It wouldn’t be the lead-up to a highly anticipated Marvel movie without a spoiler or two, right?
Warning! Potential spoilers for Avengers: Doomsday follow.
Actor Alan Cumming, who will reprise his role as Nightcrawler from 2003’s X2: X-Men United in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, recently suggested he’ll fight Pedro Pascal’s Mister Fantastic, who will debut in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
“I was learning stunts yesterday for some fight scene and I just think, I’m 60 years old. 23 years ago, I played that superhero,” Cumming explained in an interview with Buzzfeed UK. “I was kind of old for a superhero even then. And now I’m back doing it. And that, to me, is hilarious. I’m sort of learning these fights and I’m like, ‘What? Who am I fighting with?’ And they said, ‘You’re hitting Pedro Pascal against the head,’ or something.”
Naturally, the admission has got fans speculating all over the internet about what that means for the two characters in Doomsday. “Avengers vs X-Men vs Fantastic Four,” one Redditor wrote on a r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers post, hypothesizing an all-out showdown. “I can see this happening for sure,” another user replied, setting the scene. “The heroes are unable to come to a consensus about how to stop the incursions which leads to an all out brawl. The Fantastic Four just had their universe destroyed by an incursion (I’m assuming). So, they’re gonna be pressed to do whatever it takes to stop the next incursion. The Leader already put it in Sam’s head that heroes from other universes will do whatever it takes to save theirs. Then you have the X-Men… Magneto won’t be taking shit from universal interlopers.”
Yet, not everyone loved that idea. A third Redditor quipped: “D-List Avengers vs the A-List X-Men from the OG 2000s movies vs The Fantastic Four.” Ouch.
That said, the nostalgia factor is definitely still high. “I still can’t wrap my head around the idea I’m going to see the X-Men I grew up with and this cinematic universe I’ve spent my adulthood loving, come together,” a fan gushed on the Reddit post.
MCU diehards are also curious about what the fight might actually look like, considering the two characters’ strengths and skill sets. “They could do some really interesting visual stuff with the stretchy v. teleporting power sets,” one user mused, while another added: “I’m genuinely quite excited by the creative possibilities of a teleporter vs stretching character fight.”
Plot details for Doomsday are being kept firmly under lock and key, so the why, where, when, and how of this fight still remains to be seen — but one person opted to point out that there’s a possibility this face-off might be a minor detail in the scheme of things. “Don’t get too excited yet. Could just be a very quick thing that happens in the background of a set piece for a split second in the final version of the movie,” the Redditor noted. “That being said I’m going to be over the moon if every character in this movie actually gets cool shit to do. I hope they’ve learned not to just have nameless henchmen cannon fodder people for everyone to fight all the time.”
Once again, though, the conversation turned to the infamous nature of MCU leaks from prominent actors. “Controlled leaks, controlled leaks. Nothing gets the crowd more hyped than hearing X character is going to clobber Y character, y’know?” one fan reminded their peers. Others were quick to poke fun at the historical spoilers. “Fox must not have been using the same snipers back in the day that Marvel uses now. Dude is about to learn,” another user wrote alongside a crying laughing emoji, while a third person joked: “‘Umm Hello Alan, so I am hired by someone named Kevin to warn you.’”
Cumming’s comments follow April’s apparent Avengers: Doomsday set photo leak that set the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom into overdrive. It begs the question: is Avengers: Doomsday secretly an Avengers vs. X-Men movie?
Ultimately, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the Nightcrawler and Mister Fantastic fight will look like, assuming it actually makes the cut but thankfully, Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on May 1, 2026 — so we’ll find out soon enough.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
