After much anticipation, we have finally seen the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, but so much of the story has been a mystery up to this point. This film was originally announced in 2022 as Avengers: Kang Dynasty, but due to some behind-the-scenes controversy, the actor who played Kang was dropped by Marvel. Many fans assumed there would either be a recast or the film would just be removed from the production schedule altogether. Howeever, in 2024 at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige shocked the world by announcing that the film would be retitled Avengers: Doomsday with Robert Downey Jr. returning to play the titular villain, Dr. Doom.
Not only was it shocking to see Downey return as an entirely different character, but he was now going to embody Marvel Comics’ most iconic villain. Swapping Kang out for Dr. Doom wasn’t as crazy as it may seem, though, since Avengers: Doomsday was always intended to lead into Avengers: Secret Wars. "Secret Wars" is the name of an immensely popular comic event which featured Dr. Doom becoming an all-powerful being who recreates the multiverse in his image.
Since the announcement, there have been minor teases to the scale of Avengers: Doomsday, such as Marvel’s chair livestream which slowly revealed the grand size of the cast. Several extremely short teasers were also released that showed the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Thor, and Steve Rogers would all be returning to battle Dr. Doom in this film. Now that the first trailer has finally been released, we are finally getting a grasp on what the actual plot of this movie will be. This is everything the first Avengers: Doomsday trailer tells us about the film!
Doom’s Motivation
Quite possibly the most important aspect of an antagonist: what is their motivation? In the comics, Dr. Doom’s journey to villainy is fueled by a desire to save his mother from Hell, which leads him to become a master of mystic arts and technology. Along the way, he meets Reed Richards, who he blames for disfiguring his face in a lab accident. While Doom is envious and egotistical, he is not illogical. There is always a reason for his plans, and sometimes he even has a common goal as the heroes. From the first few seconds of this trailer, we see the X-Mansion in shambles and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) looking out the window to see some blinding bright light. While this could be a typical attack from the sentinels, Dr. Doom’s voiceover suggests otherwise. Doom is explaining that "Something is coming. Something we may not be able to deter," and to stop this impending destruction an "unthinkable decision" must be faced.
Based on the events that lead up to "Secret Wars" in the comics and some prior MCU information, the threat of this film becomes obvious: Incursions. In the comics, Incursions occur when two parallel Earths from different universes begin to occupy the same space, which causes the two Earths to collide unless one of them is destroyed beforehand. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this concept is introduced to the MCU, albeit they elaborate that Incursions are typically caused by excessive multiverse travel or tampering. The Russos have made it very clear that this film builds off of Avengers: Endgame, a film that features the team traveling across separate parallel universes and even leaving Steve Rogers to live happily in one of them. Incursions are definitely occurring, and they are almost certainly what is causing the destruction of the X-Men’s universe. Dr. Doom, being the Machiavellian individual he is, is most likely attempting to stop these incursions by any means necessary.
Thor’s Encounter
Now Doom’s motivation is pretty clear, but who brings together all of these teams to face him? It seems like Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is taking the leadership role in this film. After Doom, Thor picks up the voiceover with a staunch warning that carries through the rest of the trailer. Thor’s speech ultimately amounts to Dr. Doom being the biggest threat he has ever faced, the heroes must work together to defeat him, the battle may result in all of their deaths, and they need a "miracle" to win. We see that Thor is giving this speech to the Fantastic Four, The New Avengers, Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and Ant Man (Paul Rudd) in Avengers Tower. We also see that Thor walks in with the Fantastic Four, so it is safe to assume he has assembled this team with the sole purpose of defeating Doom. How does he know how dangerous Doom is? Although the clips are split up through the trailer, we see a fight between only Thor and Dr. Doom in which Thor lunges at Doom with a fully charged Stormbreaker, only to be stopped by a mere two fingers. Presumably, this fight takes place at the beginning of the movie, which is how Thor is aware of Dr. Doom’s immense power.
There are a couple possibilities as to why Thor faces Dr. Doom alone in the first place. Firstly, it could have been set up by Loki (Tom Hiddleston). There is comic precedent for Dr. Doom’s goal to steal some godlike power to halt the incursions. As of right now, the most powerful character in Marvel is Loki. At the end of "Loki" Season 2, he is literally holding the strands of the multiverse together with his bare hands, and he is seemingly a sort of time god. In the Avengers: Doomsday concept that was just released, Loki is positioned under Doom’s face, which could allude to his intentions. Doom could be attempting to steal Loki’s power, which could cause Loki to summon his most powerful ally, Thor. This would also explain why the Doom vs Thor fight takes place in a vast Void, which could be the same big, empty dimension that debuted in the "Loki" series.
