The MCU has taken a huge gamble with Avengers: Doomsday, and while I’m hoping it pays off, part of me wonders where we’d be if the original plan had gone ahead.
Next year the Avengers will take on their fiercest opponent yet, Doctor Doom, who’s going to presumably kick-off a multiversal war that’ll forever change the MCU.
It wasn’t always going to be this way though, because as we all know the original plan for the next Avengers films was going to revolve around Kang The Conqueror.
Bringing Back The Old Guard
After Avengers: Endgame the MCU took great lengths to set up its new superhero teams, with most of the core Avengers having either died or retired, it was down to heroes like Sam Wilson’s Captain America to carry the torch forward.
Having been set up in both Loki and explored further in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Kang The Conqueror was going to be responsible for the multiversal collapse and only the combined might of the new Avengers would be enough to stop him.
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Since Marvel Studios axed Jonathan Majors though plans had to change and that’s how we’ve ended up with Avengers: Doomsday.
While I think Doctor Doom is an infinitely better villain than Kang I think the way Marvel has gone about this whole ordeal is incredibly risky.
Following Avengers: Endgame it was a chance to start fresh but it felt like far too many of its stories were clinging to the past.
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With Avengers: Doomsday bringing back Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom and Chris Evans as Captain America it feels more and more like Marvel is flailing for any bit of fan recognition it can get. Bringing back the old guard so to speak.
It makes me sad for characters like Sam Wilson, who had a TV show and film’s worth of development as they came to terms with their new role of Captain America, only for the OG to come racing in and steal the spotlight when Avengers: The Kang Dynasty would have apparently featured Sam front and centre. If the ending of The Thunderbolts is anything to go off Sam Wilson will still have his moment as he’s assembled his own Avengers team off-screen.
Avengers: Doomsday is very exciting and I’m sure both it and Avengers: Secret Wars will be cinematic marvels, not pun intended, but I can’t help but wonder if the studio should have stuck to its guns and simply recast Kang rather than pivot to what’ll inevitably be called nostalgia-bait.
Topics: MCU, Marvel, TV And Film, Avengers, Avengers: Doomsday