TL;DR
- Doctor Doom will probably win, or come extremely close to winning, because Avengers: Secret Wars follows in December 2027.
- Professor X and Magneto are our strongest candidates for major permanent deaths among the returning Fox-era X-Men.
- Thor looks increasingly vulnerable, but his connection to Love could either set up a sacrifice or be the reason Marvel keeps him alive.
- Steve Rogers is in serious danger after returning to the MCU, particularly because footage shows he now has a child.
- Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Franklin Richards and several younger MCU heroes are extremely likely to survive because their stories are only beginning.
- Loki may lose control of the Multiverse without necessarily dying, potentially helping create the conditions for Battleworld.
- The movie will likely end with reality fundamentally broken rather than with a traditional Avengers victory.
Important: Everything below is prediction and speculation based on officially released footage, casting information and established Marvel comic history. Marvel has not confirmed these deaths or outcomes.
Avengers: Doomsday does not look like a movie where everyone goes home happy.
Marvel has spent years assembling Avengers, Fantastic Four members, Wakandans, the original Fox X-Men and characters scattered across several universes. Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom is standing in the middle of all of them, apparently convinced that these heroes are living lives that never should have belonged to them.
And there is one enormous reason to believe things are going to go very badly.
Avengers: Secret Wars comes next.
Doomsday therefore does not need to restore order. It may need to destroy it.
Based on everything Marvel has shown so far, here are our predictions for the characters most likely to die, the heroes we expect to survive and what the movie’s final outcome could look like.
Doctor Doom Will Win
Let’s begin with the outcome we feel most confident predicting.
The Avengers are going to lose.
Maybe not completely. Maybe Doom suffers setbacks or fails to accomplish his original goal exactly as intended. But it is difficult to imagine Doomsday ending with Victor defeated, every universe restored and everyone preparing for another unrelated adventure when Secret Wars is arriving one year later.
Marvel’s D23 footage makes Doom’s mission sound bigger than conquering Earth. He tells the assembled heroes that they have lived “stolen lives” and must give them back while characters from separate realities are shown throughout the footage.
That sounds less like a traditional invasion and more like Doom believes the current Multiverse itself is wrong.
Our prediction is that he attempts to correct it.
Unfortunately for everyone else, Doctor Doom’s definition of “correct” probably involves Victor von Doom deciding what reality should look like.
The Multiverse Will Collapse
This feels almost inevitable.
The MCU has spent the Multiverse Saga establishing branching realities, incursions, the TVA, alternate Spider-Men, Fox’s X-Men universe and the separate world inhabited by the Fantastic Four.
Doomsday finally puts those pieces into the same movie.
Marvel describes the story as heroes from three distinct universes being placed on a deadly collision course. That language practically screams incursion.
Our prediction is that the heroes spend much of the movie trying to prevent different Earths from colliding only to discover that saving every universe is impossible.
By the ending, the Multiverse as we currently understand it may no longer exist.
That gives Marvel the perfect path into Secret Wars.
Professor X — Death Prediction: Very High
Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier may be the character we are most worried about.
Marvel has brought back several original X-Men actors, but Stewart’s Professor X carries enormous symbolic weight. Killing him would instantly tell audiences that the Fox universe is truly facing extinction.
It would also be painfully appropriate for Charles to sacrifice himself trying to protect both humans and mutants rather than allowing the different worlds to destroy one another.
Marvel has already killed alternate versions of Xavier before, but this one appears connected directly to the original X-Men legacy that began in 2000.
If the Russo brothers want one death that tells longtime fans nothing from the Fox era is safe, Professor X is the obvious choice.
Prediction: Professor X dies protecting the surviving X-Men during the collapse of their universe.
Magneto — Death Prediction: Very High
If Charles dies, Erik probably will not be far behind.
Ian McKellen returning as Magneto gives Marvel an opportunity to provide a final chapter for one of the greatest superhero movie performances of the last 25 years.
Magneto has spent most of his life believing humans and mutants cannot peacefully coexist. A multiversal catastrophe could become the ultimate test of that philosophy.
We could easily see Erik choosing to save people he once would have dismissed as enemies.
Even more fitting would be Charles dying first and Magneto completing the mission they began together.
