The collective excitement for Avengers: Doomsday is through the roof. Fans desperately want to know as much as possible about the movie. And for good reason. The film marks Robert Downey Jr.'s MCU return, and, perhaps most importantly, it features the rebirth of Fox's classic X-Men. This time, though, they won't be wearing black leather. The X-Men are expected to suit up in their classic comic book costumes for the film. Unfortunately, we have not gotten an actual image of the actors suited up... or have we? An image that recently popped up online may have had you think otherwise.
The palpable excitement around Doomsday has prompted some to spread what have so far appeared to be AI-generated images of the movie's cast. These have ranged from Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom, to Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man. Though it's been difficult to tell apart the fake from the authentic, most images shared have been commonly understood to be AI-made. Following that trend, an X-Men-centric image (which will not be linked here, but has been widespread) surfaced on social media, and, my dear readers, for the life of me, I was not able to tell if it was AI-generated or not.
The picture appears to feature Doomsday's X-Men—James Marsden's Cyclops, Ian McKellen's Magneto, Rebecca Romijn's Mystique, Channing Tatum's Gambit, Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler, Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambaeu and Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier, all together, in their comic book suits. The photo sparked intense debates online. Some claimed the image was AI-generated, while others argued it had too many "realistic" details to have been made by artificial intelligence. It was... a complex matter.
Fortunately, if you, too, were lost in the sea of uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of the picture, there does seem to be an answer on the matter. Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez took to X to debunk the image. Unfortunately, the amount of fake AI pictures purported to be from Avengers: Doomsday continues to grow. Upon the image hitting the internet, for example, a new one showed up, apparently showing the X-Men sitting in a room. There was only a slight problem with it: Beast's head was on Nightcrawler's body.
Then, a "selfie" of Teyonah Parris, James Marsden and Channing Tatum—all in costume—also surfaced. However, the image showed the actress holding a phone which, despite meant to be an iPhone 17 Pro, does not match the real-life design of the devic, signaling its AI origins.
So, what's the conclusion here? That the X-Men in the image look remarkably comic accurate, but they don't appear to be real. The quality of it, though, is a testament to how advanced artificial intelligence has gotten in a short span of time.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on December 18, 2026.
What do you think about these latest pictures? Are they real, or is artificial intelligence just getting impressively good at fooling us? Drop your thoughts in the comments.