While Marvel fans have good reason to love Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, the MCU is finally going to redeem one of the most underrated X-Men movie heroes, 20 years after he was brutally sidelined. This is thanks to Avengers: Doomsday releasing at the end of 2026, featuring a wide ensemble of characters, including X-Men from Fox’s universe of Marvel films.
While Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will indeed be assembling once more in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, the heroes of Earth-616 will also be joined by both The Fantastic Four from Earth-828 and various X-Men played by the same actors from Fox’s franchise that first began in 2000.
This group of X-Men is set to include James Marsden’s Cyclops, who looks to finally be getting some much-needed redemption in the new MCU movie, as evidenced by Avengers: Doomsday’s newest X-Men-focused teaser.
Cyclops Was Never Given His Due In Fox’s X-Men Movies
A close -up of James Marsden as Cyclops in casual attire in X-Men
In Fox’s X-Men franchise, James Marsden’s Cyclops was introduced as the responsible team leader of the X-Men, though the films never seemed to trust Scott Summers to carry any real narrative weight.
Instead, Jackman’s Wolverine was positioned as the primary protagonist, dominating most of the spotlight alongside Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey and Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, leaving Scott and other heroes like Halle Berry’s Storm very much on the sidelines when it came to meaningful character depth.
The X-Men movies did Cyclops even dirtier with 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, with Scott Summers getting straight-up murdered off-screen by Jean Grey’s Phoenix in the first act.
Although he did get a small cameo at the end of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, confirming his survival in the newly altered timeline, it’s pretty clear that Marsden’s Cyclops had so much potential that went massively underutilized in Fox’s X-Men franchise.
It should be mentioned that Tye Sheridan’s younger Cyclops in the later prequels did receive a greater share of the spotlight compared to Marsden’s version, though there still seems to be this lasting misconception over Scott’s value as an on-screen X-Men leader for mainstream viewers.
The Avengers: Doomsday X-Men Trailer Finally Redeems Cyclops
Scott Summers aka Cyclops activates his visor in X-Men 97
Now, Avengers: Doomsday’s new X-Men-focused trailer is teasing that Cyclops will finally receive some long-overdue validation in the upcoming MCU movie.
Wearing a comic-accurate blue-and-yellow X-Men suit and unleashing devastating optic blasts, Scott Summers is framed at the teaser’s end as both incredibly powerful and a central figure, teasing that he might finally be able to achieve his deserved status as a marquee hero rather than a supporting character as we’ve seen in past X-Men movies.
More importantly, the footage teases that Cyclops is experiencing some pretty intense emotions and perhaps even grief. After all, it looks as though mutant-killing Sentinels are in the background of what looks to be the remains of Xavier’s School. As such, it does imply that Marsden’s return as Cyclops will be as a focal hero among the greater MCU ensemble we’ll be seeing in Doomsday.
After twenty years, it certainly does look as though the MCU intends to treat Cyclops better than Fox did, with the intent of showing his full potential as one of the X-Men’s greatest heroes and leaders of all time.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to release in theaters on December 18th, 2026 from Marvel Studios.
Release Date
December 18, 2026
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