Maybe superheroes aren’t dead after all? Marvel Studios returned to San Diego Comic-Con this weekend with a pair of promising casting announcements that suggest the exhausting IP churn that’s been slowly degrading (read: publicly smothering) comic book culture for years may have finally let up.

Ryan Gosling is set to become the MCU’s Ghost Rider, while “The Long Walk” star David Jonsson has been tapped as the new Black Panther. Both characters will lead releases expected in 2028.

Jonsson will play the adult Toussaint (aka T’Challa II), the son of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa and Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia introduced at the end of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Ryan Coogler, who will return to direct “Black Panther 3,” unveiled Jonsson’s casting alongside Letitia Wright and Winston Duke at SDCC 2026, and it’s hard to imagine a better director-actor pair for the job.

Between “Industry,” “Rye Lane,” and “Alien: Romulus,” Jonsson has been on an extraordinary run. Last year in “The Long Walk,” his heartbreaking performance as Peter McVries helped sell some substantial changes to the legacy of Stephen King’s novel about a dystopian death game. And earlier this year, the 2025 film adaptation received the Robert Altman Award at the Indie Spirit Awards — recognizing director Francis Lawrence, casting director Rich Delia, and the entire “Long Walk” ensemble, including Jonsson.

David Jonsson is announced as the new Black Panther at SDCCMichael Buckner/Variety

Coogler specifically shouted out that film at SDCC, and if Jonsson’s performance there took him to Wakanda, that tracks. But Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige tapping Gosling? That’s almost comically overdue. (Note: It also might explain why Gosling dropped out of a 2027 project for theDaniels in April.)

You don’t have to care about Ghost Rider at all to know that Gosling, a three-time Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner, can elevate a blockbuster event into cinema actually worth seeing. Far too much has already been written about Ken in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” but that performance, his part in “Blade Runner 2049,” and even something as knowingly ridiculous as “The Fall Guy” suggest that movie-star charisma and genuine acting chops are rarely mutually exclusive for Gosling.

No one’s expecting the next “Ghost Rider” to feel like “Drive,” of course. But Gosling’s indie film roots are still worth remembering now. DC’s “Supergirl,” starring Milly Alcock, became one of this summer’s most conspicuous box office disappointments, and Marvel has spent years struggling to regain the cultural momentum that it enjoyed leading up to “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019.

Disney’s larger franchise machine hasn’t exactly inspired confidence either, with “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” failing to turn the series’ first theatrical release in 7 years into a hit. For too long, the solution at Marvel has been more. More films, more shows, more heroes, just… more. But the buzz that’s come out of SDCC since Saturday hints at the studio finally remembering that people are more exciting than intellectual property. That logic even applies to the superheroes it already had.

When Robert Downey Jr.’s MCU return as Doctor Doom was announced at SDCC 2024, the stale casting choice felt like proof that Feige had finally lost the plot. Tony Stark had just enjoyed one of the best endings in superhero history with “Endgame,” and dragging Downey back into the mix (I love you 3000… plus 1, I guess?) felt less like meta-inspiration and more like panic.

But pairing the actor formerly known as Iron Man with genuine talent like Gosling and Jonsson could build an essential bridge between what the MCU once was and whatever audiences actually want to see from superheroes next. Even Chris Evans’ comeback as Steve Rogers could inspire cautious optimism.

At Comic-Con, Evans told Entertainment Weekly that Marvel had approached him with around a dozen ideas for Captain America after “Avengers: Endgame,” and none had persuaded him to return. “I just didn’t see a reason to continue the story,” he said. That changed when “Doomsday” director Joe Russo pitched an idea that finally interested Evans — and the actor learned that Downey was coming back too.

Quality over quantity is something Marvel desperately needs, and if the studio can actually get back there by 2028 (theoretically, right around the time Robert Pattinson is finally playing Matt Reeves’ Batman again), superheroes could still help save Hollywood. Tentpoles with integrity will be especially important as generative AI makes the industry’s appetite for replicable content more cynical by the day.

None of this guarantees Marvel has fixed itself, of course. The MCU has burned through enough goodwill that two killer casting choices won’t erase nearly a decade of diminishing returns. But great actors can indeed revive dead movie formats, and the addition of Jonsson and Gosling, at least sounds… sublime.