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Here is a little behind-the-scenes info for you all; we at Popverse don’t always know what is going to be announced at a convention ahead of time, so we have to guess. And when a panel is as big as the Marvel Studios Hall H Panel at San Diego Comic-Con, we sometimes write up what we think are going to be the big announcements ahead of time and try to play “fill in the gaps” with the details. Which is why we currently have a “Marvel announces MCU X-Men cast!” article uselessly sitting in our system.

Like everyone else, we went into the Marvel Studios SDCC 2026 panel expecting to hear about the X-Men and get some confirmation about who will be in Avengers: Secret Wars, but that isn’t what we got. Instead, we got the surprise announcements that Ryan Gosling is going to be Ghost Rider and David Jonsson is playing T’Challa II in Black Panther 3, both of which are out in 2028. If you had those announcements on your SDCC Bingo Card, you’ve clearly got your finger on the pulse better than 90% of this industry and should probably be doing our jobs.

But the thing is, I’m not even mad about this. Don’t get me wrong; I want the X-Men casting announcement, both because I know it is something people want to read and because it will help show us what Marvel Studios has planned for life after Avengers: Secret Wars. But not knowing also tells us something, and that is that Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars are going to have consequences, to the point where even telling us who is in Secret Wars will spoil things for Doomsday.

We already know that Fox’s X-Men cast are part of one of the three universes at stake in Doomsday, and the expectation has to be that this will be the last outing for a cast that has been attached to these roles for more than two-and-a-half decades. So, what would be the danger of introducing the new cast of X-Men? Apparently enough that Marvel Studios are keeping that secret until at least after Spider-Man: Brand New Day, when Sadie Sink might be playing Jean Grey, if rumors are to be believed.

Instead of giving us all what we want, Marvel Studios gave us what we need, which is a taste of what is coming in the year after Avengers: Secret Wars hits cinemas. These next two years are going to feel like work for Marvel fans, with so many different characters and universes to keep track of. Something as simple as Ghost Rider, which is thus far unconnected to anything that has happened in the MCU, and Black Panther 3, which is a straight sequel that probably won’t include cameos from the likes of Punisher or Hulk, feel like a vacation we’ve booked and are now looking forward to. Comic book movies that don’t require a whole watch order to keep track of are exactly the kind of thing we’ll all need after the chaos of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially for a franchise at such an important turning point as the MCU. Marvel Studios needs these movies to be more than just financially successful (does anyone really think that Doomsday is going to make less than a billion dollars at the box office?); they need them to be celebrated. They need the next two years of Marvel movies to feel like the good old days when they could do no wrong. Keeping things like the X-Men or Secret Wars cast under wraps is just their way of trying to make sure that happens.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst