5 Marvel Heroes Doom Needs to Target First In Order to Win in Avengers: Doomsday

Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame Encore follow.

Rumors and select scenes from the trailers released so far suggest that Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) will pose as an ally to some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s heroes for part of Avengers: Doomsday, though one would think his name would be enough to make them suspicious of him. But it also seems that Victor, unsurprisingly, will covertly take more direct action against certain other heroes early on. One of the mid-credits scenes in the Encore rerelease of Avengers: Endgame showed Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) being abducted from military custody by Victor, who states that he’s come to “collect,” him, implying that he’s either hoping to recruit Bruce to his own mysterious team or imprison or kill him to remove a powerful potential enemy from the upcoming multiversal conflict.

It wouldn’t be a huge shock if Victor’s also collected some of Marvel’s other most powerful heroes like Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) or Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) offscreen, which would explain their conspicuous absences from Doomsday’s confirmed roster of characters. But there are also several characters among the film’s already announced cast who could pose particularly big threats to whatever Victor’s true plans are, meaning they’ll also likely be targeted.

5) Loki

Most viewers who have been following Marvel’s Multiverse Saga assume that Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) formerly villainous brother will play a central role in Doom’s plans. At the end of his spin-off series’ second season Loki (Tom Hiddleston) takes it upon himself to hold the infinite timelines and worlds of the multiverse together, even though at the time he believed doing so meant he would have to leave his loved ones. This presumably makes him the most powerful and influential character in the multiverse, as it only exists in its current form because of him. Loki’s appearance in the final scene of Endgame Encore suggests that he may play a more active, less isolated, role than initially expected in Doomsday, but Victor will still presumably have to take his newfound powers for his own if he is going to remake all of existence in his image as he does in the Jonathan Hickman comic book storyline Doomsday and next year’s Avengers: Secret Wars are based on.

4) Mr. Fantastic

Doomsday’s trailers suggest that Victor will develop especially personal conflicts with certain other heroes, such as Thor and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans,) but they also confirm that like most of his comic counterparts, he already has a complicated history with the Fantastic Four, the heroes of his home world of Earth-828. The trailers’ dialogue reveals that Victor is a former friend of Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm/Invisible Woman’s (Vanessa Kirby) and implies that for a portion of the film the couple will still not view him as an outright enemy, with Reed being especially horrified to learn of one or more of Victor’s villainous actions.

If he’s anything like his comic book self, Victor will have anticipated this and made plans to neutralize the family of heroes, probably with some particularly vicious things in mind for Reed, who he obsessively hates in the comics. He may never admit it but Reed is at least his intellectual equal, if not superior, and is the most likely person to possess both the scientific knowledge and personal understanding of Victor needed to defeat him, as he does in the Secret Wars comics.

3) Black Panther

T’Challa/Black Panther is another key character in Hickman’s Secret Wars and related comics, both due to his incredible intellect, which rivals Victor and Reed’s, and his influence over the futuristic nation of Wakanda, even though T’Challa doesn’t actually hold his traditional position as king for much of the arc. After the deaths of Chadwick Boseman and his version of T’Challa, his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) inherited his heroic mantle in the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, though she allowed M’Baku (Winston Duke) of the Jabari tribe to take up the position of king, after her mother, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) was killed. Shuri’s role in Doomsday will of course be somewhat different than T’Challa’s would have been, but she’s still positioned to be one of the most dangerous opponents for Victor to deal with.

Shuri’s long been established as one of the smartest people in the MCU, and out of the characters from universe-616 confirmed to be appearing in Doomsday she’s the only one with the same level of scientific knowledge as Reed. While she chose not to become queen, she’s still beloved by much of the Wakandan public and close with M’Baku, so the two of them should easily be able to dedicate Wakanda’s extensive resources to the conflict with Doom. Shuri also created the uneasy alliance with the underwater nation of Talokan, even though it was that country’s mutant king, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía,) that killed her mother. The truce between the two countries hinges on Namor’s respect for Shuri, so if Doom is able to neutralize her, there’s virtually nothing guaranteeing that one of Earth’s most powerful nations will remain on the heroes’ side.

2) Bob/The Sentry

The most troubled member of the Thunderbolts/New Avengers is also arguably the Doomsday cast member with the greatest amount of raw power. Like the comics, the Thunderbolts* film was vague about establishing the full potential of Robert “Bob” Reynolds’ (Lewis Pullman) abilities in his superhuman personalities of The Sentry and The Void but it’s clear they are massive. He was able to easily overpower all his future teammates, demonstrating a level of physical strength that likely matches or exceeds that of most other MCU characters. But even more devastating are The Void persona’s abilities to access and manipulate other people’s painful memories and engulf them and his physical surroundings in a kind of altered reality shaped by his own depressed emotions. Even though Bob was able to temporarily overcome The Void and stop his rampage at the end of Thunderbolts* his understanding and control of his abilities is still limited, making him understandably frightened to use them. If he were to master his abilities, he could likely defeat Doom single-handedly, but it’s equally likely that Victor will be able to manipulate The Sentry and/or The Void and use their vast powers for his own ends.

1) Professor X

There’s presumably little that can be done to alter X-Men founder Charles Xavier/Professor X’s role in Doomsday in light of Sir Patrick Stewart’s recent death, but one also assumes that the character was always going to be one of the more important figures in the cast, given both Stewart’s iconic reputation in the role and the formidable nature of Charles’ powers. Charles is a traditional telepath, the only one in the confirmed cast, with much more experience and control over his mental abilities than Bob has. Because of this, Doomsday, like most stories featuring the character, will have to find ways to neutralize the Professor so that he can’t simply resolve the conflict with a few superpowered thoughts.

Like Charles’ friend and rival Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen), Victor is certainly capable of developing technology to prevent himself from being mind controlled, and Charles is always himself reluctant to use his powers to take full control of others. Nonetheless, he does often do so in particularly dire situations, so Victor will also need to prevent him from turning whatever allies he may have against him, or manipulating events in other ways. In addition to his own powers, Charles’ skill and experience at teaching mutants to control their abilities is also a potentially major asset for the heroes, as it could lead others to perform feats they might not otherwise believe themselves capable of. Rumors and speculation have specifically pointed to Charles helping Bob deal with his mental health challenges so the heroes can use the powers of The Sentry and The Void with less risk.     

Who do you think the biggest threats to Doctor Doom are? Discuss in the comments.

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