The latest Avengers: Doomsday teaser hints at a long-overdue X-Men film franchise correction

Marvel released the third teaser for Avengers: Doomsday this Tuesday morning on YouTube. This new teaser focuses on the X-Men. This time, we get three mutants on the screen before the screen cuts to black, and we see the stopwatch. We see Professor X and a long-haired and bearded Magneto, played by Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen, respectively.

While it is nice to see these stalwarts return as their respective Marvel characters, the mic-drop moment in this new Avengers: Doomsday teaser doesn't belong to them. Instead, the best moment belongs to none other than Cyclops, played by James Marsden, the same actor who played the leader of the X-Men in the original film franchise.

What happens in the latest Avengers: Doomsday teaser?

The latest Avengers: Doomsday teaser begins with scenes of a ruined mansion with a bright spotlight shining through the windows. The spotlight probably belongs to the sentinels who are here to capture the mutants. Then, we see Professor X and a long Magneto, who share a brief moment of friendship. But then, the scene cuts to James Marsden's Cyclops, who takes off his visor and lets loose his optic blast.

What makes this moment better is that Cyclops is in his comic book-accurate blue costume rather than the much-maligned black leather of the original movies. But the scene finally gives X-Men fans what they wanted for a long time: a no-nonsense take on Cyclops/Scott Summers.

The original X-Men movies downplayed Cyclops and favored Wolverine:

Hugh Jackman deserves all the praise he gets for his long-running turn as Wolverine in the X-Men film franchise. However, almost everything in the film franchise revolves around Wolverine. The only movie before 2017's Logan that didn't involve the clawed mutant was X-Men: First Class.

Even X-Men: Days of Future Past has James Howlett being the time-travelling mutant, while Kitty Pryde did the same in the comics. Therefore, Cyclops's moment to shine on the big screen has been long overdue. Based on this short moment from the Avengers: Doomsday teaser. It seems that the upcoming Marvel multiversal crossover event is going to give James Marsden a chance to shine.

James Marsden addressed his return as Cyclops in the upcoming Marvel blockbuster in a Vanity Fair interview published in August 2025. Saying that he was thrilled to return as the fan-favorite mutant, Marsden said:

"I’m getting a little long in the tooth to put on the superhero costume. [Laughs.] I was excited because you're a part of something gigantic, and I've spent 20 years listening to people say, “when are you coming back? When are you coming back? Are you coming back?” I'm dead. Well, maybe not. I'm going to have a tough time struggling to get into costume if they waited a couple more years. So it's been a blast. It really has. It's been a nice little homecoming to a role that really put me on the map. It was the first real event project that I was ever a part of, and a very beloved character, this icon from the comics. And so to step back into that role was pretty special."