Marvel is doing everything it can to make sure Avengers: Doomsday has an unprecedented rollout. We’re still a year away from the movie hitting theaters, but fans can now see an exclusive trailer before showings of Avatar: Fire and Ash. But what’s more, this is only the first of four trailers that will be shown in theaters, so this is only the beginning.
The trailers are kicking off with a bang, though: the long-awaited return of Chris Evans, once again playing Steve Rogers. The trailer may be wordless, showing Steve getting off his motorcycle and cradling a newborn baby, but it could reveal a major Doomsday spoiler merely by existing.
The last time we saw Steve Rogers, he used the time machine the Avengers employed in their Endgame “time heist” to go back to his original time and grow old with his “best girl,” Peggy Carter. We later see the aftermath of his funeral after he passes away from natural causes, and Sam Wilson inherits his shield and title. But just what happened when Steve was taking the long way around to the 21st century? The answer could spell doom — quite literally — for the future of Earth.
One of the leading fan theories surrounding Avengers: Doomsday is that Steve Rogers’ return to the past caused an incursion, colliding different versions of the timeline together. Incursions were a major part of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but they haven’t been mentioned much since, even in all the multiversal hijinks of Deadpool & Wolverine. However, in the comics, incursions are what allow Dr. Doom to set up his Battleworld, so many fans believe something similar will happen in the upcoming movie, setting up Battleworld’s presumed role in Avengers: Secret Wars.
But this return does more than just set up a comic reference. It also brings back Steve Rogers in a way that actually works with the story — his choice to live a happy life and start a family in the past may have provided an opportunity for Dr. Doom (who coincidentally looks just like his old friend Tony Stark).
Even if Steve only serves as an inciting incident in Doomsday, it’s so interesting to see what he got up to in all of those decades and if he’ll ever learn what effect his choice has on the rest of the universe.
