NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Now that what we can only assume is a portion of the cast has been revealed, it’s time to start speculating what the next movie in the Avengers is about. Avengers: Doomsday has little to no information revealed other than some of the cast, who the director(s) will be, and the release date. Everything else is left to speculation, and I’m here to speculate.
Unlike previous Avengers movies, Doomsday has little to go on. During the Infinity Saga, we knew that a large portion of the MCU was going to be dedicated to the Infinity comics they got their name from. Despite being loosely translated for film adaptations, there was at least a hint of what they were going with. No, with Avengers: Doomsday, we have some Doctor Doom comics that might hint towards what Marvel is going for, but nothing is confirmed. If the history of the MCU projects has been leading to this movie, then we have to assume that it’ll be the peak of the Multiverse Saga.
After their live-stream casting announcement, we might get a better idea of what Marvel is up to, but they were laying the groundwork all along. The MCU’s multiverse has been staying the course despite mixed reviews amongst fans and critics. Even with the movies seemingly becoming more standalone stories, the central theme of the multiverse still persisted. Now that we’re getting an Avengers-level team up again, is it time to assume they’re swinging for the fences?
Let’s not forget that going forward, Marvel has heavily invested in the Fantastic Four and X-Men after the acquisition of Fox. After the casting announcement yesterday, something peculiar stood out. They’re bringing in Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn as the Fantastic Four. However, when you look at the rest of the casting, they’re not bringing in a new set of actors as the X-Men. They’re not even bringing in the most recent cast from the Fox universe. No, they’re all the OG cast with Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, and James Marsden which could be quite telling.
One of the constants of the Multiverse Saga has been the concept of the “Sacred Timeline”. Every Earth from the multiverse has been adjacent to the sacred timeline, which separates them in plot and coincidentally by studio. The MCU that Disney has created has been the focal point of the main universe, where everything else has been their variants, but now, more of the MCU belongs to Disney, and they’ll have to tie it all in. The only guess I have is that they’ll take a page out of the Deadpool & Wolverine movie and start axing other timelines.
The main catalyst for the sacred timeline has been the Disney+ series, Loki, who conveniently has been announced for Avengers: Doomsday. The last we saw Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, he took the place of “He Who Remains” to control the branches of these timelines. It was curious how the show was so popular that the plug was pulled after season 2. All those things wrapped up in one movie could hint at what we’re going for next.
It’s probably no coincidence that Marvel chose to use the original X-Men while also leaving out Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlett Witch. Nor did they announce Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Sure, they could show up as cameos as well as the new class of X-Men, but chances are this was deliberate, and we might see the end of days for these X-Men to give way to a sacred timeline iteration.
On the flipside of things, they’re not using the original Fantastic Four or rebooted versions either in favor of their new iteration, another big sticking point. Doom has always been a Fantastic 4 staple villain. In order to pull this off, they needed to use an iteration of these characters they’ll be able to use for future projects, ones that will be part of their sacred timeline. Chances are that’s why we got the Fantastic Four first.
So what is the point of all this rambling? Avengers: Doomsday will probably set up Avengers: Secret Wars in the same way that Avengers: Infinity War set up Avengers: End Game. They might not be a carbon copy of the previous films, but we could see Doomsday wipe the board with the Fantastic Four being the main force to fight Doom. Then, in Secret Wars, Loki is pulling the strings on bringing one unified sacred timeline together to bring down their adversary. By doing so, they would wrap up the old properties that never got the proper send-off, write in the new cast of X-Men and such, and build for the future of the MCU, which would ultimately be an Avengers vs X-Men story.
