The Robert Downey Jr. and Marvel Saga: A Never-Ending Love Story!
RDJ is back!! The Russo Brothers are Back!! We are so Back!!!
That’s a shocker: Robert Downey Jr. will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to play Victor Von Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, the next Avengers movie.
The Russo brothers announced at Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con panel on Saturday night, shortly after being announced as the directors of Doomsday and the follow-up movie, Avengers: Secret Wars.
Downey Jr. walked out on stage in a Doom costume, complete with a mask, for a dramatic reveal. Marvel Studios’s Twitter account posted the actual moment of the unmasking and the fan reaction that followed:
“New mask,” Downey Jr. said. “Same task.”
The fifth major crossover film from Marvel, previously known as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, will now be named Avengers: Doomsday, emphasizing iconic villain Victor von Doom.
However, one has to ask how RDJ will play one of Marvel’s biggest villains when he is already one of the MCU’s biggest heroes of all time.
How will the MCU Multiverse come into play here?
Firstly, the MCU is currently amid its ongoing Multiverse Saga. Thus far, the concepts of multiple variants of heroes and villains from other realities, timelines, and dimensions have been established.
The MCU’s Peter Parker got to meet and fight alongside the different versions of Spider-Man from past Sony franchises. Loki got to track down and meet his variants across timelines. A Council of Kangs was assembling.
However, with RDJ as the new Doctor Doom, the universe has never been used so extensively in casting.
As said by the Russo Brothers at SDCC’s Hall H in front of a legion of costumed and masked Doctor Dooms: “As proof of the unimaginable possibilities in the Marvel multiverse, we give you the one person who could play Victor von Doom.” shortly before RDJ stepped forward and removed his mask.
The multiverse makes this possible through various interesting pathways, many of which revolve around the MCU’s Doctor Doom, a darker version of Tony Stark.
Robert Downey Jr. in Avengers: Endgame | Source: IMDb
How Does The Fantastic Four’s Alternate Universe Setting Make An Iron Man Variant More Possible?
While Doctor Doom poses a significant threat to various Marvel Universe characters, he is primarily an adversary of The Fantastic Four and the true foe of Reed Richards’ Mister Fantastic.
Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vanessa Kirby, and Joseph Quinn in The Fantastic Four (2025) | Source: IMDb
To that end, the fact that it’s already been confirmed that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set in an alternate retro-futuristic reality apart from the main MCU does help in terms of RDJ’s likely having been cast as a darker Iron Man variant who becomes Doom in this timeline
After all, it’s not hard to envision Tony Stark’s ego clashing with Reed Richards, the World’s Smartest Man.
At any point, the hope is that RDJ’s Doom will begin in this alternate universe as a foe to Marvel’s First Family before evolving into his vastly more powerful “God Emperor” incarnation, as depicted in the comics’ Secret Wars event in 2015.
To that end, Doom’s appearances in 2025’s Fantastic Four and Avengers: Doomsday before Secret Wars will hopefully give the MCU enough time for audiences to truly get to know who this Doom is and what he’s all about before the stakes are likely to be dramatically raised with the Multiverse Saga-ending Secret Wars.
About Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films and TV series, independently produced by Marvel Studios and based on characters that appear in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
The franchise includes comic books, short films, television series, and digital series. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters.
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