Avengers Doomsday: Tony Stark is dead, long live Doctor Doom (trailer).

Marvel has released a new special look at Avengers: Doomsday, and the good news is that Robert Downey Jr. is back. The rather less good news for Earth’s assorted mighty heroes is that he appears to have returned as Doctor Doom and has absolutely no intention of solving their problems by flying through a portal carrying a nuclear missile.

He’s apparently going to become the problem. The new footage concentrates heavily on Victor von Doom, the masked monarch, scientist, sorcerer and all-round difficult dinner guest who has spent more than sixty years making life complicated for the Fantastic Four in Marvel comics. Doom is one of those villains who regards taking over the world less as megalomania and more as correcting an administrative oversight.

For anyone who has somehow avoided several decades of comic shops, Doctor Doom is traditionally the ruler of Latveria, a fictional European country where elections are refreshingly uncomplicated because Victor has already counted the votes. He is Reed Richards’ intellectual rival, possesses formidable scientific knowledge, studies magic and wears armour which makes Iron Man look as if Tony Stark bought his suit during a particularly ambitious trip to Halfords.

Marvel could therefore hardly have selected a larger villain for its next Avengers gathering. There is, of course, the small matter that Doctor Doom now looks remarkably like Tony Stark.

Robert Downey Jr. spent more than a decade as Iron Man, became the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and finally died saving reality in Avengers: Endgame. This is roughly equivalent to Sean Connery returning to James Bond as Blofeld while everybody agrees not to mention that Blofeld looks suspiciously good in a dinner jacket.

Marvel insists Downey is playing Victor von Doom, rather than an evil Tony Stark variant wearing a medieval iron bucket, and the new footage leans firmly into establishing Victor as his own damaged creature.

Sue Storm describes a man who was once kinder and more caring before losing everything he loved. What seems to have emerged from that tragedy is a super-genius who has decided that reality itself contains accounting errors and somebody needs to settle the books.

Unfortunately for everybody else, Doom has appointed himself auditor.

His accusation that the heroes have been living “stolen lives” may be the most interesting clue in the trailer. We see heroes enjoying the families and futures they fought for, while Doom apparently regards these lives as things which should never have existed.

After years of timelines splitting, universes colliding, dead people returning and Spider-Men arriving from other film franchises, it is difficult to say that he hasn’t at least found some suspicious entries in the cosmic ledger.

The forthcoming film brings together heroes from three different universes. One is the familiar MCU, another is the retro-futuristic reality of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, while the returning X-Men provide yet another branch of Marvel’s increasingly magnificent dimensional hedge.

Yes, the X-Men are properly invited this time. Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, James Marsden’s Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique, Kelsey Grammer’s Beast and Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler are among the returning mutant veterans. Channing Tatum’s Gambit is coming too, presumably because after spending so many years trying to get a Gambit film made he now has contractual squatter’s rights inside the MCU.

Then there are the Avengers. Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man and Letitia Wright as Shuri. Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen and Lewis Pullman bring assorted members of the Thunderbolts* gang along for what increasingly resembles the most dangerous works Christmas party ever organised.

The Fantastic Four are represented by Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm.

And then Chris Evans is back as Steve Rogers. Because apparently retirement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe lasts slightly less time than a British railway franchise.

Hayley Atwell is also returning as Peggy Carter, meaning the ending of Avengers: Endgame, where Steve travelled backwards through time to enjoy the life with Peggy he had been denied, may suddenly be rather more important than it seemed. If Doom believes somebody has been enjoying a stolen existence, Steve Rogers has certainly been doing some fairly creative things with history.

One suspects Victor’s cosmic compliance department may wish to see his paperwork. The trailer also demonstrates why Doom is rather more troublesome than the usual chap with a large spaceship. Thor attacks him and discovers that being a thunder god does not automatically entitle you to win every argument. Doom appears capable of combining science and magic, which is much the same unfair advantage he has traditionally enjoyed in the comics.

He also has Sentinels. That should cheer up the X-Men.

Those mutant-hunting robots have traditionally been sufficiently unpleasant when commanded by anti-mutant governments. Giving the keys to Doctor Doom feels akin to discovering that your local traffic warden has acquired the Death Star.

There is another reason all this should interest anyone familiar with Marvel comics. Doom has an extremely significant history with Secret Wars, which just happens to be the title of the next Avengers film scheduled after Doomsday.

In the original 1980s Secret Wars, Doom managed to steal enormous cosmic power from the Beyonder. Jonathan Hickman’s much later 2015 Secret Wars went considerably further, with the collapsing multiverse eventually producing Battleworld under the rule of God Emperor Doom.

None of that means Marvel Studios is adapting either storyline directly. The MCU has always treated comic continuity as a chef treats the recipe after discovering half the ingredients are unavailable and somebody has already eaten the mushrooms.

But putting Doctor Doom at the centre of a multiversal catastrophe immediately before a film called Avengers: Secret Wars is unlikely to be coincidence.

Anthony and Joe Russo are directing again after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame. At this stage Marvel presumably keeps them in a reinforced glass cabinet marked BREAK IN CASE OF $2 BILLION EMERGENCY.

The challenge is considerable. Avengers: Doomsday has so many returning heroes, revived characters, dimensional refugees and actors wandering in from previous Marvel continuities that merely giving everybody enough screen time could require cinema audiences to bring sandwiches.

Yet Doctor Doom may be precisely the villain capable of holding such a circus together. Thanos was frightening because he believed his monstrous plan was necessary. Doom is potentially more entertaining because Doom traditionally believes whatever Doom wants is not merely necessary but self-evidently correct. He doesn’t need approval. Approval is something lesser people give Doom after he has explained why they were wrong.

And Downey’s casting adds another uncomfortable layer. Every surviving Avenger remembers Tony Stark. Some loved him. Some fought alongside him. Some watched him die. Now something wearing the face of their dead friend appears to be telling them that their very existence is illegitimate.

If Marvel handles that properly, there is considerably more dramatic ammunition here than the novelty of watching Iron Man’s actor play the bad guy.

Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we are also rather taken with a trailer that finally lets Doctor Doom behave like Doctor Doom. He has his armour. He has the hood. He has the grand pronouncements. He appears to possess enough power to make Thor regret getting out of bed.

Most importantly, he has absolutely no detectable sense that any of this might be his fault. That’s Doom.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives in cinemas on 18 December 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars following in December 2027. Between now and then, Marvel fans have approximately four months to construct diagrams explaining which universe everybody belongs to.

Buy a large sheet of paper.