Thor, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, both versions of Captain America, the New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, these are all characters who will appear in a 2026 MCU project. However, there are also quite a few who were introduced within the last five years or so who haven’t really gone anywhere since. Those are the ones we’re going through today.
That said, we didn’t include Wanda Maximoff because, as far as we know, she’s dead. The ending of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness certainly made it seem as such. It would be surprising if she remained dead, but she very well may. But these next heroes? There is nothing set in stone nor is there even whispers of a return, and in some cases, it’s been years since we last saw them.
Honorable Mentions
As for Doctor Strange, he isn’t confirmed for Avengers: Secret Wars, but he is heavily rumored to appear in it. The same goes for Deadpool and Wolverine, while Ryan Reynolds has also dropped a major hint that Deadpool 4 is now in the works. Jeremy Renner is also not mentioned in any upcoming casts, though rumors suggest he will return – even if Hawkeye’s retirement status is a little unclear. On top of those names, it’s hard to really consider Mahershala Ali’s Blade as a major player, given he hasn’t really debuted beyond a vocal cameo at the end of Eternals.
9) Kate Bishop
Image Courtesy of Marvel
The MCU introduced a ton of characters in Phase Four, which ran throughout 2021 and 2022. Some of them will appear in Avengers: Doomsday, like Yelena Belova, Shang-Chi, Love, and John Walker. Others are folks like Xochitl Gomez’s America Chavez, Charlize Theron’s Clea, and Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop.
Though, really, we might as well call Bishop Hawkeye, because the Hawkeye miniseries did such a phenomenal job of wrapping up Clint Barton’s arc and introducing hers. Steinfeld is the new Hawkeye, and she’s just as engrossing a presence as Jeremy Renner. Yet she’s only been a part of Hawkeye in 2021 and had a cameo in The Marvels (excluding her vocal role reprisals in What If…? and Marvel Zombies).
Black Widow was replaced the same year as Hawkeye and Florence Pugh’s Yelena has already been in two movies, Hawkeye, and will be in Doomsday. It’s time to bring back Steinfeld, while the MCU can still get her, because her star is only getting brighter. Specifically, we need a Young Avengers miniseries or movie, which would bring back not only Bishop and Chavez, but another as well. We’ll get to her in a moment.
8) All of The Eternals
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Another Phase Four addition to the MCU roster, the Eternals were a pretty big swing and a miss with audiences. Had the movie taken off we might have gotten a sequel by now. Or, at the very least, they would be scheduled to pop up in Avengers: Doomsday à la Shang-Chi.
The film ended with Gemma Chan’s Sersi, Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos, and Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo are whisked off the Earth by Arishem who requires that they prove humans are worth saving in order for him to allow the planet to keep spinning. Nothing has come of that and likely never will. Then, in a mid-credits scene, we meet Harry Styles’ Eros. And, in spite of Styles being a big star, we’re likely never going to see any more of him beyond that one scene. Lastly, there’s Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman aka Black Knight. This is the situation where we very well may see an Eternals character again. The Blade movie is seemingly dead, but a Midnight Sons movie is not entirely out of the question.
As a whole, Eternals isn’t particularly exciting. It had a ton of characters to introduce and would have been much better off doing that in a miniseries and then capping it off the same way the movie ended. It could even have led into a movie. It’s deservedly deemed one of the MCU’s later phases misfires, but there are a few cases of particularly inspired casting that make it hard to say goodbye to them fully. Don Lee and Richard Madden were two such cases, but they’re dead. As for the Eternals who remain, it will be said if we never see Nanjiani’s King, Lia McHugh’s Sprite, Henry’s Phastos, or Lauren Ridloff’s Makkari ever again.
7) Star-Lord
We were previously told that Star-Lord would return in the MCU, and speculation has typically included Chris Pratt’s swash-buckling hero as one of Doomsday‘s secret characters. He’s now Earth-bound, of course, after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3‘s ending, but without the Doomsday link-up, there’s really no sense of where else he could be back nor any actual story ties to him as a character currently.
