Casting news for Avengers: Secret Wars has fuelled speculation that the film may have quietly revealed a major character's future, after A Quiet Place actor Noah Jupe was announced for an undisclosed role. While some fans have linked Jupe to the X-Men, given the mutant team's expected prominence in an upcoming reboot, others believe he could be playing a teenage Franklin Richards, drawing on Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic's acclaimed 2015 Secret Wars comic series that directors Joe and Anthony Russo have cited as inspiration.

In Hickman and Ribic's storyline, the collision of two Marvel universes leads Doctor Doom to rebuild reality as "Battleworld", ruling as God Emperor with Sue Storm as his consort and Franklin Richards as his adopted son, before Franklin eventually uses his reality-warping powers to restore the universe. Joe Russo has confirmed the film draws on both this run and the original 1984 miniseries, and the theory is bolstered by Franklin's recent live-action introduction in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, suggesting the groundwork for his expanded role may already be in place ahead of Secret Wars' anticipated reboot of the MCU.