Good morning. Happy Monday. After months of vague teases and trolls, Marvel just dropped a proper trailer for Avengers: Doomsday. So grab your coffee, wipe the sleep from your eyes, and letâs break down everything we saw in the trailer.
The X-Men mansion has seen better days
The trailer opens with a shot of Charles Xavierâs School for Gifted Youngsters, and it seems like itâs either been mostly abandoned for a while or just hasnât been maintained. The sign out front welcoming new mutant students has fallen, and Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier is shown looking out the window at some kind of tear in the sky. The last X-Men-centric teaser for the movie showed the mansion in a state of disrepair, so whatever is happening to the X-Men in Doomsday seems to be some bleak âend of daysâ shit for the mutants in the multiverse.Â
Robert Downey Jr. is putting on an accent
Robert Downey Jr. is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Doctor Doom after hanging up his Iron Man suit back in 2019âs Avengers: Endgame. Though his interactions with other characters are brief in the trailer, he does have a voiceover at the beginning in which heâs putting on an accent. RDJâs casting was criticized by some when it was first announced, both because it felt like a nostalgia play for lapsed MCU fans and because the character Victor von Doom is of Romani descent and has been whitewashed before in appearances like the 2005 Fantastic Four movie.The actor putting on an accent isnât going to make that criticism go away.
The Fantastic Four made it safely to the MCUâs universe
The Thunderbolts* post-credits scene showed the First Familyâs ship arriving in the MCU after the events of Fantastic Four: First Steps, though that movie didnât really get into what would have made those heroes retreat to another side of the multiverse. The post-credits scene did show Doctor Doom taking an interest in Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Womanâs son, and while that obviously implies that the group may be on the run from Doomsdayâs big bad, we didnât get any real time with the character to get a sense of what he wants.
Thor seems to have become a de facto leader
Thor is one of the last remaining founding members of the Avengers after most of the group has either died or retired, and despite not being technically associated with the organization anymore, it seems like the New Avengers have some respect for him. We see him giving a speech to the new crew telling them not-so-encouraging things about how stronger heroes have died to threats that scared him less than Doctor Doom. I get youâre trying to illustrate the stakes, big guy, but read the room, maybe?
The fight to come will involve heroes outside of the Avengers
We now see a few shots of characters who may not be officially under the Avengers umbrella, but will be dragged into this fight in one way or another. Shuri meets with Namor on his throne in the underwater kingdom of Talokan, now that they have a precarious alliance following the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but even that doesnât seem to have lasted long as we see the Wakandans facing Talokanil soldiers in the throne room.
What is going on with the mutants in this movie?
At this point, itâs still unclear just how the mutants factor into this story. We see the X-Mansion getting blown up, Cyclops runs in with his cool new comic-accurate blue-and-yellow suit, but then we see Channing Tatumâs Gambit fighting Shang-Chi of all people? What is going on that would pit these two against each other? We later see Yelena and Mystique going at it, too. In theory, sheâs typically a villain in the X-Men stories, but Magneto and his crew typically have an ideological reason for the sides they take in conflicts instead of just being âthe bad guys,â and itâs unclear at this point what could have them at odds with the Avengers. These fights seem to be happening in the ruins of the X-Men mansion, so it looks like the Avengers will be doing some multiverse-hopping. To what end? That remains to be seen.
Loki is also here
Lokiâs role in Doomsday is especially unclear right now, after the antihero became the overseer of the multiverse at the end of his showâs finale. Now, he seems to be free from the bindings of the tree-like structure he occupied at the end of the show, but itâs unclear what role he plays in the conflict at large.
Prepare for Namor and Sue banter
Though we donât actually see the two interacting directly, the Doomsday trailer does make a point to highlight that Namor and Invisible Woman will be onscreen together for the first time in the MCU, and the two have a complicated relationship in the comics. Though Iâd be surprised if we get a full Sue and Namor subplot in an already crowded movie, if I were a betting man Iâd put money on the two having some banter in which Namor flirts with her.
Doctor Doom is an aurafarming edgy man
The biggest display of Doctor Doomâs strength in this movie is that we see him stop Thorâs Stormbreaker axe with two fingers. I guess that does a lot of heavy lifting to illustrate that heâs a powerful entity, because the MCUâs pivot to Doom has felt rushed, and thatâs putting it mildly. As of right now, the only time heâs actually appeared in the movies is in First Stepsâ very brief post-credits scene, in which he doesnât speak or so much as turn to the camera. If weâve got Thor quaking in his boots, we need to at least see Doom whoop his ass, and I guess thatâs something.Â
So who could possibly face such a threat? Steve Rogers, apparently
We now see Thor and the original Captain America reuniting after Steve did some time travel shenanigans to live a life with Peggy Carter at the end of Endgame. Whatever the Doctor Doom threat entails, it has come for Steveâs quiet life and forced him to come back to the present day to assist. It will be interesting to see how Doomsday and next yearâs Secret Wars close the time loop to let us meet the older Steve at the end of Endgame, but I suppose thereâs nothing that says that version of him hadnât also lived through the events of Doomsday. He was very cagey about discussing the life heâd lived since time traveling, so theoretically Marvel could drag him out of time every time the MCU has hit a snag.
Avengers: Doomsday is coming to theaters on December 18.