Is Avengers: Doomsday going to Ruin Endgame?

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Ary. So, Avengers Doomsday is on the horizon, and it got us thinking, is this movie actually going to ruin Avengers Endgame? Now, we're hyped for Doomsday, especially with Joe Russo saying it's his favorite Avengers movie yet. This movie has the potential to be something really special. But, could it also spoil the legacy of Avengers Endgame? Endgame's release was an insane time for Marvel fans. I still remember the way I felt in the theater 7 years ago. It brought us together in ways that we are going to always remember. And for a lot of casual movie goers, it was also the last Marvel movie that they went out of their way to see. And Endgame was also a natural ending point for the franchise. It never would have been the actual end. I mean, the MCU makes way too much money for that to be true.

[00:00:49]>> But it was supposed to be an ending for some of the characters and actors who had been with this franchise since the beginning. See, Avengers Doomsday is going to be Marvel playing the hits. All the main characters are coming back.

[00:01:03]But we think these returns could actually undermine all the successful emotional arcs of the Infinity Saga.

[00:01:09]First, let's look at Tony Stark. I mean, the hero began the MCU, so his death ended the saga, but this was also the ending of a journey for Robert Downey Jr. RDJ's career had fallen apart in the early 2000s because of his personal struggles with addiction, and Iron Man helped to catapult him to A-list status.

[00:01:26]John Favro said that he understands what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in Tony Stark. Downy's performance catapulted Iron Man who was previously a belist hero and now he was the face of the entire franchise. These days you can't picture Tony Stark without picturing Robert Downey Jr. and losing Tony was a gut punch. Tony tried to live a quiet life but his sense of guilt and responsibility continuously pulled him back into the life of a hero. And finally that hero life killed him. This was the perfect conclusion to Tony's arc where a selfish man made the ultimate selfless decision to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

[00:02:02]>> You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.

[00:02:06]>> I think I would just cut the wire and I am Iron Man.

[00:02:12]>> But then in July 2024, we got this reveal.

[00:02:16]>> New mask, same task.

[00:02:19]>> And reactions were immediately mixed.

[00:02:21]>> What's the mutual feeling here about Dr. Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr.

[00:02:28]>> Some people were excited to see Robert Downey Jr. return to the MCU, while a lot of other people worried about what this would mean for the characters of Dr. Doom and Tony Stark, as well as Marvel's reluctance to let go of the past. Look, we've made a lot of videos about why Dr. Doom could be wearing Tony Stark's face. But ultimately, casting Downey as Dr. Doom could be a huge mistake. Not because of what it means for Doomsday, but because of what it means for Endgame. If he's great in this role, then it's going to overshadow his legacy of Tony Stark. If he's bad in the role, then it will overshadow his legacy as Tony Stark. On paper, at least this is a no-win scenario. So, years from now, when we rewatch Endgame, will we watch Tony's death and think, "Oh, yeah, and then they brought him back as Dr. Doom." It's kind of like how the end of Return of the Jedi is essentially meaningless now.

[00:03:13]>> Somehow Palpatine returned.

[00:03:15]>> Enjoy your party with the teddy bears because within 30 years, all of you are going to be regarded as miserable failures. or for instance with Logan which had its beautiful ending undermined by Deadpool and Wolverine.

[00:03:26]>> Disney brought him back. They're going to make him do this till he's 90.

[00:03:29]>> Steve's story in Endgame is also going to be completely different after Doomsday. Steve ended the saga by getting his happy ending with Peggy.

[00:03:37]This ending was a little bit confusing and controversial with some fans, but it's still an ending. Steve made the choice to abandon his life in the present day to go back in time and grow old with his long lost love. And then the first trailer for Doomsday dropped.

[00:03:50]And there's no reason for this from a storytelling perspective. Whether or not you like the way his character story ended, it should have at least ended.

[00:04:02]This isn't great for Steve himself, and it also creates problem for Sam's succession.

[00:04:07]>> How does it feel like it's someone else's?

