Comic-Con Hall H is supposed to be Marvel's victory lap, a room full of fans who already love everything they're about to see. Friday night it turned into a live fact-check session instead. Between a surprise Ryan Gosling reveal and a Black Panther 3 casting that broke people's brains on the spot, the panel generated more confusion than hype in real time.
Before the panel even started, the predictions were already stacking up.
Predictions: -Gosling Ghost Rider announced -Black Panther 3 announced -Shang Chi 2 announced -Nova movie announced -Midnight Sons movie in development -More Doomsday cast members revealed
The pre-show guessing game turned out to be half right. Gosling didn't show up as Ghost Rider exactly how anyone expected, but the Ghost Rider news did land, alongside word that Ryan Coogler is bringing Black Panther 3 to theaters in December 2028. That's the kind of news that should be a clean win for Marvel. Instead, the internet immediately started arguing about a photo that wasn't even the photo people wanted.
The promised reveal photo turned into its own mini bit before anyone even got to the real news.
Then came the part that actually broke brains: David Jonsson was announced as the new Black Panther, stepping into the role as a grown-up T'Challa Jr., the son teased at the end of Wakanda Forever. Great casting on paper, Jonsson's stock has been rising fast off Alien: Romulus and The Long Walk. But the math doesn't math. Fans immediately started counting on their fingers, because a kid who was maybe 6 years old on screen a few movies ago can't suddenly be an adult played by a 30-something actor without Marvel owing everyone a serious time-jump explanation.
The timeline math started breaking down almost immediately after the Jonsson reveal.
Amazing actor but I'm definitely confused how the timeline works here. I believe T'Challa Jr was around 6 years old in Black Panther 2. Jonsson is in his early 30s. 🤔🤔🤔
Even the Gosling news came with its own asterisk. He's reportedly teaming back up with Shawn Levy, who directed him in the upcoming Starfighter, which hasn't even hit theaters yet. Locking in a second project with the same guy before the first one has been graded by audiences is either a huge vote of confidence or Disney just really likes betting on chemistry that's already worked before. Either way, it didn't stop the crowd from joking that Gosling had to have ditched something else on his calendar to make room for a cape.
Not everyone was convinced the timing made sense given Gosling's already stacked slate.
Did Gosling drop out of the Daniels movie for this?
Underneath the jokes about denim suits and locker room drama, there's a real debate simmering about where Avengers: Doomsday is headed with all these new additions stacked on top of an already massive ensemble. Marvel boss Kevin Feige has been out defending the buildup strategy, pointing out that even Thanos, the gold standard of MCU villains, wasn't fully cemented as a cultural monster until Infinity War actually dropped, not from the years of teasing before it.
Feige's defense of the slow-build strategy landed with fans still digesting the Hall H news.
I fully understand all of the concern (and hate) for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’, but Feige is spot on here. There’s a myth about how much Thanos was built up. Sure, he lurked, but ‘Infinity War’ is what made Thanos the movie character we talk about today, not the stuff before it.
None of this settles the timeline questions or the crowded-cast worries, but that's kind of the point of Hall H. Marvel doesn't need every answer that night, it just needs the room talking, and by that measure this one worked. Doomsday is set for December, Black Panther 3 lands in 2028, and the internet is going to keep doing the math on Jonsson's age for a very long time before either one arrives.