The latest installment (5th!) of The Fantastic Four wasn’t all that bad (I give it 6 of 10 stars), and if you arrived a tad late to the theater you may have missed that it actually takes place on an alternate Earth, specifically Earth-828 (so named after co-creator Jack Kirby‘s birthday). You’d have likely picked up on that fact quickly anyway as its 1950s-1960s-ish feel certainly isn’t the Marvel Universe proper.
Of course, this incarnation of the FF is supposed to somehow at least engage with some of the heroes from our reality as they’re slated to next appear in Avengers: Doomsday. But … Robert Downey Jr.’s Dr. Doom also is from an alternate reality. Based on the second post-credits scene in FF, instead of a time machine it seems Doom has a dimension-crossing device.
According to Google’s A.I., Avengers: Doomsday is supposed to involve a battle between the MCU Avengers and the original X-Men trilogy’s mutants, orchestrated by Doom in order “to weaken both sides to gain access to a power source, possibly Franklin Richards’ powers (again, note the post-credits scene in Fantastic Four).
Doom believes doing this “is necessary to stop multiversal incursions and save the multiverse.”
Rumors include the deaths of “several major heroes,” including some of Earth’s mightiest, the FF’s Reed Richards becoming The Maker (to fix any multiversal damage), and the Sentry “going berserk.”
If the “stop multiversal incursions” is true, that’s perfectly fine by me. I mean, following Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and especially Deadpool and Wolverine, why should a viewer, let alone a longtime comics fan, even care about the outcome of any such adventure? The ending of Logan and Avengers: Endgame were legitimately heartfelt (the deaths of Wolverine and Tony Stark), but as we saw in Deadpool and Wolverine the former’s death was relatively easily solved by … jumping to a different reality and snatching up its Logan.
Deadpool and Wolverine was a lot of fun; the cameos of some of Marvel’s past properties (in particular, Blade and Chris Evans’ Human Torch) were satisfying particularly for older comic fans. But the ease with which Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman literally jumped from reality to reality was disconcerting and silly. Relying on reality-jumping and time travel (Avengers: Endgame) have become Marvel’s deus ex machina.
Nevertheless, such follows what the comics have been doing for decades — longtime fans know by now that no superhero’s (and villain’s and popular supporting character’s) death is permanent. Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben is one exception. Mar-Vell (the original Capt. Marvel) is, at least for now, another. Involved readers ceased caring about “deaths” years ago, in part thanks to retconning legendary “deaths” like those of Jean Grey (Marvel Girl/Phoenix), Gwen Stacy, Bucky Barnes, and Wonder Man.
Jean Grey’s death in X-Men #137.So yes — Avengers: Doomsday will make a ton of money and thrill many fans with its gazillion characters much like Infinity War, Endgame, and Deadpool and Wolverine did. But I predict the plot will be ridiculously superficial, full (yet again) of lame, cheap, and not-funny quips no matter the character saying them, and will set the stage for an even lamer sequel (Secret Wars) that also will make a ton of money.
But I won’t watch until it’s streaming.
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English (US) · 