It is also possible that this fight occurs after Dr. Doom has already ascended to godhood. Doom is powerful in the comics but typically not powerful enough to stop Thor’s axe without even flinching. In Thor: Love and Thunder, we learn that Thor has a connection to the other gods of the MCU like Zeus, Baast, and Bao. Perhaps Doom is going around defeating these beings to absorb their powers, which is a magical technique we have seen employed in Marvel’s "What if?" series. This disturbance in godly powers would also explain why it is specifically Thor who is drawn into battle against Doom. Regardless of how they come to blows, Doom either defeats or brushes off Thor, which inspires him to assemble a team.
The Wakandans and The Atlanteans
The rest of the trailer makes it clear that this aforementioned group splits up into smaller teams who go on their own missions. The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Falcon (Danny Ramirez), and some of the New Avengers go to meet with the Wakandans. An interesting wrinkle is that the Wakandans seem to have formed an alliance with the Atlanteans, whom they were just at war with in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Clearly Shuri (Letitia Wright) defeating Namor (Tenoch Huerta) led to some mutual respect between the nations. Seemingly, this team’s goal is to recruit the massive Atlantean and Wakandan armies to prepare for an encounter with Doom. Both of these nations also have valuable resources, brilliant minds, and a lot of land where they can have battles away from civilians. Namor has used his control over the seas to part the ocean and leave a big open landscape for the assortment of heroes to organize.
We don’t actually know if they fight Doom at this location, but we do get a clear shot of Namor in battle with someone. A popular theory is that Dr. Doom arrives here and decimates both armies along with Namor. Namor could also turn on the heroes -- he has a villainous past and, in the comics, he is one of the most antagonistic forces leading up to "Secret Wars". Nevertheless, whatever is supposed to happen here must go horribly wrong, as this was supposed to be a meeting ground but it seems to turn into a fight.
The X-Men
The other group of heroes somehow find themselves at the ruins of the X-Mansion. This group consists of Yelena (Florence Pugh), Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Shang-Chi (Shin Lim), H.E.R.B.I.E, and Sam Wilson. It is unclear how this team has ended up in a parallel universe, but it can be assumed that it is intentional, since Mr. Fantastic is on the team and he would have the know-how to do so. This leads to a typical fight of heroes that is caused by a misunderstanding. The Russos love doing this, so it should be no surprise that we see Gambit (Channing Tatum) face Shang-Chi, Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) face Yelena, and reportedly Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) faces Reed.
We know from the concept images that this X-Men team will at the very least consist of Cyclops (James Marsden), Professor X, Magneto (Ian McKellen), Mystique, Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Beast (Kelsey Grammer). It is safe to assume this is some variation of the Fox X-Men, but they have a clearly lived world as Magneto and Mystique typically do not turn to the side of good until later in their careers. This will certainly end with the groups joining forces -- the X-Men could serve as a good source of information since they must have clearly already faced horrible destruction on their world.
Steve Rogers
As the trailer concludes, Thor is bewildered to see his old friend Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who quickly proves himself to be real by summoning Mjolnir. Wherever Thor is, he is not with the rest of the teams he just assembled. This reunion most likely takes place prior to Thor’s assembling of teams, and Steve is merely edited out of those scenes. Marvel Studios does this often to confuse audiences and avoid spoiling key details from their films. The reason why this seems so likely is that Thor and Steve are on a ship, and outside the window you can see a very bright light. This is the exact light that we see at the beginning of the trailer outside of the X-Mansion. It seems that means Thor and Steve are part of the team that journeys to the X-Men’s universe. This would make a lot of sense, because it follows Infinity War’s structure of two separate teams fighting the main threat in different locations.
That is all that we can solidly piece together from the first trailer, but a few questions still remain unanswered. Where is Ant-Man? Where is Loki? Both characters are featured in the trailers but not specifically shown with either team. Does one, or even both of them, die early on in an encounter with Dr. Doom? As of now, we have no real way of knowing how many characters Doom will take down on his crusade for power. Clearly Marvel is keeping a lot of details very hidden; it’s very possible that the trailers have only shown the first third of the movie and not even revealed the full cast. We are desperate to find out more and we cannot wait to see this film in theaters this December!
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