6) She-Hulk
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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was a bit too meta and comedic for some people’s taste. In 2024 Tatiana Maslany so much as said as a Season 2 wasn’t coming our way. The question is whether she’ll pop up in Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars. It’s totally up in the air.
But as of now, Maslany has a half dozen movies or TV series on the way and not one of them has any relation to Marvel. She stays busy. In 2025 alone she was in two Osgood Perkins movies and an episode of Digman!. What it ultimately comes down to is whether her public criticism of the Mouse House when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended was enough for Disney to turn its back on her. Stranger things have happened, but it would be their (and our) loss, because Maslany’s one of the most talented performers in the business.
5) Echo
Maybe you’d argue that Echo shouldn’t be on this list, because it’s tough to refer to her as either “major” or a “superhero,” but you’re wrong on both accounts. Alaqua Cox is excellent, and Echo will hopefully be included in something like Daredevil: Born Again at some point. She’s just currently been put out to pasture after her solo project, meaning a formidable female hero – something the MCU is short of – is benched.
4) The New Guardians of the Galaxy
In narrative terms, the old Guardians of the Galaxy are no longer active, and most other than Star-Lord were given what felt like something like closure. All of them could still return, but it would be pretty unexpected. The exceptions, of course, are Rocket and Groot, who formed a new, extremely powerful iteration of the Guardians who were clearly still active as a heroes for hire group at the end of Vol 3. We’ll surely see more of them after the success of the original trilogy, but it’s just a little odd we’ve heard nothing about their next chapter.
3) Moon Knight
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After the disaster that was X-Men: Apocalypse, Oscar Isaac finally got a superhero role worthy of him in Moon Knight. Yet we’re coming up on the four-year anniversary of that Disney+ show and we’ve yet to see Marc Spector again.
There’s a chance he’ll pop up in Doomsday, since that film brought on Isaac’s three stunt doubles, Attila Kosztor, Daren Nop, and Jamel Blissat. The only MCU project Blissat and Kosztor have worked on is Moon Knight (Nop also did stunts on Black Widow), so signs are pointing towards us seeing the character sooner rather than later. But the fact remains, no official, publicly known plans exist to continue Moon Knight’s story.
2) Ms. Marvel
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Iman Vellani’s bubbly personality and clear love for the MCU immediately made her Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel one of the most beloved characters introduced in Phase Four. Just as Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man and Chris Hemsworth is Thor she flat out is Ms. Marvel. She’s so attached to the character that she’s co-written two comic miniseries about her.
Vellani is also a huge team player, consistently championing Marvel’s newest on her social media platforms (including Wonder Man). However, after leading the critically acclaimed Ms. Marvel she’s only been utilized in The Marvels (she also lent her voice to a few episodes of Marvel Zombies). One really hopes that Marvel doesn’t look at that film’s financial failure as being in any way her fault, because she could absolutely fill the pre-Avengers Nick Fury role .
And that’s exactly what The Marvels was setting her up to be. She established a rapport with Fury in that film and, in the final scene, breaks into Kate Bishop’s apartment to try and recruit her for a team. The Young Avengers needs to happen, with Ms. Marvel, Bishop, Chavez, Cassie Lang, Billy and Tommy Maximoff, Riri Williams, and maybe Skaar, Kid Loki, and Eli Bradley. They’ve all been established, so it’s time to let them shine. It would be strange to lay so much groundwork for a project that never happens. Not to mention, they’re all young performers, it’s right there in the name. Before long they won’t be.
1) Captain Marvel
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Like Ms. Marvel and Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel may end up being a victim of The Marvels‘ bombing. At this point Larson’s akin to an SNL repertory player, not just a featured player, yet she isn’t scheduled to appear in Doomsday alongside other vets like Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, and Anthony Mackie.
That said, Doomsday still has secrets to reveal, and her inclusion feels like it could be one of them. That would be great because, over the course of seven years she only got her solo adventure, a glorified cameo in Avengers: Endgame, a credits cameo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and the aforementioned team-up movie, which didn’t really feel like a true Captain Marvel 2.
Which of these characters would you most like to see in Avengers: Doomsday? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!