What the New Avengers: Doomsday TV Spot May Reveal About How the Movie Begins

We got a new TV spot for Avengers: Doomsday. It isn't the big trailer I think many of us were hoping for, but there's some interesting new material in it. There's the Fantastic Four at a baseball game and some great interactions between Steve Rogers, Thor, Sam Wilson and Ant-Man. A few shots might also tell us quite a bit about how this movie begins and how Doctor Doom brings all of our heroes together.

The Doomsday marketing has been strange, but I enjoyed this spot

This spot has understandably received some pushback from fans who found it underwhelming. I get it, but at the same time, relax. The marketing for Avengers: Doomsday has been weird and sometimes annoying. They tease a big reveal or an announcement, and everybody gets excited thinking we're about to get a proper trailer. Then it turns out to be something like a Doctor Doom inspired coffee shop. I understand that can be frustrating.

Apart from the coffee shop, though, I appreciate that they're trying to reinvent the wheel on the marketing for this one. It's a very interesting campaign. I think they're purposely leaking things, like out of ILM. I think that's intentionally part of their marketing campaign, and it's obviously working. Personally, I enjoyed this TV spot. I think there are some fun moments in it, and there's quite a bit to discuss when you look closely.

The Earth 828 text was probably already in the film

The spot opens with a baseball game taking place on Earth 828, the Fantastic Four universe. What I found interesting is that the words Earth 828 appear on screen, just as they did in the opening of The Fantastic Four: First Steps to establish that it's a different reality from the mainline MCU.

I could be completely wrong about this, but I don't think Marvel's marketing team added that text specifically for this World Series spot. I don't think they put it there to tell a mass audience of baseball fans which universe they're looking at while letting them know the movie is coming. I think the Earth 828 text was already embedded in the shot. The marketing team simply kept it when they assembled the spot from assets Marvel provided as the film gets closer to its final cut, with digital effects and color included. I think this is the very first shot of Universe 828 we'll see in Doomsday.

Leaks place Reed, Johnny and Ben at a ball game while Doom visits Sue

Spoiler warning, because this involves rumored plot details that have leaked over the past few months. We've heard that Reed Richards, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm will all be attending a baseball game toward the beginning of the film. According to those leaks, while the three of them are at the game, Sue is back home with Franklin.

Remember the post credits scene in First Steps, where Doctor Doom arrives at the Baxter Building and it's Doom, Franklin and Sue? That scene is from Avengers: Doomsday, and it happens while Reed, Johnny and Ben are at the baseball game. From what we've understood, Doom's arrival ultimately leads to Sue contacting Reed and telling them they need to come home.

Reed may be looking up at Doom's multiversal ship

Another shot could be even more revealing. Reed stands on the pitcher's mound, looking up into the sky, and he looks genuinely terrified. The way the spot is edited makes it appear that Reed is watching Doom get thrown out of a window and do his super villain landing from the other trailers. I don't think those shots are connected. In fact, I can say with great certainty they're not. This is trailer trickery. That Doom landing comes from a completely different sequence later in the movie, when our heroes are in the X-Men universe.

I do think Reed could still be looking at the same ship we see in the shot where Doom comes out the window. I think what Reed is seeing is Doom arriving in his multiversal ship, the life raft he's using to travel between universes. It has recently been confirmed that Jonathan Hickman has been consulting on Doomsday and Secret Wars, and if you're familiar with his Secret Wars books, you know how important life rafts are to that story. They're vessels designed to survive the destruction of universes, letting their passengers escape the collapse of the multiverse.

I wonder if Doom has developed something similar here: a ship that lets him travel between universes, collect the people he needs and bring them together as part of whatever his ultimate plan is. The Fantastic Four aren't the only important people on Earth 828. Steve Rogers is apparently living there as well. I think Doom's arrival on this Earth is ultimately going to set in motion the events that bring the Fantastic Four and Steve Rogers into the mainline MCU.

Steve's line and Thor's speech look stitched together

There's also a second TV spot that uses much of the same material as the baseball one, minus the parts with the real baseball players. It includes a new shot of Steve looking out and saying, "Let's go." The dialogue and the shot don't sync well, and I think that's more trailer trickery. I think that line comes from another scene and has been paired with this shot of Steve.

We also hear Thor deliver a speech: "Doom will tear this world apart. Team up and stand together." It sounds like three completely different lines from different points in the movie stitched together. I think the line about Doom tearing the world apart probably comes from later, after our heroes discover that Doom is the bad guy and what he's really planning.

