I am a nostalgia packrat. As a historian and a human, I will take things from the past and hoard them like it’s loo roll in 2020.
I went to London to watch Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in a Shakespeare play because of the MCU connection… and because Tom ripped his shirt open. But that’s not the point.
The point is, I should be excited about Avengers: Doomsday.
It’s an Avengers film. Doctor Doom is finally entering the MCU properly. The cast is enormous, the stakes are apparently astronomical, and Marvel is very clearly positioning this as the next Infinity War/Endgame-level event.
And yet every new thing I see from it makes me want it slightly less. Every sneak peak and trailer leaves me with more worries.
Maybe the problem is that I actually liked the ending we already had.
Robert Downey Jr. Is Iron Man
Let’s start with the enormous metal elephant in the room: Robert Downey Jr. is Doctor Doom.
Except, to me, Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man.
Yes, actors are capable of playing more than one character. Obviously. But this isn’t an actor returning after playing some minor MCU character fifteen years ago. Robert Downey Jr. was the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for more than a decade.
Tony Stark started the MCU.
We watched him become Iron Man, build the Avengers, repeatedly make terrible decisions, try to fix those terrible decisions, become a mentor to Peter Parker, build a family and ultimately sacrifice himself to save everyone.
His death was arguably the emotional centre of Avengers: Endgame.
Now the same actor is back as one of Marvel’s biggest villains.
I’m willing to be convinced if his face actually matters.
If Doom looks like Tony Stark for some multiversal reason and Marvel intends to explore what that does to these characters, there is potentially something fascinating there. Imagine Peter Parker looking into the face of the man who was effectively his mentor and finding Doctor Doom looking back. Imagine Thor facing someone who looks exactly like his dead friend. Imagine Doom deliberately using that resemblance against them.
That could work.
But if Robert Downey Jr. is simply playing Victor von Doom and everyone is expected to politely ignore the fact that he looks exactly like Tony Stark, then I have one question:
Why?
There are other actors.
Quite a few of them, actually.
Steve Rogers Already Got His Ending
Then there’s Steve Rogers.
I love Steve. He is my favourite Avenger. My car is named after him (because it is the perfect Cap blue obviously). That is precisely why I don’t particularly want him back.
Endgame gave Steve something the MCU had denied him from the beginning: a life.
For years, Steve sacrificed everything. He lost his own time, his friends, Peggy, his chance at an ordinary existence and then spent movie after movie throwing himself into danger for everyone else.
And after all of that, he finally got to stop.
He returned the Infinity Stones. He went back to Peggy. He had his dance. He grew old. He passed the shield to Sam.
It was done.
More importantly, we waited for years to hear Captain America finally say “Avengers… assemble.” Endgame delivered it at exactly the moment it needed to happen, as part of the culmination of an entire era of the MCU.
So why are we digging Steve back up again?
There may well be a clever explanation. This is the Multiverse Saga, after all, and Doomsday could still find a way of using Steve without literally undoing his ending.
But seeing a young Steve Rogers back in an Avengers movie doesn’t automatically make me excited. It makes me protective of the ending he already had.
Not every beloved character needs to remain available forever.
Sometimes an ending is good because it ends.
“You’ve All Lived Stolen Lives”
And then Doctor Doom says:
“All of you have lived stolen lives. Now you must give them back.”
Excuse me?
Is this Avengers: Final Destination??
Is Doom about to arrive with a clipboard informing everyone that they actually should have died three films ago?
Steve Rogers? You were supposed to die in 1945.
Bucky Barnes? We have several outstanding matters to discuss.
Thor? Frankly, the paperwork here is extensive.
I know there will presumably be an actual explanation involving timelines, incursions, alternate universes or some other piece of multiversal chaos. Marvel has spent years establishing people interfering with time and reality, so the line probably isn’t quite as random as it sounds in a trailer.
But at the moment it feels less ominous to me than vaguely administrative.
You’ve exceeded your allocated lifespan. Please return it at your earliest convenience.
Making a Joke Out of Thanos
This is where I start having a bigger problem.
The trailer shows Thor attacking Doom with Stormbreaker.
Doom stops him.
Very easily.
And I understand exactly what Marvel is trying to communicate with that scene: this guy is terrifyingly powerful.
Except we have done this before.
One of the reasons Thanos worked so well was that Marvel spent years establishing what an enormous threat he represented. By Infinity War, he felt almost inevitable.
Thor eventually drove Stormbreaker straight into Thanos’s chest and it still wasn’t enough to stop the Snap.
That moment meant something because Thanos had been built into the ultimate threat.
So when Doom casually deals with Thor, I don’t immediately think, “Wow, Doom is terrifying.”
Part of me thinks, “Well, what was the point of Thanos then?”
There is a danger with superhero films of falling into an endless cycle of power escalation.
Here is the strongest villain anyone has ever faced.
Actually, here is someone stronger.
Wait. Here is someone even stronger than him.
Eventually your supposedly unstoppable previous villain starts looking considerably less impressive.
And Doctor Doom doesn’t need that.
Doom Does Not Need to Be Thanos 2.0
Doctor Doom is interesting enough without simply making him the next person capable of punching harder than Thanos.
Doom has intelligence, technology, magic, political power, arrogance, manipulation and an absolutely monumental ego.
Let him be dangerous because he is Doctor Doom.
Make him outthink the Avengers. Make him manipulate them. Make them discover that he planned for the thing they thought would defeat him. Give him control over situations they don’t understand.
There are dozens of ways to establish Doom as an Avengers-level threat without effectively putting a number above his head saying his power level is now higher than the previous boss.
