There are (surprisingly) quite a few notions to mull over. One idea that’s been floating around is that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will both be split into two movies, and these four trailers represent the four movies coming our way. This seems very unlikely. It is quite hard to keep two additional whole-ass movies a secret, especially when planning releases around exhibitors. Is it possible, though? Mmmmaybe, but a stretch.
More intriguing is the idea that the footage we’ve seen in these trailers won’t even appear in Avengers: Doomsday. What we’ve witnessed to date are simply stories from the multiverse. Cap raises a family in one timeline. Thor wishes for a return to his daughter in another. The X-Men face a Sentinel threat in the third. And now, our mix of Shuri, Namor, M’Baku, and Ben is far from home. Some have even pondered whether these events could be taking place in different areas of Battleworld, the fictional patchwork planet that serves as a setting for various Secret Wars comic events. Both of these theories are interesting.
But another theory is also compelling, and rooted in what little we know about MCU Doctor Doom so far. We have only seen him in a post-credits scene at the end of Fantastic Four: First Steps, where he was ingratiating himself with little Franklin Richards. Could these “stories” be clues to Doom’s master plan? After all, the first trailer shows Steve Rogers and his baby, a baby that isn’t supposed to exist, a baby that he created with Peggy Carter after using time travel. In the second trailer, Thor is focused on his daughter, Love, recreated from Gorr’s Eternity wish. In the third trailer, the X-Men are located in the ruins of Xavier’s School. What’s missing? The children.
This theory also applies to the new fourth trailer. Shuri says she’s lost everyone that matters to her. We know that certainly wasn’t true before Avengers: Doomsday because she discovered she had a nephew at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – T’Challa’s and Nakia’s child, Toussaint. Franklin Richards is also nowhere to be seen here. So, has Doom taken the children? If he has, what does he want with them?
Not to go full Columbo, but just one more thing: both Marvel and Robert Downey Jr., who plays Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, posted a brief shot of the empty desert instead of the full teaser in their social media stories, which has led us to believe that this fourth trailer might have visually scrubbed someone important from that meeting. There’s quite a big space next to Ben Grimm – it could very well be Victor von Doom standing there.
Things may or may not become clearer as we get closer to Avengers: Doomsday. We’re expecting at least a couple more trailers before then, but whether they will help us unravel the mystery of Doctor Doom (and why he looks exactly like Tony Stark) remains to be seen.
