According to a new rumor, Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic might not be the leader of the eponymous superhero team in the upcoming MCU movies Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. This comes after The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman indicated that Reed will lead the Avengers in those movies.
Yelena Belova to lead the Avengers in Doomsday, not Reed Richards
Industry scooper @MyTimeToShineH took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that, despite what has been previously reported, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson / Captain America, and not Reed, will lead the Avengers in the next team-up movies.
“Okay so I just checked with my source and they told me that Reed Richards is NOT the leader of the Avengers in Doomsday and Secret Wars,” @MyTimeToShineH posted. “Sam and Yelena are the ones leading the team(s).”
This contradicts what Shakman said in a new interview. “He [Reed] 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,” the filmmaker explained.
As things stand, what @MyTimeToShineH shared on social media on this subject should be regarded as speculation.
However, given how methodically Marvel has established Sam and Yelena as leaders of their respective Avengers groups in Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*, one can presume that the studio might want to continue with those storylines at least for some time.
If they give up the leadership immediately after the Fantastic Four’s arrival on Earth-616, it could potentially render the two characters’ journey across multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe projects somewhat inconsequential.
Reed will appear alongside the rest of his team in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which hits US theaters on July 25, 2025. Meanwhile, Avengers: Doomsday premieres on December 18, 2026, and Avengers: Secret Wars on December 17, 2027.
Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on SuperHeroHype.
