The third teaser Trailer for Avengers: Doomsday was dropped online by Marvel Studios on Tuesday Morning, confirming that Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, and James Marsden’s Cyclops will return for the film! The announcement followed the online reveals that Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor would return for the film as well (on December 23, 2025, and December 30, 2025, respectively).
Like Chris Hemsworth, Stewart, McKellen, and Marsden were included in the chairs cast reveal in early-2025, so this trailer wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but this X-Men trailer seems very dire. We see the X-Mansion and inside said mansion, we see Professor X and Magneto seemingly coming to terms with their fate.
“Death comes to us all, that’s all I know for sure”, the elderly Magneto, complete with long hair and beard, can be heard saying. “The question isn’t ‘are you prepared to die; the question is, who will you be when you close your eyes?”
The impression is that Magneto is speaking to his longtime friend / enemy Professor X, and we see the two of them solemnly smile at one another while exchanging a comforting touch. Meanwhile, outside, we see Cyclops remove hos visor and unleash the full force of his optic blast in what appears to be a battle against Sentinels. The dialogue by McKellen is hauntingly beautiful while seeing Cyclops suited up in a comic-accurate outfit gave me chills!
It is important to remember that when we see Avengers: Doomsday in December, that these trailer scenes may not be as straight forward as many assume they are. Magneto may not even be speaking those words to Professor X, and who knows what is really going on outside with Cyclops? That being said, The X-Men seem to be in a place of despair. How many mutants are still alive? In what Universe do these scenes take place in?
In Deadpool and Wolverine, we saw the X-Men Universe labeled 10005. Does that Universe still have Branched Timelines, and is that is what we are seeing, or is this the exact same Timeline that Deadpool and Wolverine reshaped and called home at the end of their film? With this being the MCU, Incursions are a thing of course, and we have heard it stated that the presence of someone from another Universe lingering in a Universe that is not their own can destabilize Reality. This trailer therefore leaves me wondering if the presence of Monica Rambeau (seen stranded in a different Universe in a post-credits scene in The Marvels) is going to cause an Incursion that will DOOM Earth-10005?
Also, it’s important to remember that the Professor X, Magneto, and Cyclops that we see in this trailer are Multiversal Variants of the characters that we met in the first X-Men film way back in the year 2000. Charkes Xavier (Professor X) died in Logan and that version of Xavier is still dead, just as the version of Wolverine that died in Logan is still dead. The Wolverine that teamed up with Deadpool in Deadpool and Wolverine is a Multiversal Variant of the Wolverine that died in Logan, and the same is true about the Professor X that we see in this trailer, as well the Professor X that we saw in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
These Variants probably still went through a lot of the things that we saw them go through in those Fox movies, just like the (worst) Wolverine that we saw in Deadpool and Wolverine, but some minor (or major) things may be different. The end game for Marvel Studios here is most likely to recast these characters for future Marvel Studios projects, and that raises the stakes of this film higher as this could be the swan song for a lot of these actors and their Cinematic stories. Death to major characters is not only possible … but likely. In fact, Deadpool and Wolverine could be the only mutants to come out of Avengers: Doomsday alive!
With all of that being said, I’m just thinking back to when Disney’s acquisition of Fox was announced and how excited I was by the prospect of seeing The X-Men and Deadpool in the MCU sharing the screen with other Marvel heroes, and I’m more excited than ever after watching this trailer!
Avengers: Doomsday will arrive in theaters on December 18, 2026. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and James Marsden join an already-announced cast that includes Chris Evans (Steve Rogers), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), Tenoch Huerta (Namor), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Lewis Pullman (Bob Reynolds), Danny Ramirez (Joaquin Torres), David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov), Winston Duke (M’Baku), Hannah John-Kamen (Ava Starr), and Tom Hiddleston (Loki), along with Vanessa Kirby (Susan Storm), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm), and Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards), and X-Men film franchise veterans Kelsey Grammer (Beast), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), and Channing Tatum (Gambit), and of course, the returning Robert Downey Jr (Doctor Doom).
Avengers: Doomsday will mark James Marsden’s 5th Cinematic appearance as Cyclops: X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Avengers: Doomsday will mark Ian McKellen’s 6th Cinematic appearance as Magneto: X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), The Wolverine (2013), and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Avengers: Doomsday will mark Patrick Stewart’s 9th appearance as Charles Xavior / Professor X: X-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), The Wolverine (2013), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Logan (2017), and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).
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