James Marsden Talks Cyclops' Shocking Comeback in Avengers Doomsday
James Marsden opens up about what makes Cyclops’ return in Avengers Doomsday so special for X-Men fans—and why this comeback is different from anything we've seen before.
James Marsden is back under the visor. Two decades after his first go as Cyclops, he is suiting up for Avengers: Doomsday, and from the way he is talking about it, the nostalgia is real and the scale is huge.
Walking back into Marvel after 20 years
In a new chat with Variety, Marsden said the energy on set feels different this time — bigger, louder, and clearly built to smash two fanbases together at last.
"It is exciting. You can feel that it is something special. You can feel the world is ready for this movie and these worlds to kind of collide."
He also admitted he figured the window had basically closed. After 10 years, then 20, the return felt like a nice idea that probably was not going to happen. Now? He joked they might have just been waiting for everyone to go a little gray and long in the tooth before calling. The Variety interviewer even cracked: "MCU is the Gray C.U." Not wrong.
Why it matters (beyond the nostalgia)
This is the crossover fans have been pestering him about for years. In a separate Vanity Fair interview, Marsden called it a homecoming to the role that put him on the map — his first true event project and a character people actually love from the comics. He has spent two decades fielding the same questions: Are you coming back? But wait, was not Cyclops dead? His answer now, basically: maybe not.
On the franchise side, Marsden showing up in Avengers: Doomsday is the clearest signal yet that Marvel is fully folding the X-Men into the MCU timeline, not just teasing around the edges. That is the inside-baseball part of this — the Fox-era X-Men finally sharing a sandbox with Earth’s Mightiest.
The essentials
- James Marsden returns as Cyclops in Avengers: Doomsday.
- He last played the character in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
- Avengers: Doomsday is set to hit theaters December 18, 2026.
- Marsden told Variety the moment feels "special" and like the world is ready for Avengers/X-Men to collide; the clip ran September 14, 2025.
- He told Vanity Fair the comeback feels like a giant homecoming to the role that launched him, after years of fans asking if he would return.
- Yes, someone on the Variety carpet dubbed it the "Gray C.U." and everybody laughed.