WHERE EVERYONE STANDS RIGHT NOW

Every major character: where they premiered, what they've appeared in, and where they stand as of August 2026. D marks a confirmed Avengers: Doomsday cast member.

A note on the gaps: several characters simply haven't been addressed since their last appearance — Mordo, the Grandmaster, Arishem, Skaar, Adam Warlock, and the Eternals taken for judgment. Marvel hasn't said they're dead; they've just stopped being mentioned.

There are two, and they're in a trademark dispute.

1. Sam Wilson's Avengers — Sam as Captain America, Joaquín Torres as Falcon, and Isaiah Bradley as an ally rather than an operative. Small, and being rebuilt since Brave New World
2. The New Avengers — Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, John Walker, Ghost, Alexei Shostakov, Bob Reynolds/Sentry — operating from the rebranded Avengers Tower, "the Watchtower," with Valentina de Fontaine nominally in charge and actually under their control

Sam is not a member of the second group, and the tension is explicit: the Thunderbolts* post-credits has him arguing that they don't get to call themselves the Avengers at all.

Whether they reconcile is presumably a Doomsday plot point — both Sam and the entire Thunderbolts roster are in the cast, so they end up in the same room.

From Marvel's official listing:

The New Avengers: Florence Pugh (Yelena), Sebastian Stan (Bucky), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Lewis Pullman (Sentry)

The Fantastic Four: Pedro Pascal (Reed), Vanessa Kirby (Sue), Joseph Quinn (Johnny), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben)

The Fox X-Men: Patrick Stewart (Xavier), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Kelsey Grammer (Beast), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), James Marsden (Cyclops), Channing Tatum (Gambit)

Wakanda and Talokan: Letitia Wright (Shuri), Winston Duke (M'Baku), Tenoch Huerta Mejía (Namor), Mabel Cadena (Namora)

Returning MCU: Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Steve Rogers), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang), Kathryn Newton (Cassie Lang), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Danny Ramirez (Joaquín Torres)

The antagonist: Robert Downey Jr. as Victor von Doom

Charlie Cox's Daredevil has been reported as involved, though he does not appear on the headline Marvel listing above.

Who's notably absent? Tom Holland is not on the list, and neither is Mark Ruffalo.

The reporting consensus is that Spider-Man's absence is deliberate, and that Brand New Day's post-credits — the tracker pinpointing him in deep space — sets up Secret Wars (2027) rather than Doomsday.

Marvel routinely omits cameos from cast lists, so absence isn't proof either way. Also absent: Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda) and Idris Elba (Heimdall), both consistent with those characters being dead.

Released 18 December 2026. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. Marvel's own synopsis describes heroes from three distinct universes set on a collision course against an existential threat.

From the trailer: Doom on a throne; Sue Storm narrating that Victor was once different, that he was always the smartest person in the room, that everything he loved was taken from him; the Fantastic Four having a prior history with him; a destroyed New York.

The three universes are Earth-616, the Fantastic Four's retro universe, and the Fox X-Men's Earth-10005.

The most-repeated fan theory is that Doom is a variant of Tony Stark, given the casting. Marvel has not confirmed this and it may be a red herring.

The mechanism is likely incursions — the universe-destroying collisions established in Multiverse of Madness — and Loki holding the multiverse together at the end of time is likely to matter.

Avengers: Secret Wars follows on 17 December 2027 and concludes the Multiverse Saga.

Kevin Feige has ruled out splitting it into two films.

Feige has publicly referred to what follows as "the Mutant Saga" — Phases 7, 8, and 9, built around the X-Men, with an X-Men reboot in development. He has said Marvel has ideas mapped through 2042, and has hinted at recognisable X-Men appearing in films before Secret Wars.

Widely reported but unconfirmed for Phase 7: Black Panther 3, Blade, and an X-Men film.

Some reporting suggests Secret Wars may reboot the timeline outright.

Kang is finished. Jonathan Majors was fired by Disney in December 2023 following a criminal conviction. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was cancelled and Doctor Doom replaced him as the saga's antagonist. He has not been recast and there is no announced plan to.

The Council of Kangs, Victor Timely, and He Who Remains's warnings about his variants are all dead ends — the orphaned threads flagged at the top of this document.

A Kang variant could turn up as background colour in Secret Wars given its multiversal scope, but nothing supports this beyond the door not being formally shut.