Ms. Marvel Star Iman Vellani Returning for Official Avengers: Doomsday Podcast

With Avengers: Doomsday arriving in four months, Marvel and Disney are ramping up promotion for the first Avengers movie in seven years. Doctor Doom is appearing in Marvel video games, and Marvel Comics is revisiting the storyline that set up the 2015 Secret Wars comic event. That comic arc provides inspiration for Doomsday and the planned 2027 sequel Avengers: Secret Wars.

Fans preparing for the premiere can work through Marvel’s official Doomsday watchlist, which spans from 2000’s X-Men to last year’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Because major franchise releases regularly receive companion shows, Marvel will debut the Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday Official Podcast on Aug. 27, hosted by Ms. Marvel star Iman Vellani.

Vellani will co-host alongside Frank Alvarez. According to Marvel’s press release, the pair will revisit “all the major moments leading up to Doomsday,” examining notable scenes and discussing the legacy of earlier films. The countdown podcast will run for five weeks. Its finale coincides with the theatrical rerelease of Avengers: Endgame, which includes four minutes of extra footage.

Vellani’s role on the podcast keeps her connected to Marvel, though fans of Kamala Khan had hoped for a cinematic return. Vellani introduced the hero in the 2022 streaming series Ms. Marvel and returned in 2023’s The Marvels. That film closed with Ms. Marvel recruiting Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop for a new superhero roster.

Ms. Marvel has not returned to the Marvel Cinematic Universe since then. Her absence follows the box-office struggles of The Marvels alongside a crowded MCU character roster. For comparison, Shang-Chi will make his Doomsday appearance five years after his solo film debuted. The prolonged gap comes despite strong reviews for Vellani’s performance, with Ms. Marvel holding a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The character adapts easily across different story formats. Ms. Marvel works well as a neighborhood defender in Jersey City, creating opportunities to cross over with Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man in neighboring New York City. She has also joined cosmic battles and stood at the center of comic crossover events like Outlawed.

Vellani did not appear during the Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal stream last year, but future opportunities remain for Avengers: Secret Wars and beyond. The X-Men will lead the next MCU phase, and comic writers recently retconned Kamala Khan into a mutant. That comic shift leaves room for Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige to put Vellani into classic mutant suits in future mutant projects.

Audiences can hear Vellani next on the upcoming preview show. The Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday Official Podcast will stream in video format on Disney Plus and YouTube, with standard audio editions available on major podcast platforms.

Source: Polygon