The D23 footage shows an injured Magneto listening as Sue Storm discusses Doom’s past, suggesting he is deeply involved in the central conflict rather than appearing for a quick cameo.
Prediction: Magneto dies shortly after Xavier, completing the ideological arc that began in the original X-Men.
Thor — Death Prediction: High
Thor has started raising some enormous red flags.
One of Marvel’s early Doomsday teasers showed Thor praying to Odin before battle. The newer footage places him directly against Doom, with Victor effortlessly stopping Stormbreaker.
That is not usually the visual language Marvel uses when everything is going wonderfully.
Chris Hemsworth has also played Thor since 2011, making him one of the final active members of the original Avengers lineup.
But there is one major reason Marvel might keep him alive: Love.
Thor is now effectively a father. The D23 footage specifically includes him with Love while Doom talks about heroes living stolen lives.
That could make Love the emotional reason Thor desperately fights to survive.
Or it could make her the person he dies protecting.
Prediction: Thor comes extremely close to dying, with roughly a 60/40 chance Marvel actually goes through with it.
Steve Rogers — Death Prediction: High
Bringing Chris Evans back as Steve Rogers creates an obvious question.
Why?
Avengers: Endgame already gave Steve one of the MCU’s cleanest endings. He returned the Infinity Stones, went back to Peggy Carter and lived the ordinary life Tony Stark once told him to find.
Now Doomsday is bringing him back.
More importantly, footage appears to show Steve with a child.
That makes him directly relevant to Doom’s accusation about stolen lives. Steve created an entirely different future by returning to Peggy. Doom may believe that life was never supposed to exist.
If the movie starts questioning whether Steve’s happy ending damaged or altered reality, his return suddenly makes perfect sense.
It also puts him in enormous danger.
Prediction: Steve sacrifices himself after realizing that preserving his altered life could contribute to destroying other realities.
Loki — Death Prediction: Low, But His Throne Is In Danger
Loki may currently have the most important job in the entire Multiverse.
At the end of Loki Season 2, he takes responsibility for the branching timelines and effectively becomes the figure holding the Multiverse together.
That makes him a massive problem for Doom.
If Victor intends to reshape reality, Loki is standing directly in his way.
We do not think Marvel needs to kill him.
Breaking Loki’s control would be enough.
Doom could remove him from the throne, sever the timelines or exploit some weakness in the structure Loki created. The result could unleash exactly the multiversal collapse Secret Wars requires.
Prediction: Doom defeats Loki and takes control of the collapsing Multiverse, but Loki survives into Secret Wars.
Ant-Man — Death Prediction: Medium
Scott Lang is another character Marvel seems determined to remind us has a family.
The D23 footage shows Scott with Cassie while Doom talks about the lives these heroes possess.
That immediately makes us nervous.
Paul Rudd has been playing Ant-Man for more than a decade, and Scott has already experienced the emotional horror of losing years with his daughter during the Blip.
A sacrifice to save Cassie would complete that story in an obvious but effective way.
On the other hand, Marvel could simply be using those family shots to establish what Doom threatens to take away.
Prediction: Scott survives Doomsday, but he is one of the characters most vulnerable to dying in Secret Wars.
Cyclops — Death Prediction: Low
James Marsden returning as Cyclops gives Marvel a chance to correct something the original films never properly accomplished.
Let Scott Summers lead.
The Fox movies regularly pushed Cyclops into the background while Wolverine became the franchise’s central character. Doomsday could finally allow the original Scott to operate as the field leader comic readers recognize.
That makes killing him immediately feel wasteful.
There is also another reason to keep him around: Marvel’s new MCU X-Men will eventually introduce a different Cyclops.
Allowing the legacy Scott to meet or somehow influence the future of mutantkind in Secret Wars would carry far more emotional value than killing him here.
Prediction: Cyclops survives and becomes one of the primary representatives of the Fox X-Men heading into Secret Wars.
Beast, Mystique And Nightcrawler — Death Prediction: Medium To High
This is where things get uncomfortable.
Kelsey Grammer, Rebecca Romijn and Alan Cumming are all returning as characters who helped define the original X-Men films.
But Doomsday does not necessarily need every member of that ensemble to reach the next movie.
If Marvel wants the destruction of the X-Men universe to feel catastrophic, some recognizable mutants probably have to die.
