Did Marvel Studios just reveal what the title Avengers: Doomsday actually means? Announced in July 2024 at San Diego Comic Con, Marvel Studios revealed the title of Avengers: Doomsday, replacing the previous title, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. At the time, everyone took Doomsday to be in reference to the film’s main villain, Doctor Doom. Yet following the four teaser trailers that have played before Avatar: Fire and Ash, the title might hold a double meaning, one that, if taken literally, could spell the end for The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and X-Men.
With the debut of the fourth Avengers: Doomsday trailer, Joe and Anthony Russo hinted that the four teasers are so much more than that and are actually telling their own story, urging fans to find the clues. The Russos’ initial post ended with the hashtag “DoomsdayHasBegun.” In addition, Marvel Studios released a clock that is counting down to the film’s release on Dec. 18, 2026. However, the countdown might not just be for the movie’s opening date. Indeed, it is counting down to a literal Doomsday for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When it hits zero, the MCU ends.
The Countdown Shows That Time Is Running Out for the MCU
Every teaser trailer for Avengers: Doomsday concluded with a countdown to the film’s release date. On Jan. 13, 2026, to tie in with the fourth teaser trailer, Marvel Studios uploaded a live stream titled “Doomsday Clock”, counting down to the film’s release. The name “Doomsday Clock” is a play on the symbolic Doomsday Clock used since 1947 that represents the estimated likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, with midnight representing “Doomsday.” The world’s closeness to “zero” is measured in minutes or seconds to midnight.
Marvel’s decision to call the countdown “Doomsday Clock” suggests that the film’s subtitle, Doomsday, is about more than Doctor Doom; it represents the countdown to the end of the Marvel Universe. In the real world, the Doomsday Clock is influenced by factors like climate change, nuclear warfare, and artificial intelligence. The countdown in Avengers: Doomsday and the end of the MCU and the multiverse are brought about by incursions. Incursions were introduced in Jonathan Hickman’s iconic New Avengers storyline that set up 2015’s Secret Wars.
As explained in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, “an incursion occurs when the boundary between two universes erodes, and they collide, destroying one or both entirely.”
The storyline that saw The New Avengers attempting to stop the multiversal incursions, only to face the inevitable destruction of the entire Marvel multiverse, was called ‘Time Runs Out.” Similar to the Avengers: Doomsday countdown, Marvel Comics banners had countdowns on them saying “In [X number] Months…Time Runs Out” leading up to the Secret Wars crossover event that is influencing so much of the MCU’s Multiverse Saga.
Marvel Studios is essentially treating Avengers: Doomsday as a feature-length adaptation of the “Time Runs Out” storyline, with the various heroes of the MCU looking to stop the end of days in various realities. As seen by the Avengers: Doomsday countdown clock, time is running out for the MCU heroes. When the clock strikes zero, the movie will be released in theaters, but the MCU’s destruction will begin.
Death Is Inevitable, and the Heroes Can’t Stop the End of the World(s)
Death has been all over the Avengers: Doomsday trailers. With the exception of the first trailer featuring Captain America, three of the Avengers: Doomsday teasers have been ominous and melancholy. Thor’s trailer is quiet, featuring the God of Thunder not in his goofy Rangarok or Love and Thunder mode, but instead praying to his deceased father Odin to give him the strength to save his daughter Love for one last battle.
Both the X-Men teaser and the one featuring Wakanda feature lines of dialogue centered around the idea of death. Specifically, treating death as inevitable, something that cannot be fought, with the heroes asking themselves and others how they will greet death.
Magneto: Death comes for us all. It’s all I know for sure. The question isn’t are you prepared to die. The question is, who will you be when you close your eyes?
Shuri: I’ve lost everyone that matters to me. A king has his duties. To prepare our people for the afterlife. I have mine.”
Magneto’s line asks what exactly a warrior is willing to fight and die for. This may ask the X-Men and the entire MCU heroes what lines they will cross to save their worlds and everyone with them, including sacrificing many lives. The X-Men’s reality shows the Xavier Institute in ruins and ends on the note of Cyclops crying and launching a giant optic blast into the sky as potentially one last stand against an army of Sentinels. The X-Men are powerless to stop the end of days, but seemingly will fight till their last breath.
Shuri’s line references both M’Baku and Namor’s status as kings who need to stand strong for their people in the face of certain death. Indeed, Namor’s Talokan people might be facing certain death as the trailer seemingly implies that their underwater civilization has been completely drained, potentially suggesting that an incursion has begun on the MCU’s sacred timeline and the damage is already beyond repair in a truly cataclysmic event that would mark the end of the days.
Avengers: Doomsday might not just be a movie about various MCU heroes traversing the multiverse to stop Doctor Doom, but also an apocalyptic story about what people do at the end of the world. Avengers: Doomsday might present the end of the multiverse as inevitable and leave all the characters with difficult choices to make. Some will fight, but will others, in the face of impossible odds, spend their last moments with their loved ones? What will the heroes of the MCU do in their final moments?
It also begs the question: If the Marvel Cinematic Universe is facing destruction, what comes next?
The End is the Beginning
A major criticism of Avengers: Doomsday by fans is that it doesn’t feel like the MCU Multiverse Saga has been properly building towards it, as the Infinity Saga did with Avengers: Endgame. However, both the Russo brothers and Kevin Feige have seemingly implied that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars have less in common with Infinity War and Endgame as culminations of massive events, and are more like The Avengers, the beginning of a new era. Joe Russo said Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are “a beginning — it’s a new beginning.”
Kevin Feige told Entertainment Weekly, “You can look at the Secret Wars comics for where that takes you — it very, very much sets us up for the future. Endgame, literally, was about endings. Secret Wars is about beginnings.” Feige later stated he does not intend to reboot the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but following Avengers: Secret Wars, there would be a reset.
Avengers: Doomsday, from its marketing to its countdown, is built around the idea of the MCU’s conclusion. It is the beginning of the end. With endings, though, come new beginnings. Avengers: Doomsday is likely to end on a cliffhanger, similar to Avengers: Infinity War. In the film’s final moments, as the heroes are helpless to save their realities, Doctor Doom might piece together the various realities of the Marvel Multiverse to create Battleworld, as in the final moments of Secret Wars #1. Just as Secret Wars #1 ended with the caption “The Marvel Universe: 1961 – 2015”, Avengers: Doomsday could end with “The Marvel Cinematic Universe: 2008–2026.”
This would then lead directly into Avengers: Secret Wars, a film set entirely in a new reality. Like in the comics, the Marvel Universe will be restored at the end, looking familiar but with some key changes, not a reboot but a reset, just in time for the MCU’s 20th anniversary in 2028. Avengers: Doomsday is counting down towards the destruction of the MCU…and a new universe that will be born in its aftermath.
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