Giancarlo Esposito’s character in “Captain America: Brave New World” will be Sidewinder, the leader of the Serpent Society.
The Serpent Society seems largely negligible in my opinion. They’re a means to an end that gives us Thunderbolt Ross as the Red Hulk (and maybe Roxxon). Sidewinder has a close connection with Hugh Jones, who is the CEO of Roxxon. Roxxon is historically responsible for kidnapping wayward teens to experiment on them, which is how we got Cloak and Dagger. Miles Morales’ Spider-Man also has several run ins with the company throughout his earlier comic series.
The Thunderbolts got its first trailer, though it was behind closed doors at SDCC.
No telling when this is going to drop for the general public, but if internet rumor mongering is to be trusted, the character lineup looks to be White Widow (Yelena Belova), Bucky Barnes, U.S. Agent, Red Guardian, Ghost, and Sentry.
“Fantastic Four: First Steps” is slated to start filming tomorrow, July 30th, 2024.
Kevin Feige brought back the Russo brothers to direct “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars”
This suggests to me that Kang is either not going to be recast, or he’s going to be recast in a much smaller role. It ALSO tells me that if you’re in the comic book speculation market, Jonathon Hickman’s 2014 iteration of Secret Wars with God Doom is about to be HOT!
Arguably the biggest news to come out of SDCC is that Robert Downey Jr. will be returning to the MCU, but this time as Doctor Doom.
Robert Downey Jr. returning to the MCU as Doctor Doom is huge, though not entirely unexpected. In “Invincible Iron Man” Volume 2, Riri Williams (Iron Heart) temporarily takes the mantle of Iron Man after Tony Stark’s untimely exit. “Invincible Iron Man” Volume 3 is a short arc of Riri forging her own path to becoming Iron Heart and eventually lands on the Champions lineup with Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Vivian Vision, Amadeus Cho, and an alternate young version of Scott Summers (Cyclops).
However, Victor von Doom comes into possession of Tony’s tech and begins to make it his own in “Infamous Iron Man.” Doom modifies and uses the suit to his own ends, but Tony’s consciousness has been paired with the suit and Doom can’t get rid of it. (Much in the same way Jarvis and Friday were integrated with the suit.) Doom also has several run ins with Ben Grimm (The Thing) during this particular arc.
If RDJ is indeed returning to the MCU for the long haul, we might see a tweak to the ‘Infamous’ storyline in that Stark is Doom from another timeline/universe/Earth/whatever. I don’t know how well this will land, though, because Doom’s personality is quite different from RDJ/Tony Stark.