[00:04:10]>> It isn't. I mean, what's the point of having both Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Brave New World exploring Sam's experience inheriting the legacy of Captain America if we're just going to bring back the original Captain America? If Doomsday replaces Sam with Steve, it's a sign of Marvel refusing to let go of the past and let newer characters shine. And as we said, Endgame was an ending for a lot of these original characters. The time travel plot is essentially an excuse to revisit all of the movies through the saga, hitting us with a burst of nostalgia before the leads went out with the bang.

[00:04:40]I can do this all day.

[00:04:41]>> Yeah, I know. I know.

[00:04:43]>> And it wasn't just a cameo fest either.

[00:04:45]Seeing the characters past reminded us of how far they had come since their humble beginnings.

[00:04:54]Characters confronted their own histories and in doing so reminded viewers of the past emotions that we felt about those films. Tony got closure with his dad which healed the lingering wounds that we saw in Iron Man 2 and Civil War. and Steve seeing Peggy in the flesh reopened his own sadness from the first Avenger. The movie made every character wonder if they could do more with the time they still had left. We even had Thor getting to say goodbye to his mother, giving a nod to everybody's favorite Marvel movie, Thor: The Dark World. And get this, Ria has more lines in Avengers Endgame than she did in the Dark World, the movie where she died.

[00:05:29]Seriously? Yes. Anyways, Endgame was an homage to the movies that people love, the movies that built this franchise up, and that made it a loving goodbye to an entire era. The signatures of the actors in the closing credits really hammered this point home. This was the performer's closing bow after almost a decade of films. Now, there were a couple of characters whose stories clearly weren't done, like Wanda, Hawkeye, or Doctor Strange. But Endgame made it very clear which stories were going to continue and which were not.

[00:05:56]Now, afterwards, Marvel obviously pivoted toward television, but then the focus became quantity over quality.

[00:06:01]During phases four, five, and six, the MCU introduced way, way too many characters. Monica Rambo, Shani, The Eternals, Kate Bishop, Moonnight, Scarlet Scarab, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, America Chavez, Werewolf by Night, Gaia from Secret Invasion, Wen Torres, Ekko, Agatha, Billy, Iron Hart, The Thunderbolts, The Fantastic 4, Wonderman, and even with all of those, I know I'm forgetting someone. Black Knight, thank you, and maybe even more.

[00:06:24]Without any teamup movies to bring them all together, this left the phase feeling disjointed and in some cases kind of forgettable. We'll probably never see the Eternals or Gaia again.

[00:06:33]Marvel movies always performed well at the box office because each film felt like an event. It felt like something that we had to see in order to understand the next Avengers film. But now in phases 4, 5, and six, that feeling is gone. So, while cutting down the number of characters is the right choice, it does leave some audience members feeling like they've wasted their time catching up on this lengthy backlog of characters. It makes the movies feel like homework. And in this case, it's homework on a topic that will never even appear on the final exam. So already in this era, we're starting to see the cracks in Avengers Endgame. For instance, it's hard to watch this scene now with the awareness that this isn't even really, which all leads us to Avengers Doomsday. At this point, there are two paths we see forward for the MCU. We're going to call them the Deadpool and Wolverine route and the Thunderbolts route. Deadpool and Wolverine allowed a parade of cameos to take over the movie, which worked because it was played for laughs. However, the interaction between Wolverine and Laura shows the cracks of the multiversal cameo extravaganza.

[00:07:31]>> You might not know it, but you're a good man, Logan.

[00:07:34]>> Those two characters interacting is only meaningful because of the audience's memories. We have fond memories of their goodbye and Logan, but these two versions of these people have never met.

[00:07:44]Now, on the other path, I think that the Thunderbolts had the right idea about how to continue the franchise. Rather than trying to tell a grand universe altering story, it narrowed in on the emotional journey of these characters, particularly Bob and Elena. Instead of a Skybeam, the Thunderbolts told a moving story about mental health and moving beyond the past. Unfortunately, compared to Deadpool and Wolverine, Thunderbolts was not a commercial success. So, I'm afraid that Marvel has learned the wrong lesson from this to focus on cameos, fan service, and meta commentary rather than committing to the more serious emotional story that Doomsday deserves. If we go the Thunderbolts route and tell a serious story, some of Marvel's new phase 4, five, and six characters could be the new leaders of a new era of the franchise. It's been 5 years since Shani, and we've yet to hear the announcement of a Shani sequel. He could be the face of the MCU, but instead he'll probably be a tertiary character in Doomsday to make room for the return of Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr.