Nightcrawler may have the best survival odds because his teleportation abilities could become crucial during an evacuation sequence. Beast also has obvious usefulness in solving the scientific side of the multiversal crisis.
Mystique feels more vulnerable.
Prediction: At least one major returning Fox X-Man outside Xavier and Magneto dies before the film ends.
Reed Richards — Death Prediction: Extremely Low
Reed Richards is absolutely not dying permanently in Doomsday.
Marvel has barely started telling his story.
More importantly, the Reed-Doom relationship appears to be central to the movie. The D23 footage has Reed directly confronting Victor and demanding to know whether Doom caused the destruction around them.
If Marvel is drawing even loosely from Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars, Reed needs to survive.
Doom may win the first confrontation.
Reed will probably be the man who eventually proves that victory wrong.
Prediction: Reed suffers one of the movie’s biggest defeats but survives specifically because he is essential to beating Doom in Secret Wars.
Sue Storm — Death Prediction: Extremely Low
Sue appears to understand Victor personally.
Her D23 dialogue describes Doom as someone who was once kind and caring before losing everything he loved. That makes Sue more than another superhero caught in the battle.
She may be the person who remembers who Victor was before he became Doom.
That emotional connection could become extremely important if Marvel wants Doom to be more complicated than a conventional conqueror.
Prediction: Sue survives and becomes one of the characters trying to reach whatever humanity remains inside Victor.
Franklin Richards — Death Prediction: Almost Zero
Franklin may actually be one of the most important characters in the entire story.
D23 footage specifically shows Johnny Storm holding his young nephew while Doom discusses stolen lives.
Comic readers know why that is interesting.
Franklin Richards has historically possessed extraordinary reality-altering abilities. Marvel does not need to give the MCU version the exact same power level immediately, but putting him prominently into Doomsday is probably not accidental.
If reality collapses, a child capable of influencing reality becomes rather useful.
Prediction: Franklin survives and becomes crucial either to Doom’s plan or the eventual restoration of reality.
Johnny Storm — Death Prediction: Medium
Johnny is much harder to predict.
Joseph Quinn’s Human Torch is young enough to have years of MCU appearances ahead of him, making a permanent death seem unlikely.
But Johnny holding Franklin in the footage creates an obvious setup for sacrifice.
Could he die protecting his nephew?
Possibly.
Would Marvel permanently remove one-quarter of the Fantastic Four immediately after introducing them?
Probably not.
Prediction: Johnny receives a fake-out death or appears to be lost when his universe collapses, only to return in Secret Wars.
Shuri — Death Prediction: Low
Wakanda has already experienced enough loss.
Shuri only recently inherited the Black Panther mantle, and Marvel appears to have longer-term plans for the Wakandan side of the MCU.
Killing her in Doomsday would create another succession story almost immediately after Wakanda Forever.
That feels repetitive.
Prediction: Shuri survives and helps lead whatever remains of Earth’s heroes after the multiversal collapse.
Sam Wilson — Death Prediction: Very Low
Sam Wilson is Captain America now.
Steve Rogers returning does not change that.
In fact, having both characters in the same movie gives Marvel the perfect opportunity to reinforce the transition.
If Steve does sacrifice himself, Sam could finally receive something he never really got: Steve directly acknowledging him as Captain America during an Avengers-level crisis.
Prediction: Sam survives, while Steve’s fate permanently establishes that the shield belongs to him going forward.
Sentry — Death Prediction: Medium
Bob Reynolds may be far too powerful to leave unchecked.
Sentry’s abilities make him one of the strongest characters currently operating in the MCU, but the Void means that strength comes with an enormous vulnerability.
Doom is exactly the kind of character who would understand how to exploit it.
Rather than simply fighting Sentry, Victor could manipulate Bob psychologically or unleash the Void against the other heroes.
Prediction: Doom turns Sentry into a weapon temporarily. Bob survives, but only after causing enormous damage.
Doctor Doom — Death Prediction: Essentially Zero
Doom is not dying.
Not yet.
Marvel did not bring Robert Downey Jr. back, build an Avengers movie around Victor von Doom and establish a direct conflict with Reed Richards simply to dispose of him before Secret Wars.
