When Earth’s mightiest heroes finally unite to take on Doctor Doom, who will lead the charge? Well, according to The Fantastic Four: The First Steps director Matt Shakman, it’ll be Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards — an answer that has surprised many Marvel fans.

Cast your mind back to the last Avengers film, Endgame, and the superhero team’s previous leaders then. Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’ Captain America may no longer be with us, but Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson has taken up the latter’s mantle — and he was last seen in Captain America: Brave New World establishing a new Avengers team once more.

Brave New World did not name Wilson’s Captain America as the team’s leader specifically, but this was certainly implied — especially as Marvel’s next film, Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers, then referenced a rivalry between Wilson’s Avengers and the Thunderbolts’ “New Avengers” team.

Now, despite Marvel already having two Avengers squads on its books, it sounds like the team’s true leader in Avengers: Doomsday will end up being someone else entirely — and someone who is still yet to make their MCU debut, rather than a character fans have seen previously.

“He goes from being the nerdy scientist who’s locked away in the lab, to the husband and the father who’d do anything to protect his family, to the guy who’s leading the Avengers,” Shakman said of Reed Richards, discussing the character in an interview with Variety.

It’s a slightly odd thing to hear — especially as surviving OG Avengers veterans such as Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor are also still around. Why aren’t either of these higher up the pecking order? What about Captain Marvel, even? And why not Sam Wilson?

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