The lines about teaming up and standing together are probably from much earlier in the film, maybe even during the meeting at Avengers Tower when Thor is trying to rally everyone. That would explain why the dialogue sounds so unnatural when played together. They're building a line that's good for marketing but isn't in the film. On that Avengers Tower meeting, we also got confirmation that one more hero is present, something I and many others called a long time ago. I'm guessing he's now a member of Sam's Avengers team, which is cool.

Scott Lang's "Right, Cap" is my favorite moment in the spot

Probably my favorite moment in the whole spot belongs to Ant-Man. Paul Rudd is great, and I absolutely love his portrayal of Scott Lang. I've said before that I think Ant-Man should have been able to step into the shoes of someone like Steve Rogers or Tony Stark and become one of the major faces of the Avengers. Not because he's the strongest or smartest person in the room, but because he's genuinely likable. He's funny, he's brave, he's got a huge heart and he's incredibly human.

He's us. He gets thrown into insane situations surrounded by gods, super soldiers, aliens and high tech geniuses, and he reacts the way a normal person probably would. He's constantly in awe, and I think he's one of the best parts of Endgame. He's excited, nervous and a little awkward, and he can't believe he's standing with these people, despite being very worthy of standing among them.

I know Quantumania didn't help his standing in the MCU. That movie was supposed to be a big step forward for Ant-Man and Kang, and unfortunately it didn't work out that way. I hope Marvel doesn't give up on this character. I want more Ant-Man movies, I want more Scott Lang and I want Paul Rudd to keep playing him for as long as he's willing. I'm hoping Doomsday can help that happen.

In the spot, Scott stands with Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, looks over at Steve with a huge affectionate smile and says, "Right, Cap." You can see how excited he is to be with Steve again. Scott has always been a big Captain America fan. When he first met Steve in Civil War, he was starstruck, nervous and awkward, shaking his hand too long. Even after fighting alongside Steve, he never got over that fandom. Hope later poked at him for calling Steve Cap, and he stumbled over what to call him in Endgame.

So I love that in Doomsday it appears he delivers this confident "Right, Cap," perfectly timed. I think he's smiling and not nervous. Then he realizes he's stepped in it and corrects himself to Steve. Then he realizes he shouldn't be directing it at Steve at all, but at Sam, who is Captain America now. I love the meta nature of it too: we've all called Steve Cap for years, and now Sam is Cap. Scott continues to be a great audience proxy.

The Mjolnir exchange between Steve and Thor may be more trickery

Steve and Thor stand together on the rooftop of Avengers Tower. When you think of the original Avengers, you first think of the six: Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. Narrow that to the main four and it's Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. But really you have the main three, with Hulk pushed aside: Thor, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. We've seen that MCU trinity idea, even in Endgame when they fight Thanos. Seeing Steve and Thor interact again gives you nostalgia for that moment, and it's going to be even more awesome in Doomsday because we'll all know that under Victor von Doom's mask is Robert Downey Jr.

In that scene, Steve holds Mjolnir and asks Thor, "This doesn't bother you, does it?" Thor responds, "You know, it does." That's exactly the kind of dry, funny exchange I could see these two having. But looking at Thor's face, I think Marvel might be pulling another bit of trailer trickery. I believe Steve will ask Thor whether this bothers him, but I'm not convinced Thor's response in the spot is answering that question. I could easily see Thor just smiling and saying no, with his line referring to something else. As we've discussed, Marvel loves doing this kind of thing in its marketing.

I don't believe Steve is secretly Loki

This scene has people once again theorizing that Steve Rogers is secretly Loki in disguise. I don't personally believe it, though I think it's interesting that people are going with it. For the sake of argument, though, let's entertain it. If Loki really is standing there disguised as Steve, I think Thor knows it, and Loki knows that Thor knows. We've seen Loki disguise himself as Steve Rogers twice before, in the Loki series and in Thor: The Dark World.

If this is Loki, I don't think Thor would be bothered by him holding Mjolnir. I think he'd be glad Loki is able to hold it. What I think would bother Thor is that Loki is deceiving everybody else by hiding that he's Loki. Thor would be delighted to see that Loki is worthy, because then he'd know he can trust him.

Again, I don't think that's what's happening. I think this is genuinely Steve Rogers, and Marvel is having fun with the dynamic between these characters. I get the Loki comparisons because of the smile Steve gives in the trailer and in this spot, but I think we're going to see a more laid back, lighthearted dad Steve Rogers who does little things like that. He's more mature. We can't compare him exactly to the Steve we had up until Endgame, because he's been living a different life for a long time and he's not Captain America anymore. We even see it in his appearance, going back to his Infinity War look with the longer hair and the beard.

My verdict on the spot

I liked it. I thought it was fun. Would I have liked more? Sure. But what we got looks great, and I'm excited for what will probably be a new trailer around mid November.