A scene from the fourth Avengers: Doomsday teaser featuring Black Panther's Wakanda caught fans' attention since its release, sparking widespread theories about hidden characters and digital edits in the footage. The teaser, which dropped online in early January and arrived in theaters with Avatar: Fire and Ash, focused on the Black Panther duo of Letitia Wright's Shuri and Winston Duke's M'Baku as they crossed paths with Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Ben Grimm, the Thing. One particular shot, where Ben shakes M'Baku's hand, became the center of debate online, with viewers convinced Marvel had quietly erased other heroes from the background.
This suspicion has now been confirmed. The original version of the Wakanda scene from Avengers: Doomsday is notably different from what audiences saw in the fourth teaser. Marvel's full trailer, which The Direct got a first-hand view of when it premiered at CinemaCon 2026, revealed that the Thing was never alone in that handshake moment with the new King of Wakanda. An interesting list of heroes stands right behind him in the unaltered footage.
What the CinemaCon Trailer Revealed About Black Panther's Wakanda Scene
Fans would recall that the fourth Avengers: Doomsday teaser ended with Ben Grimm walking up to M'Baku, who was last seen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, in the Wakandan desert and introducing himself with the line, "Ben, uh, Yancy Street, between Broome and Grand." The shot lingered on the rocky hero and the new King of Wakanda, with what looked like a wide, empty stretch of sand behind them. Fans noticed the strange composition almost immediately, and theories took off.
In the CinemaCon footage, the same handshake plays out in the full trailer, only this time the camera reveals Sue Storm, Bucky Barnes, Joaquin Torres, and possibly other Avengers standing close behind Ben.
The empty desert in the teaser version was the result of Marvel digitally removing those characters from the shot before releasing it online. A shot of Shuri in her new Black Panther suit from behind in the fourth trailer had that same strange, edited look. It turns out that scene was also digitally altered; the full-length trailer revealed a massive wall of water in the background.
With Sue, Bucky, and Joaquin all visible, the scene goes from a one-on-one introduction to the first meeting of the Fantastic Four, the New Avengers, and the Wakandans.
That's a much bigger moment than what the fourth teaser actually delivered, and it explains why Marvel chose to scrub the background before the footage went public.
Why Did Marvel Cut the Heroes From the Wakanda Footage?
Marvel's marketing strategy for Avengers: Doomsday has leaned heavily on the four character-focused teasers released between December and January. Each one focused on a single team or hero: Steve Rogers, Thor, the original Fox X-Men, and finally the Wakandans alongside the Fantastic Four. Showing Bucky, Sue, and Joaquin all in one frame would have broken this pattern. It would have been the first onscreen glimpse of the New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Captain America's Avengers crew sharing the same space, a milestone Marvel clearly wanted to save.
An exciting scene like that is best saved for the full trailer, which features a shot inside the rebuilt Avengers Tower, where Sam Wilson, Bucky, Ant-Man, Yelena Belova, and members of the Fantastic Four all gather as red Incursion light pours through the windows while Thor delivers a heartfelt speech. Putting Bucky, Sue, and Joaquin behind Ben in the Wakanda shot would have spoiled the bigger reveal of every faction coming together for the first time.
The Black Panther-themed Wakanda teaser was meant to tease that union without giving the whole thing away, and removing the other heroes from Ben's background was the best way to do it.
How the Fantastic Four and New Avengers Likely Got to Wakanda
The most likely answer for how this group ended up in Wakanda traces back to the post-credits scene of Thunderbolts. That scene, directed by the Russo brothers themselves, showed the New Avengers picking up an interdimensional object entering Earth's orbit. The object turned out to be the Fantastic Four's ship, the Excelsior, arriving on Earth-616 from their home reality of Earth-828. The Russos shot the scene on the Avengers: Doomsday set, and many believe it's actually a piece of the film's first act.
If that's the case, the path to the Wakanda shot becomes pretty clear. The Fantastic Four arrive in Earth-616 and are met by the New Avengers, who have been tracking them. From that meeting comes the team-up we see in the trailer. Bucky represents the New Avengers in the group, the Thing and Sue speak for the Fantastic Four, and Joaquin Torres is there as part of Sam Wilson's reassembled Avengers. All three factions are now working off the same information: Doctor Doom is a threat, and they need allies.
Wakanda is the obvious first stop. Bucky has history there going back to his recovery in the country after Captain America: Civil War, which gives the group an in with Shuri. The fourth teaser shows Shuri grieving and pulling back, narrating about losing everyone who matters to her. Sending a delegation that includes a familiar face like Bucky, alongside heroes from another universe carrying news of an even bigger threat, is the most likely pitch to pull her back into action.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
