Marvel Studios' original plan was for Kang the Conqueror to be the Multiverse Saga's big bad. However, in place of a Multiversal War pitting his Variants against each other (leaving The Avengers caught in the middle), we're getting Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom.
As a result, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty has become Avengers: Doomsday and that's left fans with a lot of questions. Chief among them is how Marvel Studios will so quickly establish a Victor Von Doom Variant as the MCU's new Thanos when he'll likely only appear in The Fantastic Four: First Steps' post-credits scene before Doomsday and Secret Wars roll around.
According to The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez, "[If] they go for what they want for Doom in this movie, they’d have a fantastic explanation that not only sets him up perfectly for when we see him in Doomsday but also places him in a position where he can easily become one of the most justifiable antagonists in Marvel, maybe even more so than Thanos."
He added, "If you really want to know why in Latveria the flowers die in the Summer, then you’d already know where to look."
That appears to be a reference to New Avengers #33, a comic which sees Doom tasked with saving the Multiverse from The Beyonders. He spends years killing Molecule Man's Variants but is ultimately still unable to stop the final Incusion from taking place.
Needless to say, we'd imagine this will be how Marvel Studios deals with its Kang problem.
We always expected The Beyonder/Beyonders to be an even bigger threat than Kang, though the expectation was that the villain would be another Variant of the time-traveller. Those plans are now a little less certain but we're definitely intrigued.
"You’re the best damn fans in the world, and we’ve missed you," the Russo Brothers said after announcing their MCU return as the directors of Doomsday and Secret Wars. "When we made Avengers: Endgame we truly believed that it was the end of the road for us in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We had put all the passion, love and imagination that we had into the Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and then culminated it all with Endgame."
"All within a few years. We had spent everything we had creatively, and we left all our emotions on the floor. But in the time since, we began to feel that there was perhaps one story where we could find a new narrative path forward. It’s the reason we fell in love with comic books in the first place. That story is Secret Wars."
We cannot express how excited we are to dive back into this world, and explore such a deliciously complex character like Victor Von Doom," the filmmakers concluded. "And there is no better friend or collaborator to do that with, [than] THE great [Robert Downey Jr.]."
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released in theaters in May 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars following the next year.