Is it really so shocking that Robert Downey Jr is to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not as Iron Man/Tony Stark, but as the supervillain Doctor Doom? Well yes, because nobody had really seen this coming when the actor was unveiled at Comic-Con in San Diego last weekend. Despite the advent of the multiverse after Stark’s death in Avengers: Endgame more than five years ago, the studio had opted not to bring the superhero back as a version of himself from another reality, even though this would have been easier than Doctor Strange opening a portal to the nearest Himalayan tea shop. The sense was that Downey Jr was probably done with this superhero stuff, that any return for Iron Man would have to be in the distant future and that it would most likely involve a new actor in the suit.
The prospect of the Oscar-winner ever playing Stark again has almost certainly been torpedoed off the map by the announcement that Downey Jr will return in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, both of which are expected to hit cinemas by 2027. In many ways this is an ingenious move by Marvel. Downey Jr is the actor who kicked off the studio’s most popular phase with 2008’s Iron Man. But given he is now playing an entirely new character, producers can hardly be accused of retreading a tired old path. This is not Sean Connery back in the saddle as 007 in Never Say Never Again, or Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the T-800 for the umpteenth time: there is the potential for something more interesting to happen with the casting, and no Marvel supervillain needs an actor with serious weight to portray them more than Victor von Doom.
