Marvel Studios brings lots of nostalgia and Robert Downey Jr. to its 2024 San Diego Comic-Con Panel

In July 2006, Marvel Studios held its first-ever San Diego International Comic-Con panel. It was a comparatively meager gathering, with the studio's big announcements being that Thor, Captain America, and Nick Fury would receive solo movies. The creative teams for Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Ant-Man (R.I.P. Edgar Wright regarding the latter film) showed up to tease motion pictures that hadn’t even started shooting yet. Heck, Robert Downey Jr. wouldn’t get case as Tony Stark/Iron for another two months! Still, it was a momentous occasion signaling that Marvel Studios was in it for the long haul. When Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige teased that an Avengers movie could happen down the line, the convention room buzzed with excitement. It would not be the last time Marvel Studios stirred up the excitement of geeks so profoundly.

Throughout the years, Marvel Studios has become a fixture of this event. The studio brings out a bevy of famous faces and big Marvel Cinematic Universe movie announcements to Hall H (the most prestigious space at this event) to the enthralling cheers of fans. Kevin Feige and company know how to put on a show and that showmanship has led to some unforgettable Comic-Con memories. Remember when Tom Hiddleston's Loki showed up in-character to Hall H in 2013? How about the first time the main cast of The Avengers showed up on-stage at the 2010 Comic-Con? Then there was Comic-Con 2019. Here, Feige and company unveiled a slew of Phase Four movies and TV shows that revealed what a post-Avengers: Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe looked like. Before all of that was Iron Man's big Comic-Con 2007 presentation. That dynamite showcase got the positive buzz rolling on an adaptation of one of Marvel's most obscure heroes.

This tradition continued on July 27, 2024 with Marvel Studios returning to Hall H with only its second Comic-Con panel since the COVID-19 pandemic began. In 2022, Marvel Studios had descended on a panel packed with big announcements. However, most were for movies and TV shows that (thanks to the strikes and Marvel Cinematic Universe artistic duds in 2023) still haven’t seen the light of day. This 2024 panel, then, had some questions to answer. Would the Marvel Cinematic Universe still be as reliant on streaming shows and the multiverse as the last few years of the franchise? Is Kang the Conqueror still going to be the new MCU baddie? And what does a lady have to do to get a Squirrel Girl movie finally going?

These were just some of the questions, not to mention the legacy of nearly two decades of popular Comic-Con appearances, looming over Marvel Studios as its 2024 SDCC panel began.

Kevin Feige began the panel (after a Deadpool & Wolverine-themed choir sang “Like a Prayer) that this presentation would only focus on the next three MCU movies. Amusingly, that immediately indicated to audiences that, no, Marvel Studios would not be commenting on Blade (which is currently the FOURTH next MCU title) tonight. It also signified a great departure from the last two SDCC Marvel panels where the studio focused heavily on quantity, quantity, quantity. when Marvel Studios unveiled 10 movies and TV shows. Also notably absent? Small-screen programming. Disney+ was never name-dropped during this event. Marvel, like much of Hollywood, is recovering the streaming-centric nature of the early 2020s. Putting everything in an algorithm doesn't work. It's time to once again emphasize theatrical exhibition's importance.

The first title at the Marvel Studios SDCC 2024 panel was Captain America: Brave New World, which featured the reveal that Giancarlo Esposito would be playing Serpent Society leader Seth Voelker/Sidewinder in the feature. Feige also emphasized that this feature would hew closely to the grounded nature of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. A noble goal, but also a conceptually silly one given that Sam Wilson is about to square off against The Leader and the Serpent Society. Next up was Thunderbolts*, which divulged a trailer to Hall H attendees and had the main cast in attendance. Adorably, all the cast members on stage kept praising icon and Thunderbolts* leading lady Florence Pugh. Missed opportunity to pass out DVD copies of Lady MacBeth to all the Hall H attendees, though.

Arguably the biggest 2025 movie to show up at Marvel’s Hall H panel, though, was The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Not a fan of that title (just call it The Fantastic Four!), but the Spider-Man reboot films showed that Marvel feels a need to give its own movies distinct subtitles to separate them from earlier movie adaptations. At this panel, the main four members of the cast (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and director Matt Shakman appeared. Accompanying them was test footage exclusive to Hall H attendees. This material showed off Pascal’s Reed Richards teaching a schoolroom of children and none other than Galactus.   The footage was apparently in a 4:3 aspect ratio, and please Marvel, capture the whole movie in that format. I’m such a ho for films shot in the Academy Aspect ratio!

Shout out to Ebon Moss-Bachrach, by the way, for securing the role of Ben Grimm/The Thing in this MCU production. A character actor across film and television for 25 years, Moss-Bachrach has always demonstrated solid chops in productions like Blow the Man Down or The Punisher. However, his outstanding The Bear performance catapulted him to a new level of notoriety, as it should have! His acting in that “Love Story” sequence in The Bear’s second season is truly unforgettable. It's so exciting to see him in a high-profile role like this! Oh, and finally, it was also confirmed Michael Giacchino would be scoring The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Having already composed five separate Marvel Cinematic Universe titles (including all three Spider-Man features) and the studio's logo music, not to mention directed Werewolf by Night, this is about as surprising as saying the sky is blue. However, as anyone who's heard his The Incredibles score can attest, Giacchino doing a 60s-inspired collection of compositions is bound to be exceptional.

