This Will be Your Doom

Marvel had quite the panel at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) this past weekend. There were the usual glut of Marvel announcements, along with a big screening of Deadpool & Wolverine. But the biggest news, and the thing that has everyone buzzing all over the internet, was that Robert Downey, Jr., everyone’s favorite Iron ManBillionare Tony Stark has a secret: while he travels the world by day as a playboy philanthropist and head of Stark Industries, he combats the evils of the world as the armored Iron Man., would be rejoining the MCU after Tony Stark died in Avengers: Endgame. While that news alone would probably get a little bit of buzz, the big part of the announcement was that RDJ wouldn’t be playing Iron Man… he’d be playing Doctor Doom instead.

This was met with many gasps from the audience, and a bit of confusion as well. Iron Man co-star, Gweneth Paltrow commented on her confusion, stating, “he’s a villain now?” Now, Paltrow has admitted that she hasn’t kept up with the MCU and even was confused by earlier films she was a part of, but this does also speak to a general sentiment shared by many: how can RDJ come back only to play a villain? What is Marvel up to and why would they cast Iron Man as Doctor Doom?

Clearly that’s part of the maneuvering, to get people confused and interested and wanting to know more. Marvel and RDJ had been going through a dance for a few months now, with Marvel saying, “we’d love to have some of our legacy actors come back,” while those actors, like Chris Evans and Downey, Jr., stated that while they were not opposed to returning they didn’t want to sully the legacy of the characters they played. “Would Iron Man come back? No, he had his time and it’s better to let him rest.” So this is how they pull it off: they get Evans back for an extended cameo as Johnny Storm in Deadpool & Wolverine, and then they bring back RDJ not as Iron Man but as Doctor Doom.

Now, note a few things here. First, while Marvel is making a Fantastic Four movie, there hasn’t been any reports that RDJ would be appearing in that film. Last it was reported, that film will be set in the 1960s and that would be way too early for a character played by RDJ to appear. It might be possible that a version of Doctor Doom would be in that film but it’s unlikely it would be the one that Downey, Jr. would be playing unless whatever means of time travel that brings the Fantastic Four to the present also affects Doctor Doom. Instead we’ll probably have some other villain, or a predecessor to RDJ’s Doom, or something like that in that movie before they jump to the present.

In fact, as per current reports, all that Downey, Jr. is reportedly appearing in will be the two Avengers movies, Avengers: Doomsday (formerly known as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty before Kang was unceremoniously ejected, without comment, from the universe) and Avengers: Secret Wars. That leads many (including this writer) to think that, possibly,, the version of Doctor Doom we’re going to see isn’t going to be the Victor Von Doom that’s standard in comics but, instead, could be a variant version of Tony Stark that has taken on the Doctor Doom persona. How would that work?

Well, for starters, Marvel is currently deep in their “Multiverse Saga”. This was supposed to be their big follow-up to the “Infinity Saga”, but audiences haven’t been responding to it. Marvel has done a bad job of selling the idea, and the great storytelling potential, of a multiverse across their first phase-and-a-half they’ve produced so far. Only a few entries (Spider-man: No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine) have really shown just what the Multiverse could do. Marvel needs a really good hook, a good twist that gets audiences into seats, to sell the Multiverse. A version of Doom played by Robert Downey, Jr. seems like just that hook. The buzz already built seems to confirm that thought.

The trick of Secret Wars was that it was already a multiversal tale in the comics, with heroes getting pulled into a pocket dimension to fight against Doctor Doom. It makes sense to maintain that, and to build to that, via multiversal tales. Originally it would have been Kang at the center of it all, but in the comics Doctor Doom was the villain running the show. Since Kang can’t be in the MCU now (for… reasons) swapping to a bigger star and a bigger character makes so much sense. The fact that Doom was already baked into the comics version of the story is just an extra bonus on top.

In fact, one could even wonder why Kang was the villain Marvel went with when they started this whole saga. Secret Wars serving as the sixth Avengers film was always the plan here, and since Doom was the center of it before, why try and put Kang into that role instead? Everyone knows Doom, even people that don’t read comics, while Kang isn’t popular enough to be famous outside the pages of comics. If the plan was always to do a Fantastic Four movie into the Avengers flicks, then they should have had Doom as the villain all along. That seems far more sensible.

And since it’s a multiversal tale, having it be a variant of Tony Stark actually makes sense. The whole of the MCU started with Iron Man. Robert Downey, Jr.’s version of the character was the heart and backbone of the whole franchise. You can just sense that once Tony died, audiences began to tune out. If you want them to tune in again, bring Tony back. Now he’s a villain, but you still know him (with the face we remember) as Tony Stark. This adds depth to the character without having to write anything about him, and people are already interested to see what he’s going to be like with this villainous twist.

Yes, sure, some audience members might be confused. Those, like Paltrow, might be thrown by the fact that the “hero” they love is now a villain. Most, though, are just going to come back because RDJ is returning and they want to see Tony again. And then they’ll see what he’s like and they’ll probably stick around because, yeah, that is too good a hook to ignore. That will, in turn, lead to more butts in seats, and more money for Marvel. It’s a good twist, and one that builds on the whole history of the MCU, so if this is the plan (and note, right now that’s still an “if”) then it’s a brilliant move from Marvel. In my review of Deadpool & Wolverine I commented that Marvel couldn’t pull off many more big twists that suck people in because there were only so many times they could hit that well. This is one of those twists they still could play and, yes, it will work. I have no doubt.

This is totally a corporate decision from Marvel. If the “Multiverse Saga” were firing on all cylinders, and if Kang were a villain that was working for audiences, then I doubt Kevin Feige and his team would have bothered trying to find a way to bring RDJ back. At worst they would have recast Kang and kept their original plan in place. But they had to recalibrate and find a way to get people interested and this will do it. Now they just have to make movies and shows people want to see which…

Oh, right, Marvel is still generally struggling with. I guess that’s something else they still have to figure out.