How exactly do you follow Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame?
That may be the biggest problem facing Avengers: Doomsday.
Marvel Studios has already watched Thanos wipe out half of all life in the universe. The Avengers then traveled through time, assembled practically every major MCU hero for one enormous battle and ended the Infinity Saga by killing Tony Stark.
Simply adding more superheroes or creating a villain who can destroy an even larger number of planets isn’t necessarily going to make another Avengers movie feel bigger.
Robert Downey Jr. and Joe Russo know that.
And according to Downey, the team behind Doomsday believes it has finally found the answer.
Robert Downey Jr. Says Doomsday Has Found A Way To Follow Endgame
Downey discussed the enormous expectations surrounding the upcoming Avengers movie during a conversation with CBR alongside co-director Joe Russo.
The Oscar-winning actor understandably avoided revealing exactly what Marvel has planned, but he sounded extremely confident about where the finished story has landed.
“It landed in a place that I think will more than suffice.”
More importantly, Downey emphasized that his confidence does not come simply from what he personally did as Doctor Doom.
He pointed instead toward the structure of the movie and the characters around Victor von Doom.
Downey suggested that something running through Doomsday and the story moving forward provides what he called the necessary “antidote” to audiences wondering how Marvel can possibly follow movies as enormous as Infinity War and Endgame.
He didn’t reveal what that ingredient actually is.
But Joe Russo may have provided a substantial clue.
Joe Russo Calls Doomsday The Most Emotionally Complex Avengers Movie
Marvel can always make the stakes bigger.
The more difficult challenge is making audiences care.
Joe Russo believes emotional complexity is the solution.
The filmmaker said Doomsday contains plenty of surprises but described it as the most emotionally complex Avengers movie the Russo brothers have made.
He also called it, in many ways, their most mature.
That is a much more interesting promise than simply saying Doctor Doom is more powerful than Thanos.
Infinity War worked because the Snap mattered emotionally. Endgame worked because audiences had spent more than a decade with Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, Natasha Romanoff and the rest of the original Avengers.
The destruction was enormous, but the moments people remember most are personal.
Thor failing to stop Thanos.
Peter Parker disappearing in Tony’s arms.
Natasha sacrificing herself.
Steve finally wielding Mjolnir.
Tony making the choice to use the Infinity Stones.
If Doomsday intends to reach a similar level, the movie needs more than spectacle.
It needs consequences audiences actually feel.
Doctor Doom Gives Marvel A Very Different Villain From Thanos
Robert Downey Jr.’s Victor von Doom already appears to be heading in a very different direction from Thanos.
The footage Marvel has released establishes that this Doom has a personal history with the Fantastic Four, particularly Reed Richards and Sue Storm.
Sue describes Victor as someone who was once kind and caring before everything he loved was taken away from him.
That immediately gives Doom an emotional connection to the heroes confronting him.
Thanos knew very few Avengers personally before Infinity War. His mission involved them because they stood between him and the Infinity Stones.
Doom’s conflict appears much more intimate.
Reed knows him.
Sue remembers who he used to be.
And if the growing multiversal crisis connects Victor to other familiar characters, his relationship with the wider MCU may become considerably more complicated than another villain arriving to conquer Earth.
Downey Returning As Doom Creates Its Own Emotional Problem
There is also an unavoidable layer created by the actor playing him.
Robert Downey Jr. was Tony Stark.
For more than a decade, his face represented the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
His death became the emotional climax of Avengers: Endgame.
Now the same actor is returning as one of Marvel Comics’ most famous villains.
Marvel has repeatedly identified Downey’s character as Victor von Doom rather than Tony Stark, and nothing officially released has established Doom as an evil Iron Man variant.
But the casting itself guarantees an emotional response whenever characters connected to Tony eventually see Victor.
Steve Rogers is back.
Thor is back.
Several characters who fought beside Tony remain active throughout the MCU.
Even if Doom has absolutely no connection to Stark beyond sharing a face, Marvel can use that resemblance to make encounters far more uncomfortable than they would be with another actor.
Joe Russo Says Bigger Stakes Aren’t Enough
The Russos have already destroyed half the universe once.
Trying to top that purely through scale becomes almost comical.
What comes after half of existence disappearing?
All of existence?
That may technically happen as universes begin colliding, but Russo’s comments suggest the filmmakers understand that audiences eventually stop responding to numbers.
Destroying one planet means little if nobody watching cares about anyone living there.
By describing emotional complexity as the answer to escalating stakes, Russo appears to be signaling that Doomsday will spend significant time on the relationships between its enormous collection of characters.
That may be particularly important considering just how many different superhero generations are involved.
Doomsday Is Bringing Several Marvel Eras Together
Avengers: Doomsday is not simply another Avengers lineup.
Marvel is bringing together characters from several distinct corners of its cinematic history.
Sam Wilson’s Captain America and the current MCU heroes will be present alongside the Fantastic Four.
The Thunderbolts/New Avengers are involved.
Chris Evans is returning as Steve Rogers.
Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor.
And several actors from the original Fox X-Men franchise are crossing into an Avengers movie, including Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, James Marsden’s Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique and Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler.
Channing Tatum’s Gambit is also involved.
That creates enormous possibilities for action.
It creates even more possibilities emotionally.
