What a weekend Marvel Studios has had! Not only has the studio’s latest release, Deadpool & Wolverine, injected much needed mojo into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (financially, critically and fan response-wise), the Marvel panel at the San Diego Comic Con 2024 had two bombshell announcements that had Marvel nerds in a frenzy.

After an opening where a full choir sang Madonna’s Like a Prayer with a host of Deadpools dancing and a screening of Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel boss Kevin Feige blew minds with the reveal that the main villain for Avengers: Doomsday was going to be Vincent Van Doom or Dr Doom. And then proceeded to drop jaws as he revealed the man who was going to be behind the mask — none other than Robert Downey Jr! Yes, RDJ is coming back to the MCU, this time as a villain. “New mask, same task,” RDJ said on stage, sending Hall H, where the panel was being held, into a tizzy.

Questions of whether fans will be able to accept RDJ as anything other than Iron-Man or how his presence will be explained, other than ‘the multiverse’, are for another time when the excitement has died down. Because RDJ is not the only one returning to the fold. Also back for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are directors Joe and Anthony Russo, the men behind the most successful Avengers movies. The fact that Marvel Studios is having to turn back to its biggest star and most successful directors speaks of how precarious its status has been since the start of Phase 5.

While these were the biggest news, there were other announcements and footage releases. The Captain America: A Brave New World footage had the hall cheering when Harrison Ford, who plays President Thunderbolt Ross, turns into the Red Hulk. The Fantastic Four movie now has a title — The Fantastic Four: First Steps — and will be set in a retro-future version of New York. The Thunderbolts* (Feige refused to explain the asterisk at the end of the title) showed the first footage from the film, revealing that it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s character who was bringing together the group of villains and anti-heroes.

Given the disappointment Marvel fans had following the series of duds, this is what we call ‘Maximum effort!’