First Avengers: Doomsday Poster Is a Massive Clue to Doctor Doom’s MCU Masterplan

Tickets are now on sale for Avengers: Doomsday, a first trailer has dropped at last, and now we finally have a poster. We’re all used to the standard Marvel ads, which typically feature a range of heroes and villains. But for Doomsday, Marvel is taking a very different approach; the first poster instead shows Doctor Doom taking center-stage. The Russo brothers considered Thanos the star of Avengers: Infinity War, and we’re clearly up for more of the same.

Alongside the ticket release, Marvel has also revealed the first Avengers: Doomsday poster. This one’s quite unusual; a shot of Doom standing before a beautiful mural. But that mural may itself reveal exactly what Doom’s plan really is, and what forces are truly opposing him.

The Avengers: Doomsday Mural Shows More Than You Think

Here’s the image in all its glory. The design is reminiscent of classical images in Medieval churches, where you’d typically see Heaven at the top and Hell – or the forces in opposition – at the bottom. Given that’s the case, let’s assume the upper part of the image shows Doom’s goal; a mother and her son, surrounded by angels. In the comics, Doom is a rare character who has mastered both science and sorcery; he became interested in the latter after his mother was taken to Hell, and it’s possible Doom’s motives are similar here. Something has happened to his mother – perhaps the angels signify her death – and he’s haunted by it.

Next, notice that we have just a single Earth (albeit one with a visible crack across its surface). We know Doomsday is effectively a prelude to Avengers: Secret Wars, based on a 2015 comic book event where the multiverse collapsed into a single world – and would have been destroyed utterly if not for Doctor Doom’s intervention. He crafted the remaining fragments together into a place called “Battleworld.” It’s reasonable to assume this is his goal in the MCU as well – to ensure the creation of Battleworld, rather than the end of all that is. Tying the motives together, though, this image appears to tease Doom’s goal isn’t just to create Battleworld – but, rather, it is to shape it. To ensure that, when all is done, the world that is left meets his wishes and has his mother alive.

Finally, we have the images of the bottom; signs of conflict and war, with a being who may be an Asgardian god (or a god from another pantheon). This may indicate Doom is strongly opposed by Marvel’s pantheons; note that the first trailer centers on Thor, and Doom is either powerful enough to stop Stormbreaker, or he has learned how to do so. We finally saw Doctor Doom’s throne at Shanghai Expo, and it featured mysterious runes that appeared to be derived from (but not identical to) Asgardian. If Doom sees himself as a creator, fashioning a new heaven and a new earth, it makes sense that the gods of the old order would oppose him.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18th.

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