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Avengers: Doomsday — Everything We Know About Doctor Doom, the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four and the Multiverse
Marvel's biggest crossover yet is getting closer. Here's everything we know about Avengers: Doomsday, from Doctor Doom and the Avengers to the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the future of the MCU's Multiverse Saga.
The MCU is about to get seriously crowded.
Avengers: Doomsday is bringing together characters and teams that, until recently, existed in completely different corners of Marvel's movie universe. The Avengers are back. The Fantastic Four are in the fight. The X-Men are finally entering the collision. And standing in the middle of all of it is one of Marvel's most dangerous villains: Doctor Doom.
Even crazier, Doom is being played by Robert Downey Jr., the actor who spent more than a decade playing Tony Stark.
That casting alone would have been enough to break the internet.
But the footage shown so far suggests Marvel is going much bigger than a simple Avengers reunion. Doctor Doom has a personal history with the Fantastic Four, the X-Men are involved in the conflict, and the entire story appears to be connected to the MCU's increasingly unstable multiverse.
So what exactly is Avengers: Doomsday about?
Here's everything we know so far — and, just as importantly, what is still speculation.
When Does Avengers: Doomsday Release?
Avengers: Doomsday is currently scheduled to hit theaters on December 18, 2026.
The movie is being directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, the filmmaking duo behind Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
That alone tells you how seriously Marvel is treating this movie.
Doomsday isn't just another Phase 6 project. It's positioned as one of the MCU's major crossover events and a direct step toward Avengers: Secret Wars, which is scheduled to follow in 2027.
And judging by the cast, Marvel is clearly going all-in.
Who Is Doctor Doom?
At the center of Doomsday is Victor von Doom, better known as Doctor Doom.
In Marvel Comics, Doom is one of the most brilliant and dangerous figures in existence. He's a scientist, inventor, ruler, strategist, and powerful user of magic.
But his biggest weapon isn't necessarily his armor.
It's his mind.
The movie's Comic-Con footage strongly suggests that the MCU is giving Doom a personal connection to the Fantastic Four, particularly Reed Richards and Sue Storm.
Sue describes Victor as someone who was once different — someone who was always the smartest person in the room before becoming the broken figure we see in the present.
That detail could be extremely important.
Rather than introducing Doom as a random villain who suddenly appears to destroy Earth, Marvel appears to be giving him history, relationships, and a reason to hate or distrust the heroes around him.
And then there's the Robert Downey Jr. factor.
Doom may look like Tony Stark's successor in the MCU's marketing, but he's not Tony Stark.
That's a distinction Marvel will almost certainly want audiences to understand.
Why Is Robert Downey Jr. Playing Doctor Doom?
This is probably the single biggest casting question surrounding Doomsday.
Robert Downey Jr. became synonymous with Tony Stark.
Tony was the character who helped launch the MCU, and his death in Endgame became one of the franchise's defining emotional moments.
Now Downey is back — but as Doom.
That creates an incredibly interesting psychological dynamic.
Imagine characters who knew Tony Stark coming face-to-face with a man who looks exactly like him but behaves nothing like him.
For Peter Parker, in particular, that could be brutal.
Tony was Peter's mentor.
Doom could potentially look like the person Peter trusted most while becoming one of the biggest threats he's ever faced.
Marvel hasn't revealed exactly how much the movie will explore this connection, but it's one of the obvious emotional possibilities created by the casting.
The Avengers Are Back
The Avengers have gone through a massive transformation since Endgame.
Tony Stark is gone.
Natasha Romanoff is gone.
Steve Rogers stepped away from the battlefield.
And the MCU has introduced an entirely new generation of heroes.
Doomsday brings several of those characters together, including Sam Wilson's Captain America, Thor, Shuri's Black Panther, Shang-Chi, Yelena Belova, and other major MCU heroes.
The movie also brings back characters from different parts of the franchise, including Loki.
And then there's one particularly massive return:
Steve Rogers.
Chris Evans is returning to the MCU, although exactly how Steve fits into the story remains one of the movie's biggest mysteries.
That creates another huge question:
Is Steve Rogers returning as the same Captain America we knew?
Or is the multiverse about to give us something very different?
The Fantastic Four Could Be Central to the Story
If Doctor Doom is the main villain, it makes sense that the Fantastic Four would be heavily involved.
The team consists of:
The MCU's Fantastic Four are played by Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
And unlike some of the other heroes, they apparently already know Victor von Doom.
That's a big deal.
The Comic-Con footage reportedly focuses heavily on Doom's history with Reed and Sue, suggesting that the conflict isn't simply hero versus villain.
It's personal.
Reed Richards and Victor Doom are both incredibly intelligent characters, but they approach the world in completely different ways.
Reed wants to understand and protect reality.
Doom wants to control it.
If the multiverse really is collapsing, that ideological conflict could become the heart of Doomsday.
Why Are the X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday?
This might be the biggest development of all.
The X-Men are finally becoming part of the MCU's major crossover story.
Characters connected to the classic X-Men films are expected to appear, including Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, and Gambit.
That doesn't necessarily mean the MCU's permanent X-Men team has already been established.
Instead, it looks like Marvel is using Doomsday to bring characters from another corner of Marvel's cinematic history into the current multiverse storyline.
And that raises an obvious question:
Where do these X-Men come from?
The safest answer is that their reality is separate from the MCU's primary universe.
But why are they crossing paths with the Avengers?
That's where the multiverse comes in.
The Multiverse Is the Real Battlefield
The title Doomsday sounds like a global catastrophe.
But the bigger threat may actually be much larger than Earth.
The MCU has spent years establishing alternate realities, timelines, variants, and incursions.
