Robert Downey Jr and Russo Bros confirmed to return to MCU and ‘Avengers 5′ has a title at SDCC 2024

Big news at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, as Marvel Studios dropped a lot of bombs during their panel, bringing back some old faces to the upcoming MCU phases.

As previously reported, the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joseph Russo, will officially return to direct the upcoming Avengers movies, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Along with their return, another big surprise was revealed, Robert Downey Jr. is also returning to the MCU, but not in the way we thought.

As part of the announcement, the Russo Brothers introduced “the only person who could play Victor Von Doom,” revealing the return of the former Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, as one of the biggest villains in Marvel Comics. Of course, this means that the character played by Downey Jr. is a variant, confirming that Fantastic Four will indeed be part of an alternate timeline separate from what we know as the original MCU.

Along with the return of three of the most important pieces to the success of the MCU, Marvel Studios unveiled the new logos for Avengers Doomsday and Avengers Secret Wars, which will be released in May 2026 and May 2027, respectively.

Full screen

MCU reconfigured after Jonathan Majors’ departure

Originally, Kang the Conqueror was supposed to be the big villain of this saga, but Jonathan Majors’ legal problems due to domestic violence led to him being fired from the MCU and even changing the name from ‘Avengers: The Kang Dynasty’ to simply ‘Avengers 5′. Its director, Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed ‘Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings’, stepped down in November 2023.

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