Avengers: Doomsday is one of the most exciting movies of the year, and while the film could feel fantastic, it still won’t feel earned. The first trailer for Doomsday is out now, and the first look at Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom and other story elements has caused a lot of discussion online. And it isn’t all positive.
The Doomsday trailer is interesting, as it looks at the tons of exciting characters who will appear in the crossover event. Doom, the Avengers, the New Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and Fox’s X-Men are all there, and there are undoubtedly more characters being kept secret. However, the trailer doesn’t reveal much beyond showcasing what characters will be in the movie, raising some concerns about Doomsday‘s overall quality.
Avengers: Doomsday’s Story Is So Vague Because The Film Hasn’t Been Earned
Regardless of whether Doomsday is good or not, the elephant in the room is that the film doesn’t feel earned at all. While the events of Avengers: Endgame weren’t concretely decided at the time of the original Iron Man, the conclusion of the Infinity Saga at least made good use of what had come before. All the characters featured in the third and fourth Avengers movies have logical reasons for being there, and the setups for Thanos and the Infinity Stones were sprinkled throughout the previous movies well enough that it felt like an exciting conclusion to an established saga.
The Multiverse Saga, however, doesn’t feel like a saga at all. The movies that have actually focused on the multiverse are incredibly loosely connected, with projects like Loki, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and The Marvels not building on each other at all. The multiverse is a shared concept throughout these films, but it isn’t consistent, and they definitely don’t feature a consistent threat. While the Thanos setups in the early Infinity Saga are definitely overstated, the villain at least popped up in a few of the projects. Doctor Doom, however, feels like he came out of nowhere.
When you watch the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, it’s hard to get a feel for what the story actually is. The vague multiversal threat isn’t enough to make the movie exciting. Doom has no dynamic with any of the MCU superheroes, and there isn’t a history between the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, or the mainline MCU heroes. Infinity War wasn’t just a bunch of characters coming together. It was Tony and Steve’s first reunion since Civil War, the Guardians’ encounter with Gamora and Nebula’s father, and Spider-Man’s first true outing with the Avengers. Doomsday‘s most exciting character dynamic is Ant-Man and Ghost working together, and in a movie with Thor, Mister Fantastic, Cyclops, and more, this is a major problem.
Countless things could have been done to remedy this issue. The biggest would have been a smaller-scale Avengers movie similar to Age of Ultron, where Sam forms a new team and takes on a less-powerful threat. Exploring the Thunderbolts’ new role as the New Avengers would have also been interesting, as their complete disconnect from the multiverse makes them feel like they’ve just been thrown into Doomsday. On top of that, we’ve never seen Reed and Doom meet before, meaning that Doom’s arrival doesn’t have any tension, stakes, or narrative weight that has already been set up. Doomsday is a vehicle to bring popular characters together, not a story.
Are Avengers: Doomsday’s Problems All Marvel’s Fault?
The Multiverse Saga was definitely building up to something previously: Kang the Conqueror. Kang was the big bad who was being set up as the major threat of the next Avengers outing, and despite the critical backlash to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the MCU was handling the villain’s arc pretty well. However, when Marvel parted ways with Kang actor Jonathan Majors due to real-life legal issues, the MCU had to pivot to a new big bad with very little notice. The fifth and sixth Avengers movies were delayed a bit, as a result.
So, the MCU couldn’t help that Majors had to be let go, leading many fans to be more forgiving towards Avengers: Doomsday. However, this doesn’t completely absolve the MCU of the issues the film is facing. A movie focused on Sam’s Avengers team should have happened, but it never seemed to be part of the plan. The abandonment of setups from older projects like Secret Invasion, The Marvels, and Eternals was also a bad decision, annoying fans who invested time in those stories. Finally, the return of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and the Russos feels like a lazy, last-ditch effort to give general audiences a reason to see Doomsday, something that wouldn’t be necessary if Doomsday told an interesting story, or if the MCU had successfully built up a new roster of stars.
Even after pivoting away from Kang, Marvel could have avoided all these problems by making an Avengers movie with a compelling hook. Doomsday has no narrative thrust that excites audience members, and no clear story to speak of. There is no excuse for Marvel putting story second to crossover potential.
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