Avengers: Doomsday Leak Teases Shang-Chi Team-Up with Professor X and Another X-Men Icon

Shang-Chi star Simu Liu may have dropped a seismic Avengers: Doomsday spoiler at New York Comic Con, hinting he’ll share the screen with X-Men icons Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.
Simu Liu might have just spoiled a chunk of Avengers: Doomsday onstage, and he did it with the enthusiasm of a fan who forgot the Marvel snipers exist. The Shang-Chi star teased sharing scenes with two very specific legends, which pretty much tells you the vibe of this movie: massive crossover, throw everyone in, let Doom cook.
What Simu said at NYCC
On a New York Comic-Con panel, Liu talked about the actors he grew up idolizing and then dangled this:
I grew up idolizing Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart, and now maybe, maybe even do scenes with them at some point.
Huge cheer, obviously. Stewart already popped into the MCU as a variant Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. If Liu is actually acting opposite Stewart and Ian McKellen here, that points to Shang-Chi mixing it up with the X-Men while Doctor Doom wreaks havoc. Subtle, he is not.
The other slip-ups
Liu is not the first one to let things slide. Alan Cumming, who played Nightcrawler in the Fox films, told BuzzFeed UK he was training for a fight sequence and was told he was whacking Pedro Pascal on the head — as in Mister Fantastic. He later tried to walk it back with the classic I actually have no idea who I was fighting line. Fans did not exactly buy the retraction.
Channing Tatum also told Variety that he already shot a key scene as Gambit that involved a big fight against Robert Downey Jr.'s main villain, Doctor Doom. Between that and Liu's tease, the pattern is pretty clear: the multiverse door is wide open, and Doom is at the center of it.
What Marvel has officially said (barely anything)
Marvel itself has been quiet. The one real breadcrumb is a first synopsis that screened at Disney's marketing expo in China and then made its way online. The gist: Doctor Doom has entered the MCU, blending top-tier science with magic, and sets off a chain reaction that spills across the multiverse. Earlier, at Disney's event in Shanghai, attendees got a first look at Downey Jr.'s Doom costume. So yes, he's the guy.
Production status
Reports have floated that Doomsday has already wrapped principal photography. With more than a year to go, the focus now is post-production, with the usual Marvel safety net of potential reshoots on deck.
Who is in this thing
- Robert Downey Jr. - Doctor Doom
- Chris Hemsworth - Thor
- Tom Hiddleston - Loki
- Anthony Mackie - Captain America
- Paul Rudd - Ant-Man
- Letitia Wright - Shuri/Black Panther
- Simu Liu - Shang-Chi
- Danny Ramirez - The Falcon
- Winston Duke - M'Baku
- Tenoch Huerta Mejia - Namor
- Sebastian Stan - The Winter Soldier
- Florence Pugh - Yelena Belova
- Wyatt Russell - U.S. Agent
- David Harbour - Red Guardian
- Hannah John-Kamen - Ghost
- Lewis Pullman - Sentry
- Pedro Pascal - Mr. Fantastic
- Vanessa Kirby - The Invisible Woman
- Ebon Moss-Bachrach - The Thing
- Joseph Quinn - The Human Torch
- Patrick Stewart - Professor X
- Ian McKellen - Magneto
- James Marsden - Cyclops
- Rebecca Romijn - Mystique
- Alan Cumming - Nightcrawler
- Kelsey Grammer - Beast
- Channing Tatum - Gambit
Doom already showed up (sort of)
If you stayed through the credits of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, you caught Doom's arrival: seen from behind, removing the mask, leaning over Franklin Richards. No face, just a vibe, but it set the table for this movie.
About Shang-Chi 2 while we are here
Yes, Shang-Chi 2 is still a thing. Per Alex Perez at Cosmic Circus, both Shang-Chi 2 and Black Panther 3 are in active development at Marvel. For context: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings made $432 million during the pandemic-era box office climb-back and featured Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Meng'er Zhang, Fala Chen, Tony Leung, and Michelle Yeoh. Marvel announced a sequel way back in December 2021, with Destin Daniel Cretton returning to write and direct and Liu and Awkwafina set to come back.
Liu has kept saying it is happening — he even told a frustrated fan on Threads, I proooomiss it's happening. In August 2024, he told Press Trust of India the sequel is definitely on the way, while admitting the timing is above his pay grade. He has also shown some impatience himself, liking a post blasting Marvel for not fast-tracking the sequel after the first film. There was chatter about a March 2025 start date, but the project was not teased at San Diego Comic-Con last year or this year.
Release date
Avengers: Doomsday hits U.S. theaters on December 18, 2026.