I know I've written about the matter of Avengers: Doomsday a lot, but every, and I mean EVERY, Marvel fan needs to be informed about the 2026 film, because I wouldn't want anyone heading into the theater being confused out of their minds (that would be annoying).

Avengers: Doomsday is set to be the biggest and craziest Marvel movie of all time (next to Deadpool and Wolverine, Infinity War, Endgame, and Doctor Strange 2). Many of the actors from the original X-Men trilogy, past MCU movies, and the newly released Fantastic Four movie are all set to return in the 2026 Avengers event. This movie will also introduce a notable Fantastic Four villain, and my personal favorite villain, Doctor Doom, whose real name is Victor Von Doom.

The movie will feature a total of 27 actors/actresses alongside more actors who will be revealed later down the road. While there isn't much on the movie's sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars, we do know that the main Fantastic Four cast (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) will return in the 2027 sequel. The directors, who are the Russo brothers who directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame, are slated to return to the Marvel set after six years to direct Doomsday and Secret Wars.

Who are the Cast of Avengers: Doomsday?

Image Credit: Paul Bird from Wikimedia Commons

According to the Russo brothers and Paul Rudd during the D23 event that happened last weekend, the film is still currently shooting, so Marvel is probably not ready to reveal the next half of the cast, despite the poorly aged August 27th rumor.

• Chris Hemsworth - Thor Odinson - last seen in Thor: Love and Thunder
• Vanessa Kirby - Sue Storm/Invisible Woman - last seen in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
• Anthony Mackie - Sam Wilson/Captain America - last seen in Captain America: Brave New World (that was an okay movie)
• Sebastian Stan - Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier - last seen in Thunderbolts
• Letitia Wright - Shuri/Black panther - last seen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Paul Rudd - Scott Lang/Ant-Man - last seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• Wyatt Russell - John Walker/U.S. Agent - last seen in Thunderbolts
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia - Namor - last seen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach - Ben Grimm/The Thing - last seen in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
• Simu Liu - Shang-Chi - last seen in Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings
• Florence Pugh - Yelena Belova - last seen in Thunderbolts
• Kelsey Grammer - Hank McCoy/Beast - Grammer's version was last seen in The Marvels
• Lewis Pullman - Robert Reynolds/Sentry/Void - last seen in Thunderbolts
• Danny Ramirez - Joaquin Torres/Falcon - last seen in Captain America: Brave New World
• Joseph Quinn - Johnny Storm/Human Torch - last seen in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
• David Harbour - Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian - last seen in Thunderbolts
• Winston Duke - M'Baku - last seen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Hannah John-Kamen - Ava Starr/Ghost - last seen in Thunderbolts
• Tom Hiddleston - Loki Laufeyson - last seen in Loki Season 2
• Patrick Stewart - Charles Xavier/Professor X - Stewart's version was last seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
• Ian McKellen - Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto - McKellen's version was last seen in X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Alan C. (we can't say his last name due to censorship) - Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler - Alan's version was last seen in X2
• Rebecca Romijn - Raven Darkholme/Mystique - Romijn's version was last seen in X-Men: First Class as a cameo
• James Marsden - Scott Summers/Cyclops - Marsden's version was last seen in X-Men: Days of Future Past
• Channing Tatum - Remy LeBeau/Gambit - last seen in Deadpool and Wolverine
• Pedro Pascal - Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic - last seen in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
• Robert Downey Jr. - Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom - Downey was last seen as Doom in The Fantastic Four: First Steps mid-credit scene and as Tony Stark/Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame

Release Date

The film is set to release worldwide on December 18th, 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars slated to release on December 17th, 2027, 364 days since the release of Doomsday.

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What is the Plot?

Image Credit: Marvel Studios from Wikimedia Commons

The official summary of Doomsday is currently not available yet, so we might get the full plot somewhere by the beginning of next year. However, some of the plot could be the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the Wakandans teaming up to fight against Doctor Doom, who could have a plan to control the multiverse.

Who is Doctor Doom?

Image Credit: User:Dr-Victor-von-Doom from Wikimedia Commons

But I am above all, a reasonable man; thus, I have granted your leaders one week to surrender to the rule of Doom or suffer total annihilation.

Ugh, he sounded so COOOOOOOL when he said that. Just straight up aura-farming.

Doctor Doom, whose real name is Victor Von Doom, is a maniacal Latverian villain who is the primary antagonist of the Fantastic Four (the comics, not First Steps). Why does he go after the Fantastic Four, you may ask? Ask Reed Richards.

In the comics, Doom and Richards are genius scientists who were rivals and became even BIGGER rivals due to an accident. The accident was Doom performing a science experiment that Reed specifically told him not to do, as the consequences could be catastrophic. Doom ignored him and decided to do it anyway, and the experiment exploded, causing his face to be completely disfigured.

