D23 Delivers New X-Men Cast, a Doomsday Trailer Breakdown, and the First Vision Quest Footage

D23 just gave us the first real look at the MCU's rebooted X-Men roster, a new Avengers: Doomsday trailer, and our first footage from Vision Quest, and we could not decide which one to break down first. As we put it right after coming off the livestream, "I feel like people like the big thing is the X-Men news cuz like it's the X-Men in the MCU," even accounting for the Deadpool and Wolverine appearances we have already had.

This matters because it is the clearest signal yet of where Marvel is heading after Doomsday and Secret Wars, and because the casting, the Doom reveal, and the Vision Quest footage all connect pieces fans have been theorizing about for years.

The New X-Men Roster: Sadie Sink, Adam Driver and a Cast Built to Last

The reveal happened in a massive arena at D23, and we were struck by the scale of it, both the size of the crowd and the significance of the moment. Confirmed so far: Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Kit Connor as Cyclops, an actress known for her breakout role in Obsession (referred to in the conversation as Indy) in the mix for a role like Rogue, an actress described as Maya as Storm, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, and Christopher Abbott as Professor X. Adam Driver has also been cast, though which character he is playing is not fully settled. We noted hearing conflicting rumors, first Magneto, then Mr. Sinister, then even Bolivar Trask, before landing on the belief that he is playing Mr. Sinister. As we put it, "the second I said that, I could just see him and I was like, that's got to be what he is."

Kevin Feige confirmed on stage that this was the first time this entire cast had been together, which we thought was a genuinely cool detail given that the legacy X-Men and Avengers actors were reportedly nearby backstage.

Why the Only Real Concern Is Christopher Abbott's Professor X

Ranking the seven cast members from best to worst turned out to be almost impossible. "With the exception of Professor X, I think they're perfect," we said, immediately clarifying that this is not a knock on Christopher Abbott himself. "I haven't seen how he's going to look. I don't know. He might look freaking amazing... Marvel clearly sees something in him." The comparison point raised was Patrick Wilson, who had been floated for the role at one point and who we felt "would have commanded the role," while acknowledging neither of us had actually seen much of Abbott's prior work.

Kevin Feige Has Compared the New X-Men Team to a Soap Opera

According to Kevin Feige, as referenced in the conversation, the new X-Men will function much like X-Men '97, meaning there is drama both between the X-Men and the world and within the team itself. We connected this to reports that many of these newly cast actors come from theater and drama backgrounds, which we felt suits characters who are, in our words, "naturally super dramatic." We also drew a direct parallel to how the original MCU cast Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth before they were massive stars, arguing this X-Men cast is being built the same way, as rising talent rather than established box office names, with Adam Driver being the closest thing to an already-famous name in the group.

Less Than Two Years Until the New X-Men Movie

We pointed out that the X-Men film is reportedly less than two years away, which explains why Marvel is already rolling out casting news, teasing merchandising, planning appearances in Marvel Rivals, and preparing Disney park integrations. Our take was that revealing the roster now, this early, was the right call: "They're going to start doing some marketing... this reboot... if anybody out there has any worries about if Doomsday's going to be good, you might just not be a real Marvel fan."

Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Shows "The Best Portrayal of Doctor Doom We've Ever Seen"

Turning to the new Doomsday trailer, we called it immediately, "this trailer already, I can say this is the best portrayal of Doctor Doom we've ever seen on screen." We argued Doom lands harder as an Avengers villain than he would have as a straightforward Fantastic Four villain, since the perspective of Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men all converging against one figure makes him feel bigger. We had specifically wanted dueling monologues in the style of the Infinity War trailer, one from a Fantastic Four member and one from Doom, and got exactly that: a monologue from Sue Storm and one from Doom himself, capped by the line "hell answers to me, for I am Doom," followed by him leaping from a building in a moment compared to a dementor from Harry Potter.

