The anticipation for Avengers: Doomsday has reached a scale that Marvel Studios has not achieved since Avengers: Endgame. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo are back, the cast is staggering in its breadth, and the premise delivers on what fans have wanted for decades. The film unites the MCU’s Avengers with the Wakandans, the Fantastic Four, and the original Fox-era X-Men cast, including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and James Marsden. That would already be enough for a mindblowing crossover event, but the MCU is also bringing Robert Downey Jr. back as the armored tyrant Doctor Doom. For a handful of lucky fans and industry insiders present at this year’s CinemaCon, the trailer of Avengers: Doomsday already underlined how the Multiversal saga is coming to a close in grand style.
Both in comics and in theaters, Marvel has always understood that before heroes unite against a single threat, they fight. From the brawls of The Avengers to an all-out war in Captain America: Civil War, Marvel’s heroes are constantly challenging each other, and Avengers: Doomsday won’t be any different. In fact, the little we know about the movie’s plot already confirms some exciting clashes.
During an interview about Avengers: Doomsday, Alan Cumming described a fight sequence he was preparing for, casually letting slip that he would be hitting Pedro Pascal against the head. That all but confirms a fight between Nightcrawler and Mister Fantastic, and while Cumming later joked on Jimmy Kimmel Live that he “broke Pedro,” which makes sense. On paper, Reed Richards is one of the most intelligent beings in the Marvel universe, capable of stretching his body into nearly any configuration and applying that elasticity in combat. The problem is that Richards is a scientist first, a combatant last, and Nightcrawler fights with the instincts of someone who has been outnumbered for his entire life. The ability to teleport mid-combat also allows Nightcrawler to vanish and regroup if things become too dire, which is why we think he wins the fight.
The CinemaCon trailer included a shot of Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) transforming into Yelena Belova, teasing a Florence Pugh versus Florence Pugh confrontation. In X-Men and X2, Mystique is one of the most dangerous close-quarters fighters in the franchise, taking on multiple armed opponents simultaneously with exceptional agility and a combat style built entirely on unpredictability and misdirection. Meanwhile, as Black Widow and Thunderbolts* established, Yelena is a Red Room-trained operative whose hand-to-hand record is genuinely elite. The difference is that Mystique, wearing Yelena’s face and moving nothing like a regular human, presents a targeting problem that no amount of combat conditioning fully prepares a fighter for. That disruption means Mystique probably wins
The CinemaCon trailer featured Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Gambit (Channing Tatum) in direct combat, teasing one of the most thrilling fights. Gambit’s kinetic energy manipulation turns any object into an explosive projectile, and his staff proficiency results in a combat style built around fluid and unpredictable movement. Shang-Chi, in his turn, is the MCU’s premier hand-to-hand combatant, trained in every martial discipline. On top of that, Shang-Chi now controls the Ten Rings, weapons of ancient power that have no natural counter in any conventional fighting style. Gambit’s explosive charges are devastating against static targets, but Shang-Chi does not stand still, and the Ten Rings can disrupt and deflect at range. That means Shang-Chi wins this fight before Gambit gets a second round of cards in the air.
The CinemaCon trailer for Avengers: Doomsday features a chilling image of Doctor Doom stopping Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) Stormbreaker axe with his hands. Thor is one of the most powerful characters in the MCU, and pitting him against Doom can set the stakes for the crossover movie. The Russo brothers have already described Doom publicly as a villain who is always three moves ahead of the heroes around him, which means this fight is not designed to be won by the Asgardian. Doomsday needs to establish Doom’s threat level convincingly, and defeating the God of Thunder in single combat is the clearest possible way to do that.
Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to be released in theaters on December 18th.
Which fights are you most excited to watch play out when Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters this December? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
