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Face front, Marvel fans, because Avengers: Endgame – Encore is now in theaters. The limited rerelease of the Infinity Saga’s finale is actually quite a big event for the MCU, because it has additional footage for the IMAX and Infinity Vision versions of the film. We can also confirm that the leaked footage is indeed legitimate, with a new ending where Loki visits Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, and additional post-credits scenes that connect to Avengers: Doomsday. But now that we’ve seen this new footage, has Marvel tipped their hand as to what Doctor Doom’s plan is in the next Avengers installment? Going by the scene where Doom kidnaps Bruce Banner, it appears that Doom may in fact be putting together his own team of heroes!
How would this work? Let’s look at the comics and the implications of Encore’s additional footage to piece it together.
Is the MCU Adapting Time Runs Out?
Now that we’ve seen the extra scenes from Encore, it seems clearer than ever that the Russo Brothers turned to Jonathan Hickman’s run on New Avengers for inspiration when shaping Avengers: Doomsday. While we always knew that Secret Wars was coming, and that the film would most likely be based on the 2015 version of the event, adapting the events from Hickman’s Avengers run that led into that Secret Wars was not a guarantee. After all, the fifth Avengers movie was originally supposed to be The Kang Dynasty before Jonathan Majors was fired and the Multiverse Saga switched gears to feature Doctor Doom. Now that Doom is set in place, it makes sense to use more of Hickman’s material from New Avengers, which was a multi-year saga about a group of Marvel’s most intelligent heroes trying to prevent the death of the multiverse.
If you aren’t familiar with the comics, here’s a brief rundown. Hickman’s New Avengers actually starred the Illuminati — a team consisting of Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Black Panther, Namor, Doctor Strange, Beast, and Black Bolt. Together they worked in secret to stop the threat of the Incursions, which occur when Earths from two different realities collide, destroying both universes in the process. However, the book is far more depressing and tragic than most superhero fare, with the heroes betraying their morals and turning on each other as it becomes more and more apparent that no matter what they try, the death of the multiverse is inescapable. They even go so far as to destroy other Earths before they can collide with Earth-616, the primary Earth of Marvel comics, but it only delays the inevitable.
This arc culminated in a story called Time Runs Out, where the Illuminati can no longer keep a lid on the multiversal collapse. Doctor Doom has been working on his own plan to destroy the Beyonders, who are responsible for the Incursions; he steals the Beyonders’ power, which he uses to create Battleworld from the shattered remnants of the remaining universes. He then remakes himself as God Emperor Doom and uses his cosmic powers to hold what is left of reality together. Fans of the comics will certainly want to see Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom ascend to God Emperor form in Secret Wars, but when it comes to Doomsday, the recent trailers and the new Encore footage point to the MCU giving us a live-action take on the Illuminati trying to prevent the collapse of the multiverse.
Is Doctor Doom Going to Lead the Illuminati?
Although we saw an alternate version of the Illuminati hailing from Earth-838 in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the team hasn’t yet appeared in the mainline MCU. Conventional wisdom dictates that Doctor Doom would be the film’s main antagonist — the movie is called Doomsday after all — but what if the title has more than one meaning? Yes, the film features Doctor Doom, but could it not also mean that the end times are coming? That would certainly track with the new scene in Encore where the TVA find themselves scrambling as they monitor thousands of Incursions, with Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros saying that “the multiverse is collapsing.” Did the MCU’s Doctor Doom cause the Incursions, or is he actually trying to save what’s left of the multiverse?
Going by the Doomsday footage, I’m inclined to say the latter. The TVA scene in Encore reveals that one of the worlds in danger is Earth-10005, aka the Fox X-Men reality. This tracks with a shot in the first Doomsday trailer where Patrick Stewart’s Professor X looks up to see another planet falling out of the sky. I’ve long theorized that the X-Men are doomed (!) in Avengers: Doomsday; Doom needing to destroy the Fox X-Men’s Earth to save another reality would be the perfect way to establish the movie’s stakes. Perhaps the scene from the trailer where Doom activates an army of Sentinels to fight the heroes isn’t the climactic finale, but actually a scene early on before Doom has managed to relay the gravity of the situation to everyone else.
The Encore scene where Doom kidnaps Bruce Banner also supports this theory. In the comics, Bruce was a late addition to the Illuminati who the others didn’t want to have involved because of his past with the group — after all, they were the ones who shot him into space. But Banner is smart enough to figure out what’s happening on his own, and joins the team midway through the story. While some may think the MCU’s Doom wants Banner for his gamma-powered alter ego, what if he actually wants Banner’s mind? Is Bruce Banner the first recruit in Doom’s version of the Illuminati? Will Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards have no choice but to join forces with his greatest enemy? And what about the Latverian Witches whose costumes we saw at San Diego Comic-Con? Is that a pathway for Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch to finally return to the MCU as a member of Doom’s team?
Perhaps the plot of Doomsday is less about the heroes working together to confront Doom, and instead sees them divided over how to handle the threat of the Incursions. Maybe that’s the explanation for why Shang-Chi is fighting Gambit, or why Invisible Woman appears to be battling Namor. We won’t know for sure until Doomsday drops in December, but for now, the new teases from Encore are certainly tantalizing.
What do you think will happen in Avengers: Doomsday? Let us know in the comments!
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles, and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.
