a built-in explanation for how other versions of established characters can pop up (or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, how the same actor can come back as a different character, like Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom). Taking this concept a step further, MCU mastermind Kevin Feige recently told press that the upcoming Avengers film Secret Wars will not only “round out the stories we’ve been telling post-Endgame,” it will also “[set] us up for the future,” which will eventually include new versions of characters like Tony Stark.
“Endgame, literally, was about endings. Secret Wars [is about] beginnings,” Feige explained (via Variety). “Reboot is a scary word. Reboot can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Reset, singular timeline—we’re thinking along those lines.”
The obvious example here is the X-Men, which Feige rather vaguely said “is where that will happen next.” Some of Fox’s original X-Men team members (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, James Marsden and more) are confirmed to appear in Doomsday, but Feige has been teasing new MCU X-Men for years. He views Professor X’s school for mutants as a way ”to tell stories about young people who feel different and who feel Other and who feel like they don’t belong. That’s the universal story of mutants, and that is where we’re going.” (A younger X-Men would align with rumors that Sadie Sink, cast in the upcoming Spider-Man 4, might play Jean Grey.)
More surprising than new X-Men, which has been a long time coming, is Feige’s reveal that he’s already thinking about a new Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. He once promised he would never “magically undo” Tony Stark’s death in the MCU, but again, the multiverse provides some wiggle room on that front. Feige compared the MCU legacy characters to James Bond: “I think it’s hard for anybody to do that when an actor has done such a great role,” he said. “How are they going to ever replace Sean Connery [as James Bond], right?” And yet! We’ll see how extreme this Marvel reset is when Secret Wars eventually rolls around, currently scheduled for December 2027.
