While Spider-Man 4 may delayed to Christmas 2026, it seems highly unlikely for Marvel to delay Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. That much was clear at Comic-Con this summer when Marvel didn’t just double down on the previously announced release dates for the final films in the Multiverse Saga, but the studio also announced that the Russos brothers would direct them and Robert Downey Jr. would return to the MCU, playing a villain this time, Doctor Doom.
Marvel had two good excuses for postponing Avengers 5 and Avengers 6 at the time: Last year’s industry strikes and the whole Kang mess. What I’m getting at is that something cataclysmic would have to happen for Marvel to make changes to these release dates. That means we’re going to approach production for one of them, Doomsday, which hits theaters in early May 2026.
We should expect some plot spoilers to leak while Marvel is filming the movie. We already have the first ones. Before I tell you what some leakers say about Doomsday, I’ll give you the customary spoiler warning: Avoid what follows if you want surprises from Avengers 5.
Marvel managed to stun fans with Avengers: Infinity War in 2017 because nobody expected the Avengers to lose. We then had to wait an entire year to see how they’d win and how the dead team members would be resurrected.
I don’t think Marvel can pull off the same surprise twice. That’s the biggest spoiler about Doomsday and Secret Wars. Marvel is likely going to repeat the Infinity War and Endgame playbook. The Avengers will first lose and then beat the villain. They are, after all, the Avengers, not the Prevengers, to paraphrase Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.).
That is, we don’t need plot spoilers to figure out that Doomsday will be a movie about the Avengers meeting Doctor Doom and the latter delivering the appropriate defeat. As for what team members die and what cataclysmic event will endanger the multiverse, it’s too early to tell. But that will be the reason the Avengers react.
But with Doomsday set to start production in the first half of 2025, the first reports about the film’s plot are trickling in.
Daniel Richtman said on Patreon that Marvel is already casting a secret role for a well-known Marvel character in Doomsday. This mysterious superhero will also play a big role in Secret Wars.
Richtman also reiterated something we heard of before. Spider-Man (Tom Holland) will have a big role in Doomsday, though it’s unclear what that means. It could be that Spider-Man will lead at least a faction of the Avengers fighting Doom. After all, he has some seniority. The world might not know who Spider-Man is, but they must remember that Spider-Man fought against Thanos.
More importantly, Doctor Doom has the same face as Iron Man, Spider-Man’s mentor. The MCU’s main Peter Parker has to have a big role in this story.
Speaking of other Avengers team members, Richtman said that all Thunderbolts will return for Avengers: Doomsday. The leaker didn’t refer to them as Avengers, but that might be the big surprise Marvel has in store for us. That asterisk in the Thunderbolts* title indicates the team name isn’t final. We may learn they’re called the New Avengers by the time the movie ends.
On the same note, we’ve already heard of a potentially hilarious meeting between the New Avengers and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in Doomsday. The new Captain America will discover a team of Avengers that has Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) in it, a team that he didn’t form. Spoilers for Brave New World say that Cap will not actually assemble his new Avengers in the movie.
As for who will join the Avengers against Doctor Doom, I’ll refer to the Infinity War installment again. In that movie, we had all sorts of improvised teams battling Thanos (Josh Brolin) across the universe. Thanos eventually beat them all. Come to think of it, Marvel did the same thing in Endgame.
A leaker called Cryptic4KQual on Twitter says that Doomsday will offer a similar scenario. Apparently, that was going to be the case for Kang Dynasty before Marvel pivoted to Doctor Doom:
I imagine that stuff from Kang Dynasty will be carried over. Such as every hero team out there coming together and focusing on certain tasks for a fighting chance before everything flips. We’ll probably see 4 to 5 teams, with the new reformed Avengers.
Cryptic4KQual was reacting to Richtman’s claim about the Thunderbolts returning. The leaker didn’t actually offer examples of Avengers factions in Doomsday.
Splitting up the Avengers is the only way to give us meaningful interactions between various characters who have to fight Doctor Doom. You can’t have all the potential Avengers team members sharing the same screen. It would be an incredible mess. Splitting them up into various teams would ensure all of them get enough screen time.
Unlike Infinity War, Marvel has a chance to show us RDJ’s Doom beat various teams of superheroes from across the multiverse. I’m speculating here, but this would also set the stage for Secret Wars.
Why and how does Doctor Doom attack the MCU’s main reality? That Doomsday plot detail hasn’t leaked yet. We’ll just have to wait and see what insiders learn about the film’s action in the coming months.
