Why Marvel Was Never Going to Announce the X-Men Reboot at Comic Con 2026

Fans love the Fox X-Men, and the very nature of the multiversal Doomsday and Secret Wars is the perfect way to bring them fully into the fold. They’ve still got some time in the spotlight left… before Marvel presumably wipes out their very existence, that is!

The Sadie Sink/Jean Grey/Spider-Man: Brand New Day Situation

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out this coming Friday, and everyone and his mutie brother believes that actress Sadie Sink will be playing one of the most famous X-Men of them all: Jean Grey. The way Marvel/Sony have hidden who the character is up until this point, plus the fact that she seems to have mind powers (based on the trailers) and she’s got, you know, red hair, all certainly could be clues that the Stranger Things star is going to be the first of the rebooted X-Men who we meet.

I’m personally still not convinced that it’s Jean Grey in Brand New Day. And I’ve certainly been wrong before! But the idea that Feige would introduce the new X-Men in a co-production with Sony just seems off.

But let’s say that Sink is in fact playing Jean, aka Marvel Girl/Phoenix. Then you could see how that would put Feige and his people in a bit of a bind in terms of maintaining what would be designed to be a huge spoiler – and without a doubt is something they’ve gone out of their way to keep secret this long. To then take the stage six days before the film opens and announce a new X-Men team – which will presumably include Jean – would undo all of that hard work.

Feige Needs to Focus on Avengers: Doomsday Right Now

Right now, Feige is focused on promoting Doomsday, which is just five months away and, frankly, designed to be a rejuvenation of the sagging MCU. Spider-Man is basically out of his hands at this point (and also is mainly Sony’s problem on the marketing side).

It’s no secret that the MCU has taken a tumble since Avengers: Endgame. The loss of its biggest draws – Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow – plus the oversaturation of MCU movies and, in particular, television series on Disney+ has led to the general sense in the zeitgeist that Marvel’s best days are behind it. Feige is a sharp dude – he basically created the MCU and reshaped Hollywood in the process – so you can be sure that he’s very aware of how big the stakes are for Avengers: Doomsday.

And so he needs to make sure this mega-movie, which seemingly stars almost every Marvel character ever put on screen, is a hit. That’s why he loaded the stage in Hall H with Avengers and X-Men and Fantastic Four members and more. He’ll get to his new X-Men a couple of Comic-Cons down the line, but right now he has to prioritize.