First Official Avengers: Doomsday Image Has Fans Making Wild Guesses

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Image via Marvel Studios

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The first official trailer for Avengers: Doomsday is dropping on Thursday this week, but the men at the helm are already teasing fans with their own sneak peek. However, this "first look" does not boast very much to look at.

Joe and Anthony Russo shared an Instagram post with the hashtag #AvengersDoomsday on Dec. 15, 2025. It is a very tight, blurry close-up of an identifiable image, appearing as a Y-shaped white object in front of a dark background.

Naturally, fans who saw the post have taken to the comments to write in their theories as to whatever this photo might have to do with Avengers: Doomsday. For instance, one commentator leaves a believable, but largely unlikely, guess that it is a snapshot of a "broken leg X-ray" belonging to James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, also known as The Winter Soldier.

Most of the comments, however, come from fans who have apparently had enough of The Russo brothres' penchant for dropping mind-boggling clues about the upcoming fifth Avengers movie, and the 39th feature-length chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One comment even reads, "This is even more cryptic than the last image you posted for Doomsday."

The Russo Brothers Love Dropping Cryptic Clues About Their Movies

Joe and Anthony Russo high-fiving at the premiere of The Electric State

This is not the first time that Joe and Anthony Russo decided to play with their fans' heads a little bit with a mysterious social media post related to Avengers: Doomsday. In Sept. 2025, they dropped a photo from the film's set, showing Joe sitting alone at his laptop in a corner of a sound stage, with the caption, "Look hard..."

The seemingly meticulous way that the equipment is placed around the younger Russo brother had some fans believing this is a clue that Avengers: Doomsday is an Avengers vs. X-Men adaptation, which is not too far-fetched. Much of the film's cast, in addition to returning MCU stars like Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Sam Wilson actor Anthony Mackie, are veterans of the Fox-era X-Men movie franchise, including Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan.

This is also not the first abstract image that the Russos have used to tease Avengers: Doomsday. In Sept., the filmmaking duo shared an Instagram post of a blurry close-up on what appears to be a chalkboard with the caption, "Doomsday is coming.

Avengers: Doomsday is not even the first movie that The Russo brothers have personally marketed with this enigmatic approach. In fact, in 2018, they shared a different photo of Joe surrounded by set equipment with the caption "Look hard..." which turned out to be a subtle reveal that the fourth Avengers movie would be subtitled "Endgame."

Of course, no one could forget Marvel Studios' official announcement of the Avengers: Doomsday cast in March 2025, which was also mind-boggling, but for less mysterious reasons. It came in the form of a video that was live-streamed on Twitter (officially called X today) that revealed the names of each actor on the back of fold-out chairs that were shown one at a time, 25 minutes at a time, for a total of five hours.

The Russo brothers even poked fun at the viral Avengers: Doomsday event with their own Instagram post shared via the official account of their production company, AGBO, in Oct. 2025. It is a take on a popular meme in which users imagine ridiculous ideas for a Halloween costume sold by Spirit Halloween, in this case, a fold-out chair bearing Robert Downey Jr.'s name with the title, "Wooden Chair: Celebrity Edition."

Robert Downey Jr. is easily the most talked-about name in the Avengers: Doomsday cast, due to his return to the MCU following Iron Man's death in Avengers: Endgame. Of course, this time, the Academy Award winner will not be portraying Tony Stark, but one of Marvel's most feared foes, Doctor Doom. Other specific plot details for the highly anticipated superhero movie remain under the hood.

Avengers: Doomsday is set to hit theaters Dec. 18, 2026.