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This post contains rumors for Avengers: Doomsday, and sometimes rumors turn into spoilers.
Steve Rogers told us back in World War II: he can do this all day. Turns out, he will be doing it for all time, because the first teaser for Avengers: Doomsday is out and it’s all about Steve. The short teaser, which leaked earlier this week and is the first of four that will be attached to Avatar: Fire and Ash over the next several weeks, is all vibe and little plot. Set to a slow, instrumental version of Alan Silvestri’s score from The Avengers, we see Steve park his motorcycle in front of a nice ranch house, and go inside to cradle a baby. “Steve Rogers will return,” says the font on screen.
By this point, it should come as no surprise that Chris Evans would return to the role. Not only did he put a particularly foul-mouthed spin on Johnny Storm for Deadpool & Wolverine, but his fellow Avengers: Endgame casualty Robert Downey Jr. is back, this time as Marvel’s greatest supervillain Victor Von Doom. But the real question remains: why is Steve back for Doomsday? As expected, the internet has a theory. And this one is actually pretty good.
The big question surrounding Doomsday has been, “Why does Doctor Doom, the dictator of Latveria with a famously scarred face, look like Tony Stark?” Joe and Anthony Russo, also joining Downey Jr. and Evans in returning to Marvel, have said that there’s a legitimate story reason for the actor to play Doom, and that still leaves a lot of possibilities. The most obvious reason is that Tony Stark is Doctor Doom on some other Earth, and so the person that RDJ plays in Doomsday is a Variant of the Tony we know and love.
But the Steve Rogers focus in the first trailer, and the buzz about another trailer focusing on Thor, has led some to wonder if Downey Jr. is actually playing Victor Von Doom of Latveria from another reality, and that he’s chosen to look like Tony Stark to mess with the Earth-616 Avengers. And who better to mess with than Steve Rogers, the man who always admired Stark, even when they clashed?
So the next question is, why is Doom mad at Steve? And that’s where the rumors get interesting.
The prevalent rumor is based on the end of Avengers: Endgame, when Steve went back in time to return the Infinity Stones. Obviously, Steve changed things on his cross-time trek, getting to spend his life with Peggy instead of staying in the ice to be thawed out decades later. When the Joe Biden-looking Steve shows up at the end of Endgame to hand over his shield to Sam, we just assumed all was well, that he changed everything for the better.
But what if those changes had a cost? And what if someone else had to pay it? The prevalent Doomsday rumor suggests that something that Steve did while returning the stones and changing his past caused an Incursion in Doom’s reality. Incursions, MCU fans might remember, are when two Earths from different realities interact, resulting in the destruction of one or both. So great was the devastation left by the Steve-caused Incursion that Doom has launched a plan to get revenge, starting by modeling himself after Captain America’s greatest ally, Tony Stark.
That reading has its compelling and troubling aspects. On one hand, it allows Doomsday to tie directly into Endgame, assuring strict continuity between both. Further, it allows the story to focus on the core team, and give Robert Downey Jr. a good reason to come back without undercutting the power of Tony’s death.
On the other hand, it totally misses the point of Doctor Doom. Perhaps if his country Latveria is particularly destroyed, then Doom would go on such a mission. But generally, Doom is above such petty things as revenge. Moreover, Doom may not respect Steve Rogers or Tony Stark, but there’s only one man he truly hates, and that’s Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.
But it’s not worth getting too angry about yet. Right now, all we have is a teaser and we’re still in speculation mode. All we know right now is this, that the universe is in danger and Steve Rogers is once again ready to stand up against bullies, just like he’s been doing since World War II.
Avengers: Doomsday comes to theaters on December 18, 2026.
The post Avengers: Doomsday – Captain America Return Supports an Endgame Fan Theory appeared first on Den of Geek.