The Trailer's Thor Callback Is Meant to Show Doom Is Stronger Than Thanos

One detail flagged as important: the trailer reuses Thor's exact move from his successful strike against Thanos, only this time Doom stops it, his defense reportedly magnified by a hundred billion. The read on this was that Marvel is deliberately using this callback to communicate, quickly and clearly, that Doom is more powerful than Thanos, compensating for the fact that general audiences have far less built-in knowledge of Doom than they eventually had of Thanos going into Infinity War. It was also noted the shot itself felt a little too staged compared to the original Thor moment, though this was described as a minor nitpick.

Sue Storm's Doom Monologue Solves a Connection Problem

We highlighted that having Sue Storm deliver the Doom monologue works because, as a mother, she would feel for the pain in his backstory, and because her line that Doom is the smartest person in the room, even with her husband present, signals real respect and history between her and Victor. That connection through the Fantastic Four film, three movies removed at this point, is described as effectively solving Doom's version of the connective tissue Thanos got from the Infinity Stones across multiple films. Franklin touching his bare face in the post-credits scene was also flagged as a detail worth watching, alongside the theory that Doom, now reportedly a multiversal traveler with immense wealth, technology, and sorcery, has nothing left to lose after having his family taken from him.

A Guess at How Doomsday's Plot Unfolds, and Whether Wolverine and Deadpool Show Up

Based on the trailer, here is a rough guess at the film's structure: an opening incursion involving the X-Men colliding with Spider-Man's universe, Captain America's team investigating the anomaly, a trip through the TVA, and Doom eventually being revealed as the one destroying universes, triggering the film's big fight and the switch into full monologuing and villain reveal, guessed at landing around the 40 to 50 percent mark of the runtime. This was explicitly framed as speculation rather than confirmed plot detail, a "general outline" based only on what the trailer shows. It was also noted that Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and, by extension, Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool are expected to appear in Doomsday based on prior leaks, insider reports, and set photos, though not yet officially confirmed in the trailer breakdown itself. We also floated, purely as a wish, that if there is ever a follow-up titled Deadpool and Wolverine and blank, the blank should be Ant-Man. On the new X-Men cast specifically, the read was that it is unlikely any of them appear in Doomsday itself, but likely they will show up in Secret Wars.

Vision Quest's First Footage Brings WandaVision-Level Intrigue

The new Vision Quest teaser drew comparisons to WandaVision for the feeling it produced. "I got to say I think probably the last time that I felt this way was WandaVision, and that specific feeling is intrigue," was the reaction to the trailer's visuals, which were praised for color grading and movement. The footage shows Paul Bettany's Vision navigating his own memories almost like a movie theater, watching footage of another version of himself while trying to piece together his identity, with James Spader's Ultron also present. One standout line has Vision yelling at Ultron inside his own mind that there are "human skins only," no cyborgs allowed, even inside his own psyche. Outside his head, Vision appears to be working at a cafe in what looks like the post-Civil War, Infinity War era timeline, seemingly unplugging before entering his mental world.

Easter Eggs, a Wanda Tease, and Why Mephisto Probably Is Not Coming

Inside Vision's mind, the trailer shows movie posters as Easter eggs, including one titled "Death" featuring Thanos's gauntlet hand ripping out a stone, and another reading "Re/Vision." The trailer also appears to show a woman resembling Wanda on the floor while Vision floats with red eyes in a red-lit building. On whether Wanda herself, or Mephisto, will actually appear in the flesh, the answer leaned toward no: "I think we see her in memories and stuff. But I'm going to say no" to her showing up in reality, and the same skepticism was applied to Mephisto rumors. It was also noted that Vision Quest has stayed unusually quiet on the leak front, which only adds to the mystery, and that a weekly release format was the hoped-for rollout to let the intrigue build. Vision Quest is also expected to be the last new live-action Marvel show for a while, aside from a Daredevil continuation. As for where Vision himself fits into the bigger multiversal story, the guess was that he shows up in Secret Wars rather than Doomsday, with a joking theory that he might place his psyche on a flash drive during an incursion that eventually lands on Battleworld.

Taken together, the X-Men roster, the Doomsday trailer, and the Vision Quest footage left us more excited than we have been in a long time, and it might be the most hyped moment since Endgame. As we summed it up: "I think we can say we're back."

Which X-Men casting has you most excited, or most nervous, and do you think Doctor Doom is already stronger than Thanos based on this trailer alone?