What to Expect From Marvel’s Return to San Diego Comic-Con

After a three year hiatus, Marvel Studios is returning to Hall H at the San Diego Comic-Con. It’s a welcome return from one of biggest pop culture franchises on the planet, and a nod to normalcy for the pandemic-battled nerd mecca that is SDCC, which pivoted to online only in 2020 and 2021. Marvel head Kevin Feige confirmed that the studio would be returning to SDCC at a press event for Thor: Love and Thunder. “We’ll be at Comic-Con next month, which we’re excited about,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige shared during a press conference for Thor: Love and Thunder. “First time since we were on stage there three years ago talking about this movie and many others. And now, I think, almost, not everything but almost everything we discussed three years ago, that was released so we are excited to go and talk about the future,” he said. It was at Marvel’s last appearance at SDCC in 2019 that Feige revealed the return of Natalie Portman to the Thor films.

So what will Feige and company reveal at SDCC? It’s likely fans will get a sneak peek at the rest of the company’s Phase Four slate, which includes Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, and the new Blade movie with Mahershala Ali. They will likely share footage and reveals from their Disney+ entries, including I Am Groot, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Echo, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, and Agatha: House of Harkness.

Fans may also get a look at what’s in store for Phase Five and Beyond. In the Spring, Feige announced that the company would be going on a creative retreat to plan out the next decade of the Marvel cinematic universe. “I’m going back as soon as I get off stage to our first creative retreat in person with the Marvel Studios creative team in three years, and we have a giant board there that takes us through the next decade of MCU movies,” he told the audience, per Collider.

So what can expect from Phase Five? Nothing has been confirmed, but we’re likely to see some announcement on the Fantastic Four front. John Krasinski, who made a cameo appearance as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, may already be tapped to star in and direct the reboot after Spider-Man director Jon Watts departed the project. And if Krasinski is involved, there’s a fighting chance that his IRL wife Emily Blunt could join the film as Sue Storm. But will the internet’s dream casting come to fruition?

We will also likely see announcements involving the X-Men, now that the mutants are back in the Marvel fold. Feige has already teased Patrick Stewart as Professor X, who also had a Doctor Strange cameo. And there’s a chance we’ll see more X-Men characters populate Deadpool 3, which is expected to begin filming in 2023 at the earliest.

Fans can also expect some A-list casting reveals for their upcoming projects, which usually happens at SDCC. And fans may be tipped off to the next Thanos-level Big Bad of the MCU. Will it be Kang (Jonathan Majors) who was previously teased in Loki and will appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania? Or does Marvel have a Galactus-sized surprise in store for us?

San Diego Comic-Con takes place July 21-24 in San Diego. We’ll be covering the con and bringing you breaking updates, so stay tuned!

(via THR, image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

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