Inside Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, the last time Marvel Studios took the stage, more than 6,000 attendees were stunned into silence before erupting. The studio announced that Robert Downey Jr, the actor synonymous with Iron Man, would return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe not as the armoured hero but as the villainous Doctor Doom. That moment, recalled by attendees this week as the convention opened its doors again, set the tone for a season in which the boundaries between hero and monster, past and future, are being deliberately blurred.

Days before the convention, DC Studios released the first official trailer for “Clayface,” a standalone horror-tinged origin story for the shape-shifting Batman antagonist. The footage, covered extensively by Mexican and Brazilian outlets, shows Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, a disfigured Hollywood actor who undergoes a clandestine chemical procedure and gains terrifying transformative powers. Set between Matt Reeves’s “The Batman” (2022) and its forthcoming sequel, the film arrives in Mexican cinemas on 22 October 2026, a day before its US release. Director James Watkins has hinted at easter eggs for devoted fans, while the production team — including Reeves, James Gunn and Peter Safran — frames the story as a psychological descent into lost identity and corrosive love, a thriller that leans away from traditional superhero spectacle.

Marvel, meanwhile, used the same pre-convention window to unveil a new trailer for “Avengers: Doomsday,” a film that Portuguese-language reports describe as a gathering of different generations of heroes. The preview shows the X-Men, led by Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier, confronting an incursion that threatens multiple realities, alongside the Fantastic Four and a returning Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, once again wielding Mjölnir. The villain is Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom, a casting choice that, viewed from São Paulo or Jakarta, signals a deliberate narrative loop: the face of the franchise’s greatest success now embodies its greatest threat. The film, directed by the Russo brothers, is scheduled for a December 2026 release, and Marvel has already published a recommended viewing list of eighteen earlier films — from “Captain America: The First Avenger” to “Deadpool & Wolverine” — to help audiences navigate the multiverse.

Behind these trailers lies a longer arc. Kevin Feige, the studio’s president, told an industry gathering that Marvel has planned film releases through to 2042, but that “Avengers: Secret Wars,” due in late 2027, will serve as a conclusion to the multiverse saga and a deliberate simplification. “Secret Wars is a beginning,” he said, according to Indonesian reports. “It will build a single, streamlined universe so that audiences can follow it.” After that, the X-Men are expected to anchor a new “Mutant Saga.” Ryan Reynolds, speaking at a fan event, confirmed that a new Deadpool film is in development, though he cautioned against repeating the formula of the previous solo outings. The character, he suggested, works best when cornered and stripped of excess.

Away from the digital multiverse, a physical monument to cinema is preparing its own return. The Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, with its distinctive geodesic exterior and curved 86-foot-wide screen, closed six years ago during the pandemic. Sony Pictures Entertainment, through its Alamo Drafthouse Cinema subsidiary, has announced plans to restore and reopen the landmark in early 2028, preserving its 70mm projection capabilities and forgoing in-theater dining to maintain the original experience. The adjacent 14-screen complex, formerly operated by ArcLight Cinemas, will also be revived. As superhero narratives grow ever more complex and interconnected, the Dome’s return offers a counter-image: a single, vast, curved screen designed to hold an audience in one shared, unbroken gaze.