Characters like Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Loki, Deadpool, and the Avengers have all interacted with different parts of the multiverse.
Now those separate stories appear to be converging.
The Comic-Con footage reportedly shows the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men preparing to confront Doom, while Doom appears to command an army of Sentinels against them.
That makes Doomsday feel less like a traditional Avengers movie and more like a collision between multiple Marvel realities.
And that's exactly what makes the movie so unpredictable.
What Are the Incursions?
If you've been following the MCU's multiverse storyline, you've probably heard the word incursion thrown around.
Basically, an incursion involves separate realities coming into conflict.
When universes begin colliding, the consequences can be catastrophic.
This concept was introduced more heavily in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and it could become one of the key pieces connecting Doomsday to Secret Wars.
If multiple realities are already unstable, Doctor Doom could potentially see himself as the only person capable of fixing the problem.
And that's where one of the movie's most interesting theories begins.
Is Doctor Doom Actually Trying to Save the Multiverse?
This hasn't been confirmed.
But it's one of the strongest theories surrounding the movie.
What if Doom doesn't believe he's the villain?
What if he believes the Avengers are the problem?
From Doom's perspective, the multiverse has been repeatedly damaged by heroes traveling through time, manipulating realities, opening portals, creating alternate timelines, and interfering with events they were never supposed to touch.
Maybe Doom looks at all of that chaos and reaches a terrifying conclusion:
Someone needs to take control.
The Comic-Con footage adds fuel to this interpretation by presenting Doom as a deeply damaged figure rather than a simple cartoon villain. His history with the Fantastic Four appears to be central to his motivation.
Of course, this remains theory until Marvel confirms Doom's actual plan.
What Does Doomsday Have to Do With Secret Wars?
This is probably the biggest question hanging over the entire movie.
Avengers: Doomsday is expected to lead directly into Avengers: Secret Wars.
In the comics, Secret Wars involves the collapse and reconstruction of reality, with Doctor Doom becoming one of the most important figures in the resulting world.
That opens the door to a huge MCU possibility.
What if Doomsday is the movie where the multiverse finally breaks?
And what if Secret Wars is about what comes after?
That would give Marvel a natural way to bring together characters from different universes, timelines, and franchises.
It could also explain why the MCU is bringing back characters from older Marvel movies.
The X-Men don't have to permanently move into Earth-616 immediately.
The Fantastic Four don't have to exist in exactly the same reality as every other hero.
And legacy characters can appear without completely rewriting their original stories.
Everything can collide during the Multiverse Saga.
Could Spider-Man Be Involved?
Spider-Man's future is another major mystery.
Tom Holland's Peter Parker remains one of the MCU's most popular characters, but his role in Doomsday has been surrounded by questions.
The post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Brand New Day appears to send Spider-Man toward a mysterious location far beyond his usual street-level world.
The movie doesn't officially confirm that this is a Doomsday setup.
But the timing is suspicious.
If Peter is being pulled into a larger multiversal storyline, Doomsday would be the obvious place for that story to expand.
And there's another possibility.
Spider-Man could become even more important in Secret Wars than in Doomsday.
For now, though, his exact role should be treated as unconfirmed.
What We Know vs. What Is Still Theory
This is where Marvel fans need to be careful.
There's already a mountain of speculation surrounding Avengers: Doomsday, but not everything online is official.
Confirmed or strongly established:
Still speculation:
That's an important distinction.
The more interesting the theory, the easier it is for fans to accidentally treat it as fact.
Why Avengers: Doomsday Could Change the MCU Forever
Marvel has already used Endgame to close one era.
Doomsday could be the movie that completely reshapes the next one.
Think about what's being thrown into the same story:
The Avengers.
The Fantastic Four.
The X-Men.
Doctor Doom.
Legacy Marvel characters.
Multiple universes.
That's an absurd amount of Marvel history in one movie.
And the fact that Secret Wars comes immediately afterward makes the possibilities even bigger.
Marvel could use these movies to merge different versions of its cinematic history into one new status quo.
Old characters could return.
New characters could take over.
Some universes could disappear.
Others could be rewritten.
And the MCU could emerge from Secret Wars looking completely different.
The Biggest Question: Who Actually Wins?
That's the mystery Marvel is keeping closest to its chest.
Doctor Doom appears powerful enough to challenge multiple superhero teams at once.
The Avengers aren't fighting alone.
The Fantastic Four are involved.
The X-Men are involved.
And yet Doom still appears to have the upper hand.
That raises a disturbing possibility.
What if the heroes don't actually win in Doomsday?
What if the movie ends with Doom achieving his objective?
If that happens, Secret Wars could begin in a world where the villain has already won.
And honestly, that might be the most interesting direction Marvel could take.
Final Thoughts
Avengers: Doomsday is shaping up to be much more than another superhero team-up.
It's looking like a collision between different generations of Marvel storytelling.
The Avengers represent the MCU's present.
The Fantastic Four represent Marvel's First Family and a major new chapter.
The X-Men bring decades of Fox-era history into the Multiverse Saga.
And Doctor Doom sits at the center of all of it.
The biggest question isn't simply whether the heroes can defeat him.
It's why Doom believes he has the right to reshape reality in the first place.
If Marvel plays this correctly, Doomsday could turn Doctor Doom into one of the MCU's most memorable villains — not because he's simply stronger than everyone else, but because he genuinely believes that his way is the only way to save what's left.
And with Secret Wars waiting on the other side, the real danger may not be that Doom destroys the MCU.
It may be that he saves it — on his own terms.
For now, one thing is certain:
The Avengers are coming back. The X-Men are coming. The Fantastic Four are in the fight. And Doctor Doom is waiting.
The MCU's next chapter is about to get very, very messy.