After learning earlier this week that Chris Evans is set to return to the MCU in The Russo Brothers' upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, we'd be lying if we didn't expect more casting news for the beginning of the end of Marvel's Multiverse Saga to follow soon after. And sure enough, after Evans' comeback was confirmed, Anthony Mackie's position as the Avengers' Captain America heading into Doomsday was reaffirmed (we've more on the Avengers' future here); Benedict Cumberbatch has talked up Doctor Strange's involvement in the movie at Tokyo Comic Con; and now another vital piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. Per Deadline's reporting, Hayley Atwell is expected to reprise her role as Agent Peggy Carter in the fifth Avengers film.
The last time we saw Atwell in the MCU, she was a member of the Illuminati (no, not that Illuminati) in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, playing a multiversal variant of Peggy Carter — one who'd been injected with super serum and could be found gadding about with the Union Jack emblazoned across her chest. But, of course, the last time we saw our Peggy Carter was at the end of Avengers: Endgame, reunited with her beloved Steve Rogers after he took a trip back in time to make good on his promise of a dance with his best girl. What exactly the nature of Peggy and Steve's relationship will be in Doomsday (if, that is, Evans is playing Steve Rogers) is very much uncertain at this point. Hell, they may not even be playing the same Peggy and Steve we know and love: if Robert Downey Jr.'s surprise casting as Doctor Doom has taught us anything, it is that nothing is off the table where the multiverse is concerned.
But even with the relative dearth of concrete information on what exactly Doomsday is set to entail at this point, day by day the Marvel Cinematic Universe's next big team-up movie gets just that little bit more exciting. When Evans and Atwell return to our screens on 1 May, 2026, it will incredibly have been seven years, 15 films, 19 TV series, and many long dark nights of the soul since we last saw them together in the MCU. But as we deal with the existential crisis induced by having just typed those statistics out, we do at least have a huge new Marvel movie right around the corner: Captain America: Brave New World. And if you aren't already hyped out of your gourd for Anthony Mackie's Cap and Harrison Ford's Red Hulk tearing it up, then pick up a copy of this month's world-exclusive Captain America issue of Empire and you'll find a whole bunch of reasons to be very, very excited. Avengers... assemble!