That is one of the reasons why Doom wears the metal mask: because he wants to hide his true form, but some reasons include his pride, arrogance, and greed for power. The science experiment also led to Doom's hatred for Reed because he thinks he's the reason for his face becoming disfigured, even though Reed literally predicted that the science experiment was harmful and told him not to do it.

Some reasons why he also may hate Reed are because of his jealousy over Reed's intellectuality, him having the life and family Doom wanted to have, and his misguided blaming over the science experiment. Now overwhelmed in this hatred, Doom seeks to destroy not only Reed but the Fantastic Four as well.

Victor Von Doom is highly intelligent and has a brilliant scientific mind, just like Reed Richards, and that intelligence would be a key element in the way he obtains and uses his powers. He created powerful technology and armor to protect himself and make him stronger and learned the mastery of magic from Tibetan monks and Cynthia von Doom, Victor's mother.

His powers and abilities include energy manipulation, force fields, flight, time travel, teleportation, proficient sorcery that can rival Doctor Strange, durability, superhuman strength, high-tech weapons and other gadgets, his ability to transfer his soul to other bodies, and, of course, his intellectuality. He uses his mastery of science and magic to enhance his strength and power to defeat anyone who would stand in his way, including the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, and other magical beings, even though he has been defeated by Luke Cage, the Beyonder, Reed Richards, Thanos, etc.

Doctor Doom has appeared in live-action movies such as, Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Fant4stic (that movie was absolutely awful), and The Fantastic Four: First Steps as a cameo in the mid-credit scene.

Avengers: Doomsday Fan Theories

Image Credit: Rian Hughes from Wikimedia Commons

There are tons of fan theories I have but I will list down only a few I have in mind.

• Franklin Richards/Doctor Doom: Franklin Richards is a beyond Omega mutant who is endowed with cosmic powers such as reality warping, telepathy, telekinesis, the ability to create pocket universes (as we saw in Superman), the ability to create or reshape actual universes, astral projection, the ability to rewrite the laws of physics and quantum mechanics, resurrection, matter manipulation, and precognition (by the way, that's not even all his powers). Doctor Doom, just like Galactus, recognizes his full potential and wants to use him to bend the multiverse to Doom's rule so that he can become the most powerful being that can't be defeated once more. That could probably explain why Doom was facing Franklin Richards in the mid-credit scene of First Steps, but I speculate that Richards was just healing his face with his powers and that Doom will kidnap Franklin in Doomsday.
• The Resurrection of the Scarlet Witch: Remember when infant Franklin Richards resurrected his mother after she died pushing Galactus into the portal? Yeah, that could very well come into play when it comes to the Scarlet Witch. When Wanda died in Multiverse of Madness, she destroyed the Darkhold, the book that was causing her powers and abilities to become more powerful, but at the expense of her being corrupted and overwhelmed. One possibility there could be is that Richards uses his powers to resurrect the Scarlet Witch, since her powers include reality warping, energy manipulation, probability manipulation, Chaos Magic, teleportation, and telekinesis. Just like Franklin Richards, Doctor Doom wants to use her and her powers as a way to control the multiverse and shift reality. Franklin Richards and Scarlet Witch together would be unstoppable (unless Jean Grey makes her way into the MCU).
• Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter: Incursions are when two or more universes collide with each other, causing one or both realities to be destroyed. Doctor Doom sees incursions as a threat to the multiverse, and he thinks that Steve Rogers using the Quantum Realm to travel back to the past to have the dance that he promised to Peggy Carter causes an incursion. One theory is that with Doom's teleportation powers, he could teleport to the very moment of the dance and either kill Steve Rogers or stop him from traveling back to the past to prevent an incursion from happening. In relevance to this theory, Chris Evans was referred to as “Luke Cage,” and there was a house on the Avengers: Doomsday set that was labeled “the Luke Cage House.” I'm not saying Evans will 100% be in this film but never say never.
• Doom uses Galactus: I know this theory may sound stupid, but what if Doctor Doom finds Galactus after being defeated in First Steps and uses Galactus due to his cosmic nature, invulnerability, energy and matter manipulation, and size alteration? His presence and alliance with Doom would pave the way for a Doom victory in a major multiversal event.

Conclusion

Be sure to have notifications enabled for Marvel Studios' official social media accounts on Twitter/X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc., to be alerted of any Doomsday news because once the first trailer releases, minds are going to BLOW. This will be the first Avengers film in seven years and the penultimate end to the Multiverse Saga, and let's say everyone will be losing sleep trying to watch this movie. The line at the theaters in December 2026 will be packed full of eager and energy-filled Marvel fans who are absolutely excited to see the man who kicked off the entire Marvel franchise, but in another mask.

Quick Planning Tip

Be sure to check out my article on everything you need to watch to prepare for Avengers: Doomsday to inform yourself on what movies connect to Doomsday or hold some type of foreshadowing to the multiversal war that could potentially happen in the movie.