Marvel has released the first full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, giving fans their first proper look at a crossover built around Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, several hero teams, and the familiar Marvel problem of people with capes refusing to agree on the obvious threat.
The trailer arrives after months of Marvel teasing the scale of the film’s cast, according to The Verge’s Charles Pulliam-Moore. The studio has already made clear that Doomsday is not being pitched as a small reunion movie. It is assembling the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and the New Avengers into one very crowded disaster zone.
Downey’s Doctor Doom appears to be at the center of much of that disaster. The trailer presents Doom as the new Latverian enemy the heroes need to address, Pulliam-Moore reported. That setup is doing a lot of work: Marvel is bringing Downey back to the franchise, but not as Tony Stark, and the trailer leans into the resulting friction without spelling out every rule of the multiverse machinery behind it.
Hero teams collide before they cooperate
The footage suggests Doomsday will include fights between Marvel’s own heroes, not just a clean lineup against Doom. Pulliam-Moore wrote that the trailer shows different teams clashing, with Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, seemingly the one character who understands that the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and the New Avengers should focus on Doom instead of each other.
That is familiar Marvel crossover logic: start with a room full of powerful people, add incompatible agendas, then make them punch through their misunderstandings before the real villain finishes redecorating reality. The trailer indicates Doomsday is using that structure at blockbuster scale.
Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, also appears in the trailer. Pulliam-Moore reported that Rogers’ presence will probably help bring the groups together, which is about as subtle as putting a shield-shaped button labeled “teamwork” on the console. Marvel has not disclosed every story detail, and the trailer appears designed to hold plenty back.
The studio is expected to say more about Avengers: Doomsday during its San Diego Comic-Con presentation later this week, according to The Verge. For now, the first trailer positions the film as a nostalgia-heavy spectacle with particular emphasis on Marvel’s older X-Men movies.
Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to open in theaters on December 18th. That date also puts it against Dune Part 3, setting up a rare same-day collision between two expensive franchise machines that would both prefer to own the weekend.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
