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It’s safe to say that expectations were high for Marvel Studios at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 — and not just because the studio had a wild Deadpool & Wolverine panel in addition to its usual Saturday afternoon slot. (Guess they agreed with our argument back in April.) Fans have learned to expect the world from a Marvel Studios Hall H panel — but what, exactly, would Marvel deliver to meet their expectations? Now we know.

For many fans, Marvel and Hall H are an iconic pairing: it’s where the studio has previously unveiled years’ worths of plans and movie titles, and introduced actors and made announcements that no-one saw coming. You all remember 2022, right? No wonder many are expecting a lot from this year’s presentation, as Marvel finds its footing after a couple of difficult years for the studio.

Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige fully understood what he was facing, judging by a recent interview, where he talked about the importance of SDCC and Hall H in particular to Marvel Studios. “On the movie side, which I’m emotionally of course connected to, that’s where everything started for us,” he said when asked about what Comic-Con means for Marvel, adding, “what we’re able to do this time is to get back to literally designing our film schedules around what we would have ready to show at Comic-Con — to announce and set the expectations and the tonality of what’s to come over the next couple of years. And that starts in Hall H. I think Hall H has become such an iconic venue that people who’ve never been to Comic-Con know what Hall H is or know that Hall H stands for the unveiling of important, fun pop culture moments.”

So… what did that mean in practice?

Discovering the New World

Going into the Hall H panel, we'd already seen a teaser trailer for next year’s Captain America: Brave New World. But, after welcoming Brave New World cast members Anthony Mackie, Tim Blake Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Danny Ramirez, and Harrison Ford (!!), Marvel showed Hall H even more footage of the upcoming Captain America movie. In it, we heard Ford's Thaddeus Ross reference a material that every Marvel fan knows very well: adamantium. 

Hall H also got to see Red Hulk behind the presidential podium and heard Harrison Ford reveal the truth behind Ross's lack of mustache. Spoiler alert, it had nothing to do with facial hair envy for David Harbour's Red Guardian. And speaking of that guy...

Thunderbolts

Habrour appeared in full Guardian gear once it was time to talk Thunderbolts, flanked by director Jake Schreier and fellow stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Lewis Pullman, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Wyatt Russell (note: none of the rest of them were in costume). Not a ton of news to share on this front, but Hall H did get a look at a trailer, which Popverse's Graeme McMillan described as having a "vibe of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad." That's cool, considering the similarities in premise between the two superteams.

Meet Marvel’s First Family

The Fantastic 4 starts production right after after Comic-Con; which we knew meant that its cast would be available to walk out on stage in public for the first time in Hall H. And we were right! Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach all took the stage to introduce their upcoming MCU which, we were surprised to learn, isn't simply called Fantastic Four. It's actually Fantastic Four: First Steps, we'll have you know. Marvel's First Family then introduced us to a fun, retro scifi intro video for the film, which concluded with a look at...

Well, we think you can guess, but find out here. 

Avengers Assemble (Again)

After Marvel distanced itself from Jonathan Majors in the wake of his guilty verdict regarding domestic violence charges, we've all been wondering what's going to be happening with the fifth Avengers movie, which was previous called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. We found out that movie's new title at Hall H, but we'll get back to that in a second. First, we learned that both the fifth and sixth Avengers movies (the latter being Avengers: Secret Wars), will be helmed by none other than Joe and Anthony Russo. After their wildly successful Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame flicks, fans were thrilled to hear that the Russos would be in charge of bringing their favorite heroes together again.

Which makes it all the crazier that the biggest announcement at Hall H... wasn't for a hero at all. 

Downey is Doom

Yes, you read that correctly. The fifth Avengers movie title is going to be Avengers: Doomsday, and not only will it star Doctor Doom as the MCU's next big bad... but it will bring Robert Downey Jr. back to play him.

And with that, the evening was over. As you can tell by the millions of videos of shrieking fans online, Hall H was a pretty huge success for Marvel. Although there are a few things that were noticeably not there for the presentation. Three, specifically.

And then, there's what we're still curious about...

There no less than three untitled Marvel movies on the release calendar across the next few years, and while fans have made plenty of guesses about what they might be, we don’t know for sure… even after Saturday's panel. They’re all set for 2026, which isn’t that far out in the grand scheme of things, so it feels very weird Kevin Feige didn't pull back the curtain on them.

(One of them has to be the X-Men, right? After all, we know they’re working on it already…)

With that, we close the book on Marvel Studios at San Diego Comic Con, and what a read it was. But just because this marks the end of another SDCC doesn't mean that Marvel is done sharing exciting news in 2024. D23 is just weeks away as of this writing, and we know they've got plans for New York Comic Con.

Plans that your pals at Popverse will be bringing you just as soon as we know them.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights: How 2024 is a pivotal year for Marvel Comics & Marvel Studios, the 3 big challenges facing Marvel Studios in 2024 (and what they could learn from Marvel Comics), Inside Marvel Comics' plans to fix its pricing issues, Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak, and the biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows.s