We’ve been talking about Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) for years — specifically about his return to the MCU despite dying in Avengers: Endgame. Marvel obviously doesn’t want to ruin that moment in MCU history, but there are other ways to bring him back.
Iron Man’s inevitable return concerns the current overarching story. We’re in the Multiverse Saga. The Avengers will need all the help they can get from across the multiverse to win the multiversal wars. Kang will probably be the villain — after being recast, of course.
With that in mind, I’m not taking Iron Man’s return in Avengers: Secret Wars for granted. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance for Marvel to bring all of the MCU’s most important and beloved superheroes together, and the studio can’t waste it.
But the following rumor is a spoiler and a big one, too, so you’ll want to avoid it if you love surprises. If the information is accurate, this could be the biggest indication that Iron Man is indeed about to return to the MCU.
A prominent Marvel leaker posted the following tweet on Sunday. MyTimeToShineHello says that Hugh Jackman told Marvel he will return for Secret Wars, but only if he gets to interact with Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. in the movie:
That’s it, that’s the leak. If it’s accurate, the leaker must have access to some powerful sources within Marvel. This isn’t something that should leak that easily.
The Wolverine actor did say in the past that playing Wolverine alongside the Avengers would have been too good of an offer to pass up.
“The Avengers would prove too much to turn down,” Jackman said in 2017. “Because I always love the idea of him [Wolverine] within that dynamic, with the Hulk obviously, with Iron Man, but there are a lot of smarter people with MBAs who can’t figure that out [laughter]. You never know. At the moment, honestly, if I really did have them there, I probably wouldn’t have said this is the last [about Logan]. It just feels like this is the right time [to leave the character].”
This was well before his return in Deadpool & Wolverine, which hits theaters in July. Also, as a reminder, Jackman only agreed to make Deadpool 3 as long as Wolverine’s arc in Logan wasn’t touched. Variants allow Marvel to bring back Wolverine without changing old stories.
Hugh Jackman wanting his Wolverine to appear alongside RDJ’s Iron Man and Maguire’s Spider-Man is, really, everyone’s dream. It would be a culmination of three decades of Marvel stories told through Sony, Fox, and MCU movies. All of those stories are coming together thanks to the multiverse.
Secret Wars is Marvel’s only chance to have Wolverine, Iron Man, and Maguire’s Spider-Man appear in the same scenes. It’s also the only story in which it would make sense for other beloved Marvel heroes from the non-MCU movies to join them.
We saw it happen in Spider-Man: No Way Home. We’ll get another taste of multiversal superhero combos in Deadpool 3. But Secret Wars will be so much bigger.
Marvel could team up Wolverine, Iron Man, and Spider-Man without bringing Jackman, RDJ, and Maguire back. But we all want these actors to play these iconic characters in the same Avengers movie. I will also remind you we’ve seen plenty of rumors saying that Maguire and Garfield will play their Spider-Man variants in Secret Wars.
All of that is to say that there’s a strong case for bringing RDJ back to the MCU, even if the leak above isn’t accurate.
We’ll have to wait a while for that to happen. It’s unclear at this point if Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars will make their current release dates.
