(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)
After Marvel’s furniture-focused livestream revealed significant cast members for Avengers: Doomsday, fans have flooded the internet with theories. They speculate on how Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Doctor Doom, donning a unique kind of armor, will alter the dynamics of the MCU.
Among the many theories, one grim notion suggests that the sequence of cast announcements hints at their fate in the movie, possibly with Doctor Doom overpowering the God of Thunder first. This showcases the immense threat he presents to the heroes. A fresh idea from Screen Rant’s Liam T. Crowley suggests that the appearance of original X-Men cast members like Kelsey Grammer, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen might link back to the events of the iconic film, X-Men: Days of Future Past. Crowley’s theory, shared on X, contemplates, “You mess with time, it tends to mess back.” Could altering the timeline have paved the way for Downey’s Doom?
In the 2014 movie, the collective heroics of mutants across time halted their extinction, resetting it to a future brightened for Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Cyclops (James Marsden), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Beast (Grammer), and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) find themselves united once more. Success, right? But Crowley proposes that tampering with time may have inadvertently facilitated Doom’s ascent into the MCU. After all, as Tony Stark famously admitted in Avengers: Endgame, “When you mess with time, it tends to mess back,” suggesting time travel’s ripple effects.
This notion cleverly interlinks the two franchises, utilizing an event that meddled with time even before the Avengers and their universe-altering adventures. However, these returning X-Men actors might portray variants of the characters we’ve long followed, similar to how Deadpool and Wolverine introduced a different Logan (Hugh Jackman) than the one from the last 17 years. These familiar faces could depict different incarnations we might revisit in X-Men ’97.
We’ll soon discover which X-Men and mutants join the fray when Avengers: Doomsday premieres on May 1, 2026. Keep updated with all upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows planned for the future.