The X-Men Could Be Where The Movie Gets Particularly Heavy
The return of the original X-Men actors carries weight that newer MCU characters simply cannot replicate yet.
Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen first played Xavier and Magneto more than 25 years ago.
James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn and Alan Cumming belong to an era of superhero filmmaking that existed before the MCU was even created.
Bringing those characters into a story about universes potentially colliding immediately raises the possibility that Marvel is not merely bringing them back for nostalgia.
They may be there so audiences can say goodbye.
Nothing confirms that any specific X-Man will die in Doomsday, but an emotionally mature movie built around multiversal destruction has an obvious opportunity to explore what happens when heroes realize their worlds cannot all survive.
That kind of conflict gives Doom significantly more interesting territory than another army invading New York.
Marvel’s New Trailer Makes The Emotional Approach Easier To See
The footage unveiled at D23 reinforces much of what Downey and Russo were describing months earlier.
Instead of presenting Doom entirely as a mysterious armored monster, the trailer spends time establishing that Victor was once someone Sue Storm cared about and understood.
Reed confronts Doom directly amid destruction.
Thor prepares for battle.
Steve Rogers is pulled back into a conflict after previously earning his happy ending.
Magneto and the X-Men are facing threats connected to collapsing realities.
Doom also talks about heroes living “stolen lives,” suggesting his mission may be connected to people who escaped fates they were once supposed to suffer.
That language makes the conflict feel philosophical as much as physical.
Steve Rogers Could Be Especially Important
Chris Evans returning as Steve Rogers becomes particularly interesting when viewed through Downey and Russo’s comments about emotional complexity.
Steve’s ending in Endgame was unusually peaceful.
After spending his entire adult life sacrificing everything for everyone else, he returned the Infinity Stones and chose to stay in the past with Peggy Carter.
He finally lived the life he had repeatedly been denied.
Now he’s back.
Footage from Doomsday has shown Steve with a child, meaning Marvel is not simply ignoring what happened after Endgame.
If Doom genuinely believes certain heroes have taken lives or futures that do not belong to them, Steve may become one of the clearest examples.
That could force him to confront whether his happy ending came with consequences he never understood.
Doomsday Is Also Setting Up Secret Wars
Another reason Doomsday cannot simply end like a traditional Avengers movie is that the story isn’t over.
Avengers: Secret Wars arrives one year later.
The Russos are directing both films, with Stephen McFeely involved in the screenplays, meaning Doomsday is functioning as the first half of Marvel’s enormous conclusion to the Multiverse Saga.
That gives the filmmakers room to end in disaster.
Infinity War became memorable partly because Marvel allowed Thanos to win.
The Avengers failed.
Half of all life disappeared.
Audiences then had to wait for Endgame to discover how the surviving heroes would respond.
Doomsday could use a similar structure without simply repeating the Snap.
If universes collapse or Doom successfully reshapes reality, the movie could end with the heroes losing on a scale even larger than Infinity War while making that defeat feel deeply personal.
Robert Downey Jr. Knows Marvel Fans Will Be Critical
Downey also acknowledged something Marvel Studios has had to confront throughout the post-Endgame era.
Fans do not automatically love everything carrying the Marvel logo anymore.
Some projects have been enormous successes. Others have struggled critically, commercially or both.
Downey said there is an enormous amount of gratitude surrounding the opportunity to make these next two Avengers films, including appreciation for audiences willing to be critical when Marvel falls short.
That is probably the correct attitude heading into Doomsday.
The expectation surrounding another Avengers movie directed by the Russos and starring Downey is impossible to separate from everything those people accomplished previously.
Marvel is effectively competing with its own greatest hits.
Doomsday Doesn’t Need To Be Bigger Than Endgame
That may ultimately be the most encouraging part of Russo’s comments.
Avengers: Doomsday does not need another portal sequence with twice as many superheroes.
It doesn’t need a villain who can snap two universes away instead of half of one.
It doesn’t need to spend three hours constantly trying to remind audiences that everything is bigger than before.
What it needs is a reason for audiences to care as much as they did when Tony Stark looked at Doctor Strange, understood what needed to happen and reached for the Infinity Stones.
Russo believes emotional complexity is how Marvel gets there.
Downey believes the movie’s structure and ensemble have found something capable of preventing Doomsday and Secret Wars from feeling like disappointing attempts to recreate the past.
Those are big promises.
But after Infinity War and Endgame, making another Avengers movie without big promises probably wasn’t an option.
Marvel Is Taking Another Swing
The safest version of Avengers: Doomsday would simply bring everybody together, let Robert Downey Jr. chew scenery as Doctor Doom and spend the final hour blowing things up.
The comments coming from Downey and Russo suggest something more ambitious.
They know audiences have already seen the Avengers save the universe.
They know nostalgia alone cannot carry two enormous movies.
And they know bringing Downey back after Tony Stark received one of the most definitive endings in MCU history creates expectations Marvel cannot simply ignore.
If Joe Russo is right, Doomsday will attempt to meet those expectations by becoming more emotionally complicated rather than merely more expensive.
If Robert Downey Jr. is right, Marvel has already figured out the thing that makes the next chapter worthwhile.
Now they just have to show us what it is.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters December 18, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars follows on December 17, 2027.
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