Avengers: Doomsday And Avengers: Secret Wars Shake Up Marvel Line-Up As Kang Vanishes From The MCU

Riding the record-breaking, opening weekend (non-cocaine fueled, as far as Kevin Feige knows) high of "Deadpool & Wolverine," Marvel Studios took the San Diego Comic Con's Hall H stage on Saturday night for its first full-stride victory lap in a shockingly long time. This is, after all, a studio that has mostly dominated the box office since "The Avengers" brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe together for an epochal superhero throwdown. Comic book fans had been dreaming of this movie for decades. Non-fans had been wired for it since Jon Favreau's "Iron Man," if not earlier.

12 years ago, this anticipation caught many in the film industry by surprise. If they'd known Marvel superheroes could be the cowboys of the 21st century, they probably would've taken this genre much more seriously after the surprise success of Tim Burton's "Batman" in 1989. And that's the thing with the superhero genre in this business. For a long time, these properties were controlled by old dudes who knew there was an appetite for this stuff, but they didn't actually dig it. Kevin Feige dug the hell out of it, and he is currently the kingpin of the most bankable brand in Hollywood.

Time, alas, destroys everything. And since "Avengers: Endgame" spiked the football to the box office tune of $2.8 billion worldwide, time has gone to work on Feige's MCU empire. Everyone expected the post-"Endgame" Phase Four to be a gradual build-up to the next Avengers movie, but, as Deadpool notes in his most recent movie, the Multiverse arc isn't panning out quite as planned. Superhero fatigue has set in. "Eternals," "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" and "The Marvels" fell far short of commercial expectations. What way forward? 

As of tonight, it's damn the torpedoes and wipe the slate clean. And bring back Tony Stark. As Victor von Doom? About that...

"Avengers: The Kang Dynasty" was supposed to be the MCU's next big mega-tentpole movie, but when Jonathan Majors was convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment earlier this year, the studio jettisoned him and moved forward. How far forward was grist for the rumor mill, but until tonight no one knew for sure how the MCU would pivot from a plan that clearly wasn't working despite Majors' legal issues.

After hyping up "Captain America: Brave New World," "Thunderbolts" and the newly monikered "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," Feige stunned the Hall H stage by trotting out a figure in a Doctor Doom costume. Within seconds, that figure was revealed to be Robert Downey Jr. There were gasps. There were howls of outrage. There will be a myriad of articles like this one either lauding or castigating Marvel for going down this inspired/desperate route.

I can't see tomorrow (that's The Watcher's gig), but I have caught the whiff of fear on occasion, and Marvel bringing Downey in as a ringer to play a villain who, in the comic book world, had a higher profile than Iron Man feels horribly sweaty. Downey would've been a great Doom. He nearly was Doom in the original 2005 "Fantastic Four" movie! But how do you cast the actor who was the heroic heart of a historic, emotionally involving 11-year run of movies as the (semi-tragically) dark-hearted villain of your future?

If superhero movies are the new Westerns, then maybe the next two Avengers movies (to be directed by the returning Anthony and Joe Russo), "Avengers: Doomsday" (May 2026) and "Avengers: Secret Wars" (May 2027), will give Downey a heel-turn moment on par with Henry Fonda gunning down a child in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." Maybe that's the jolt they need after all of these samey, MCU house-style snoozefests.

We do know that Marvel will be jamming the Fantastic Four into "Avengers: Doomsday," so they're on a tight, DCEU-esque clock — which ain't a great place to be. It took four years to get from "Iron Man" to "The Avengers." Two years between "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" (egad, that title) and "Avengers: Doomsday" feels a bit like a frenzied "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" to "Justice League" rush. But after a tentative Phase Four and an uncertain Phase Five, this is the MCU's commercial reality.

Once upon a time, the MCU moved at its own pace because they knew their audience wasn't going anywhere. Franchise-wise, there's not another major, established competitor out there (we'll see what James Gunn does with his DC films), so, for now, they're only chasing their own legacy. It's hard to imagine them hitting the highs of "The Avengers" and "Avengers: Endgame" again, but now that Downey's back in the fold they must be taken seriously.