Doom should leave this movie more powerful than he entered it.
That may include acquiring control over whatever remains of the Multiverse.
Could Doom Become God Emperor Doom?
This is the biggest prediction of all.
In Jonathan Hickman’s 2015 Secret Wars, reality collapses until virtually nothing remains.
Doom acquires enormous power and saves fragments of different universes by combining them into Battleworld.
Then he rules what is left as God Emperor Doom.
The MCU does not need to copy that storyline exactly, but the pieces are lining up surprisingly well.
Multiple universes are colliding.
Doom believes reality is fundamentally wrong.
Reed Richards is his central rival.
Franklin Richards is present.
Loki currently sits at the center of the timelines.
And another Avengers film called Secret Wars immediately follows.
Prediction: Doomsday ends with Doom obtaining control over the remains of reality and creating the MCU’s version of Battleworld.
What Happens To The Avengers?
We do not think the movie ends with a functioning Avengers team.
Instead, the heroes will probably become scattered across whatever reality Doom creates.
Some may remember their original lives.
Others may not.
That gives Secret Wars an immediate story engine: surviving heroes slowly discovering that the world around them is artificial and that Doom is responsible for it.
Reed Richards, Spider-Man, Loki and perhaps Doctor Strange are obvious candidates to understand that something is wrong.
Could Spider-Man Appear?
Tom Holland has not been one of the primary names Marvel has emphasized in its Doomsday marketing, despite Spider-Man: Brand New Day arriving only months before the Avengers movie.
That makes his situation suspicious.
Peter Parker has already experienced the Multiverse firsthand and recently encountered mutant-related developments in his own story.
We would be surprised if Marvel reaches Secret Wars without him.
Prediction: Spider-Man either appears late in Doomsday or is saved for a major role in Secret Wars.
Our Most Likely Avengers: Doomsday Deaths
- Professor X — Very likely
- Magneto — Very likely
- Steve Rogers — Likely
- Thor — Likely
- At least one additional Fox X-Man — Likely
- Ant-Man — Possible
- Sentry — Possible
- Johnny Storm — Possible fake-out
Characters We Think Are Safest
- Reed Richards
- Sue Storm
- Franklin Richards
- Sam Wilson
- Shuri
- Cyclops
- Doctor Doom
Our Avengers: Doomsday Ending Prediction
Here is how we think everything comes together.
Doom discovers that the Multiverse is collapsing and believes the heroes themselves have created or perpetuated the problem by altering timelines, traveling between universes and refusing to accept lives they were supposed to lose.
He offers a solution.
Naturally, that solution requires everyone trusting Doctor Doom.
They refuse.
The Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men attempt to stop both Victor and the incursions. Professor X and Magneto die as their universe collapses. Steve Rogers sacrifices himself after confronting the consequences of the life he created with Peggy. Thor either falls in battle or survives just long enough to help evacuate others.
Loki attempts to hold the timelines together.
Doom takes that power away from him.
Reed realizes too late that Victor was not simply trying to destroy reality.
He was preparing to replace it.
The Multiverse collapses.
Everything goes black.
Then we see a new world.
Different universes have been stitched together. Avengers, mutants, Fantastic Four characters and heroes from realities that should no longer exist now occupy the same planet.
Some remember what happened.
Most do not.
And above all of them sits Doctor Doom.
Not merely Victor von Doom.
Not simply ruler of Latveria.
God Emperor Doom.
Cut to black.
Avengers Will Return In Secret Wars.
Doomsday May Be Marvel’s Infinity War All Over Again — But Worse
Infinity War worked because Marvel allowed Thanos to win.
Doomsday has an opportunity to go even further.
Thanos erased half of all life.
Doom may erase the universe itself.
The enormous cast is not necessarily evidence that Marvel intends to keep everyone around. It may exist precisely because the studio wants audiences to watch several generations of Marvel characters collide before some of them disappear forever.
The Russo brothers have legacy Avengers, Fox’s original X-Men, the Fantastic Four and Marvel’s current heroes available simultaneously.
That opportunity probably only happens once.
We expect Avengers: Doomsday to take advantage of it.
Some heroes will survive.
Some legends will get their final scene.
And if our biggest prediction is correct, nobody truly wins except Doom.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters December 18, 2026.
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