The Avengers: Doomsday trailers may be hiding a big clue about the movie’s connection to Avengers: Endgame. Marvel has started early with the marketing for the upcoming MCU event movie: since December 2025, four teaser trailers for Avengers: Doomsday have been released, featuring Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), some of the original X-Men (Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, and James Marsden as Cyclops), and the meeting of the Wakandans and Fantastic Four (including Letitia Wright as Shuri, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Namor, Mabel Cadena as Namora, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing).
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Naturally, the trailers have sparked a lot of speculation and theories about Doomsday‘s story, and how the characters might fit in. What is dragging Steve back into the fight? Why is Thor so shaken? What caused Cyclops to use such a powerful blast? Why are the Fantastic Four (or at least 25% of the team) in Wakanda? A lot of those questions remain unanswered for now, but one interesting theory does piece together clues that’ve been recurring through the trailers: the countdown.
Each teaser, including the post celebrating the trailers being watched one billion times combined, has a countdown for the movie alongside the title card at the end, but it could have a greater meaning. Each briefly flashes a timecode that might, it’s theorized, be a timestamp for a relevant scene from Endgame, as shared by u/Fear_Itself on Reddit:
- 1e:24ber:02020: If taken as being 1:24:20 (one hour, 24 minutes, 20 seconds) into Endgame, this correlates to the scene where Bruce Banner visits the Ancient One. He learns about the MCU timeline, how removing Infinity Stones can create new branches, and warns that millions would suffer in the potential new reality.
- 1e:17ber:02020: This takes us to the scene in Endgame where Loki briefly impersonates Captain America, right before he steals the Tesseract and escapes, creating one of the timeline’s most pivotal inflection points that continued into Disney+’s Loki.
- 1e:11ber:02020: This timestamp puts us in Asgard, where Thor and Rocket attempt to retrieve the Aether, and where Rocket asks Thor if he’s crying (later repurposed for Deadpool & Wolverine and sparking several “why was Thor crying?” theories).
- 1e:04ber:02020: Rather than taking place during the Time Heist, this scene finds the Avengers planning it, with an interaction between Scott Lang and Rocket at that specific point.
- 1e:01ber:02020: This sees Hawkeye testing the time travel equipment, being transported out of his home and back to the Avengers facility.
What Do The Endgame Time Codes Tell Us About Avengers: Doomsday?
It’s possible, of course, that there is absolutely nothing to this. That in the search for some kind of deeper meaning or tease, we’re all hearing hooves and thinking zebras. But the Russos themselves have said there are clues in these trailers, and that you can (sort of) make the numbers match up with timecodes in Avengers: Endgame is at least interesting, especially when we’re still almost a full year out from the movie.
It’s not just that the timestamps potentially exist, but that they do fit with the expected multiversal element of Avengers: Doomsday. All of these Endgame scenes are either of the Avengers planning the Time Heist, or take place when they’re already in the past, thus risking interference with the timeline. The idea here, then, is that Doomsday will explore the consequences of the Avengers’ actions, and show how they had a bigger impact on the multiverse.
One of the biggest theories regarding Steve Rogers’ return is that he’s being targeted by Doctor Doom. It goes that Steve staying in the past (whether he crossed timelines/universes or not is a matter of contention between even the writers and directors) caused an incursion that impacted Doom’s universe, perhaps even leading to the destruction of it and the death of his family. Another is that Doom is actually more of a hero, at least in his own mind: that incursions are destroying the multiverse, and he’s on a mission to save it, albeit at a cost (and that price perhaps includes him becoming ruler of the remaining universe).
As wild as some theories can get, and there’s reason to be slightly skeptical over the timestamps, Endgame having some repercussions that are explored in Doomsday does make sense. This would allow for greater connectivity from one Avengers movie to the other, and Marvel will likely want to find ways like that to better tie things together, given the scattered Multiverse Saga has been criticized for a lack of joined-up thinking. The Time Heist was the way to stop Thanos, but it’s not unthinkable that, in some way, it led to Doom.
Avengers: Doomsday will be released on December 18th, 2026.
What are your Doomsday theories? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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