James Marsden Joins Patrick Stewart & 3 More Actors In Exclusive MCU Club

When James Marsden, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Rebecca Romijn step onto the screen in Avengers: Doomsday, they won’t just be reuniting the original X-Men. They’ll be entering an enviable and exclusive Marvel cinematic club that very few actors can brag about. The four actors will be achieving the longest Marvel live-action careers of any performers. From the July 14, 2000, release of the first X-Men film to the Avengers: Doomsday premiere on December 18, 2026, exactly 26 years, 5 months, and 4 days will have passed. This surpasses Wesley Snipes’ current record by nearly six months. When Snipes appeared in Deadpool & Wolverine on July 26, 2024, exactly 25 years, 11 months, and 5 days had elapsed since Blade premiered on August 21, 1998.

Snipes claimed the title in spectacular fashion when Ryan Reynolds texted him about reprising Blade for Deadpool & Wolverine. After 20 years away from the character, Snipes returned to massive fanfare.
"I did not think it was possible," Snipes told Entertainment Weekly about his comeback. "I didn’t think that Marvel was into it. Disney was into it."
His appearance earned him two Guinness World Records: longest career as a live-action Marvel character and longest gap between character appearances in Marvel films. He beat out Hugh Jackman, who many expected would claim the record after playing Wolverine from 2000 to 2024. Reynolds himself celebrated Snipes’ achievement on Instagram, saying, "The reaction when Wesley Snipes enters the movie is the most intense thing I’ve heard in a theater. People screaming with uninhibited joy and love is also the sound of a legacy."

James Marsden and Fellow X-Men Actors Enter Exclusive MCU Club

Now, four members of the original X-Men cast are positioned to overtake Snipes’ record together. Marvel Studios announced the returns in March 2025 during a five-hour livestream, revealing the Avengers: Doomsday cast. Cameras panned across personalized director’s chairs bearing each actor’s name, confirming what fans had desperately hoped for. James Marsden will return as Scott Summers/Cyclops, the character who first put him on the map in 2000. Scott's return is even more exciting as he'll finally rock the character's comic-accurate suit.

Ian McKellen also returns as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, the master of magnetism whose complex relationship with Xavier formed the emotional core of the original trilogy. The 86-year-old actor brings gravitas to a role he first inhabited at age 61, creating one of cinema’s most compelling comic book antagonists. 

Rebecca Romijn steps back into Mystique’s blue skin after more than two decades away from the shapeshifter. Her physical performance in the original films required hours in the makeup chair and established the visual template that Jennifer Lawrence would later adapt for the prequel series. Romijn’s return represents a full-circle moment for the actress who helped define the character’s look and movement on screen.

The lore behind this record is even more interesting when you realise Patrick Stewart has actually held this record before. In 2017, following Logan, Stewart and Hugh Jackman jointly achieved what was then called the longest career as a live-action Marvel superhero. At that time, the wording specifically referred to superheroes, before Guinness modified it to "character" to include villains and supporting roles. Stewart briefly lost the title when Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, and J.K. Simmons appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021, 19 years and 225 days after their first appearances in Spider-Man (2002). 

Then Stewart reclaimed it with his surprise appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022, which came 21 years and 296 days after X-Men. Many assumed that would be his final bow, especially after his character died in Logan. But death has never stopped Professor X. Stewart has portrayed the character in eight different films, and Xavier has died in four of them.

Now, Stewart returns once again for Avengers: Doomsday. The third teaser trailer for the film showcased his Professor X alongside McKellen’s Magneto in a haunting sequence set within a ruined X-Mansion. Based on what the teaser shows, the X-Men characters played by Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, and the other returning stars won’t have it easy as they face their greatest threat yet in Doom.