Because if every Avengers movie requires a villain demonstrably stronger than the last one, where does it end?
Thanos Had Something Doom Hasn’t Had: Time
There’s another problem here too.
Thanos didn’t suddenly arrive in Infinity War.
Marvel teased him in The Avengers in 2012. He appeared again in Guardians of the Galaxy. The Infinity Stones gradually became more important. The threat sat in the background for years.
By the time Infinity War arrived, audiences knew something enormous was coming.
Doom hasn’t had that luxury.
Marvel is now asking him to occupy an enormous space in this universe remarkably quickly.
That doesn’t mean it cannot work. A good film can establish an exceptional villain very quickly.
But it does mean that simply showing me Doom overpowering Thor isn’t going to manufacture the same feeling of inevitability that Thanos had.
You cannot shortcut years of storytelling by making the new villain stronger.
Endgame Worked Because Things Had Consequences
This, ultimately, is my biggest problem with Doomsday.
Endgame worked because it felt final.
Tony died.
Steve left.
Natasha died.
Sam inherited the shield.
Thor continued into a different part of his life.
The original Avengers were no longer simply waiting around for another team-up.
There was loss. There was change. There were consequences.
The MCU spent more than a decade asking audiences to invest in these people, and then Endgame rewarded that investment by actually completing their stories.
That is increasingly rare in enormous franchises.
So I don’t want Marvel to make me care about endings and then discover that those endings are only valid until the studio wants those actors back.
Tony Stark’s death should matter.
Steve Rogers choosing his own life should matter.
Sam becoming Captain America should matter.
Thanos being the culmination of the Infinity Saga should matter.
If Doomsday can bring these characters back while respecting all of those things, brilliant. I genuinely hope it does.
But nostalgia isn’t automatically storytelling.
Seeing Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans again doesn’t automatically make something feel like The Avengers.
And making Doctor Doom stronger than the last villain doesn’t automatically make him scarier.
At the moment, Avengers: Doomsday feels to me less like the MCU confidently moving into its next era and more like it nervously looking over its shoulder at the era everybody loved.
Maybe the film will prove me completely wrong.
I hope it does.
But right now?
They should have left the endings alone.
It Feels Like a Cash Grab
And maybe this is the part that bothers me most: it all feels so incredibly cash-grabby.
Marvel has spent the years since Endgame trying to establish a new era of the MCU, and the response has been decidedly mixed. Some projects have succeeded, others have been heavily criticised, and the franchise has struggled to recreate the sense that absolutely everybody needs to see what happens next.
So what happens when the new era isn’t generating the same excitement as the old one?
Robert Downey Jr. is back.
Chris Evans is back.
The Avengers are back.
Suddenly Marvel is reaching into the box containing all the things we loved about the Infinity Saga and pulling them back out again.
And look, I am hardly opposed to nostalgia. I opened this article by admitting that I hoard the past like loo roll in 2020. I am the target market for this nonsense.
But good nostalgia gives you something new through something familiar. This currently feels more like Marvel pointing at Robert Downey Jr. and yelling, “LOOK! REMEMBER WHEN YOU LIKED US?”
That is a very different thing.
Maybe Doomsday will justify every one of these decisions. Maybe RDJ playing Doom will turn out to be integral to the story. Maybe Steve’s return won’t undermine his ending at all. Maybe it will all make perfect sense when we actually see the film.
But from where I’m sitting now, it feels uncomfortably like Marvel knows how much affection audiences still have for the Infinity Saga and is cashing that cheque again.
And that makes me less excited, not more.
I’m Not the Only One
These concerns have been appearing elsewhere since the Doomsday footage arrived.
Writing for Ready Steady Cut, Jonathon Wilson argued that Downey is so inseparable from Tony Stark that recasting him as Doom risks undermining the emotional weight of Tony’s Endgame conclusion. He also criticised Steve Rogers’ return for potentially weakening both Steve’s ending and Sam Wilson’s succession as Captain America, describing the reliance on the original Avengers as nostalgia-driven. (Ready Steady Cut)
CinemaBlend’s Rich Knight has expressed a similar frustration with Marvel returning to familiar faces, writing of Downey’s casting: “It feels like we’re languishing in the past.” He also described Chris Evans’ return as feeling “desperate,” arguing that Doom represented an opportunity for the MCU to start fresh rather than reconnect itself so heavily to its earliest era. (Cinemablend)
Some fan reactions collected by TheWrap have focused on another issue: Doom simply hasn’t had the build-up Thanos received. One viewer said there had been “zero buildup to Doom,” leaving them without the investment they had going into Infinity War and Endgame. Another described the trailer as “Things Happening with no buildup,” while a third joked that the movie looked like “2 hours and 30 minutes of smashing action figures together.” (TheWrap)
The reaction to Steve Rogers has been more divided. Plenty of fans were delighted to see him again, particularly when he demonstrated that he could still wield Mjolnir. But other coverage has noted exactly the opposite reaction: concern that returning to a younger Steve risks undermining the emotional conclusion Marvel gave him in Endgame. (TheWrap)
Interestingly, the Stormbreaker scene has produced almost the inverse of my reaction. Some viewers have interpreted Doom stopping Thor’s weapon with ease as an exciting demonstration of just how powerful he is, with one asking whether Doom could be “stronger than even Thanos.” (TheWrap)
And perhaps that perfectly illustrates the divide.
For some people, seeing Doom casually overpower Thor raises the stakes.
For me, it raises a different question.
If every new threat has to make the last supposedly unstoppable threat look ordinary, eventually where do the stakes have left to go?
We already watched Steve say “Avengers Assemble”. What more do we want?