To wrap up the panel, Feige asked the roaring audience “do you wanna hear about the next two Avengers movies?” After confirming that the casts of Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four would be in both new Avengers titles, Feige officially confirmed that Anthony and Joe Russo would be returning from Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame to helm the next two Avengers installments. It’s impressive the duo was able to find time in their schedule to direct Avengers movies given their commitments to directing crummy streaming “movies” and evangelizing horrific A.I. entertainment landscapes.

Once they did that, the duo confirmed their Avengers movies would be called Avengers: Secret Wars (we knew that) and Avengers: Doomsday (we didn’t know that), the latter film dropping first. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is no more, Kang the Conqueror, we hardly knew ya. With that title and green font on the Doomsday logo, everyone knew that could only mean one thing: Doctor Doom is coming. Presumably Doomsday will concentrate on Doctor Doom the same way Infinity War focused on Thanos. Then, the Russo Brothers announced that “only the greatest actor in the world could play” Victor Von Doom before revealing a casting meant to emphasize “the infinite possibilities of the Marvel mutli-universe”: Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom. “New mask, same task” Downey Jr. exclaimed to a roaring audience on-stage after revealing himself as one of the many folks dressed as Doctor Doom on-stage.

In that moment, seeing that casting, my heart sank. Not to be all “back in my day”, but five years ago, the Marvel Cinematic Universe delivered a panel full of characters and actors promising a radically new MCU after Endgame. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, they were gone. Now we were going to get obscure characters like Shang-Chi and the Eternals anchoring their own movies, multiple upcoming features headlined by actors of color, a slew of motion pictures directed by women, and Mahershala Ali as Blade. Beyond improving the on-screen representation track record of this franchise, there was something exciting about a new generation of moviegoers getting their own Marvel characters and actors. Watching the original Avengers form had been impactful to me. Now a new age of movie geeks could get excited about the ten Eternals or Kang emerge as a new multiverse threat.

Hot on the heels of Deadpool & Wolverine bringing back Hugh Jackman and making references to old comic book movies that never happened, Marvel Studios is once again playing on the nostalgia. Most of those fresh MCU faces that dominated the 2019 panel are gone. So too are the women directors. The upcoming Marvel movies, even by the standards of modern Disney blockbusters, are trying really hard to appeal to people over the age of 30. Every description of Brave New World breathlessly evoked The Winter Soldier. Thunderbolts* evoked all those men-on-a-mission blockbusters of the mid-2010s, like Rogue One, The Magnificent Six, and Suicide Squad. Now the next two new Avengers movies are bringing back Robert Downey Jr. AND The Russo Brothers, to try and “make it 2018 again by either science or magic.”

A string of creative stumbles at the dawn of the 2020s have sent Marvel Studios looking to the past as if being “too new” was the problem with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Secret Invasion, or other subpar Marvel Studios productions. Making every movie Avengers-big, making TV shows just six-hour movies, doing clumsy distracting teases for characters nobody cares about (remember Kit Harington’s Black Knight?), those were your problems. Not being so rooted in 2017. It’s a staggering miscalculation that, like when nay big company “pivots”, also ensures that “coincidentally” all the non-cis-het-white people get thrown out of the room. Representation or corporate diversity will not save us and this is a great example why.

I was so excited to see what exciting places Robert Downey Jr. went to as an actor after Oppenheimer, but I guess he also wants to live in the past a little more. I, for one, am not as interested in living in 2015-2019. I didn’t live on my own then. The idea of making a living as a writer was still a far-off goal. I wasn’t on HRT. I didn’t have the queer social groups that have done nothing short of saving my life. The present is not perfect, far from it. But to quote Nora from Past Lives, “If this is where I ended up... this is where I'm supposed to be.” We’re supposed to exist in the present, not solely live through the past.

There’s nothing wrong with doing a little yearning for yesteryear. It’s only natural to carve out more pleasant interpretations of the past to make coping with the uncontrollable chaos of the present more bearable. I, for one, cling to certain things like mid-2000s country songs or YouTube videos I was obsessed with in High School because their familiarity provides temporary comfort. However, movies ranging from Ugetsu to I Saw the TV Glow has emphasized the perils of getting too lost in escapism or nostalgia for a reason. The past can be a siren song that swallows up our present and future.

Only time will tell if the next two Avengers movies will succumb to the worst impulses of past-oriented media. Right now, it’s clear that it’s disappointing another new actor couldn’t get a chance to play Doctor Doom (Natasha Lyonne was right there…and she’s in The Fantastic Four: First Steps!) and that the future of the MCU frustratingly looks a lot like its past. In 2006, Marvel Studios came to SDCC to promote a Robert Downey Jr. blockbuster two years away from release. 18 years later, Marvel Studios came to SDCC to promote a Robert Downey Jr. blockbuster two years away from release. “Same as it ever was” as a wise David Byrne once said,” same as it ever was.”