[00:08:37]There's also the prephase 4 characters who didn't have their conclusions in Endgame. Wanda is definitely a character the new phases could have centered on, but instead her character arc was butchered in Multiverse of Madness.

[00:08:48]Although, we still have high hopes for her potential role in Avengers Doomsday.

[00:08:51]So, Avengers Doomsday could follow the same route as Deadpool and Wolverine.

[00:08:55]Lots of candy for the fans, but not a lot of nutrition for the franchise. Yes, I am beyond excited to see Chris Evans go up against Robert Downey Jr. again, but that won't make people excited for the future of these movies. Endgame worked as a parade of nostalgia because it was the end of an era. It was tying those nostalgic callbacks to emotional beats that connected with the audience.

[00:09:16]Fans had followed those characters for a decade, and they were ready to see these journeys end. We watched Steve Rogers grow from being a good soldier to an independent thinker. Tony Stark struggled to go from a selfish loner to a team player, and those stories culminated with perfect endings in Endgame. But now, rather than an ending for those characters, it'll feel like a pit stop before the true end of the franchise, Avengers Doomsday. Doomsday is technically the beginning of the end of the multiverse saga, but the multiverse saga was not about Doom or Steve. We can't tie their emotional storylines to the saga because they were not in the saga. any emotional stakes they can have will be tied back to Endgame and prior movies rather than anything recent. The MCU has begun to pace itself more like comics than a movie franchise. See, comics are expected to go on forever. They will have big event after big event that will eventually reset and undo themselves so they can go back and do it again. But films don't really work like that.

[00:10:08]Audiences will eventually lose interest when it goes on long enough. The lack of consistent character through lines through the past few years means that we don't really have a new beginning of a story line, much less an ending that we can say a tearful goodbye to. Now, it's not Marvel's fault that they've had false starts when it comes to a consistent villain.

[00:10:26]But it is their fault that we don't have consistent heroes to rally behind. We should have had consistent Avengers movies throughout phases four, five, and six in order to build these characters up so the saga could resolve their stories. But instead of choosing to commit to the new story beats they've created, Marvel is reverting back to Steve and Tony. And they're also going back even further based on the cast and teaser, we know that they're also including many of the actors from the original X-Men movies. So, it's cool to see these actors again, but it can also be another nostalgia bait cameo. These characters have no established backstory in this universe. Nothing to make us care about them beyond, hey, I remember that guy.

[00:11:03]>> Oh, I remember.

[00:11:05]>> They functionally have as much backstory as Ralph Boner. The introduction of the X-Men into the MCU is really fun, but does it really belong in a movie that's about to end a phase? We're just adding even more actors and characters into this mix. There are so many characters in this movie, I'm worried that the new heroes are going to be like background extras and they're not going to have any significant screen time. Our first look at the movie was a round of chairs with actors names on them that are representative of a larger problem. We don't necessarily want to go see Avengers Doomsday because it's the end of a story we've been watching for the past 5 years. Instead, we want to find out whether or not an actor we like is going to be in the film. In order for fans to keep caring about Marvel, they can't just rely on cameos. The franchise always worked because we felt connections with the characters. We didn't just go to the theater to see Robert Downey Jr. or Chris Evans. We kept showing up over the years because Marvel told emotional stories that we could all relate to, stories that inspired us. So, in order for Doomsday to be the success that we want, we need more than colorful explosions and quips.

[00:12:04]We want to be told a powerful story with characters that we care about. We got that satisfying conclusion with Avengers Endgame. Hopefully Doomsday can celebrate that film instead of undermining it. Guys, big shout out to Harriet Lingalight who wrote this video.

[00:12:16]You can find her links below and let us know what you think. Do you think that this movie can squander the ending of Avengers Endgame? What do you think about Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Doom? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments or on our free to join Discord server or you can follow me on Substack.

[00:12:27]And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts for Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Ary.