Do the Jeep Avengers: Doomsday ad's orange portals confirm Doctor Strange?

A Jeep commercial for Avengers: Doomsday shows orange portals, the kind most associated with Doctor Strange. I'm 99.99% certain Doctor Strange is in this movie. But this commercial on its own does not confirm it. It's a great piece of evidence for the case that he's in Avengers: Doomsday, and no more than that.

Marvel has not confirmed Benedict Cumberbatch as part of the cast. Avengers: Doomsday's official US release date is December 18, with Thursday showings on December 17. I already have tickets for 1:00 in the afternoon that day, and I'm expecting another trailer soon.

The Avengers: Doomsday Jeep commercial shows Doctor Strange style portals

Doomsday recently got tie in commercials from KFC and Jeep, along with one from Dunkin' Donuts. These spots give us looks at different settings for the movie. There's a shot of Latveria and Doom's castle. The Thing rides through sand dunes in a Jeep. There are shots of the X-Men universe in ruins. A lot of this isn't directly from the film. It's based on what Marvel provided to these brands for marketing.

The detail that caught my eye was the orange portals in the Jeep commercial. Those portals are most associated with Dr. Stephen Strange, a character with a major role in the Multiverse Saga. That covers Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and even What If. It also covers his part in Infinity War and Endgame, where he looked into possible futures.

Why I think Doctor Strange is the masked figure on Team Doom

I've long speculated, as have many others, that Doctor Strange is in this movie. I think he's likely the character in the metal mask with a third eye on the forehead, the way Doctor Strange has a third eye on his forehead. I'm rather certain that this is our Doctor Strange, the Universe 616 MCU Doctor Strange.

My reasoning goes back to the end of Multiverse of Madness, when Clea came and got Strange to go fix an incursion. I think that journey has led to Strange joining Team Doom. I also won't be surprised if we learn that Clea is the purple Latverian witch.

The portals don't prove it: Doctor Doom, Wong and others can open them

So does this commercial spoil that Doctor Strange is in the movie? Yes and no. We've seen these portals before in the marketing for Deadpool & Wolverine, and those turned out to be cast by Cassandra Nova, not Doctor Strange. Mystic arts portals can be cast by far more people than Strange.

Doctor Doom himself can cast these portals, because he too is a master of the mystic arts. And the portals in the commercial appear outside his own kingdom of Latveria. We also have to consider Wong, America Chavez or even Ned. I doubt it's Ned, but anyone with a sling ring and mystic arts training could be the one opening them. It could be characters we don't know yet, like Doom's witches.

Having said all of that, I think Doctor Strange is totally in the movie. I think we're going to see him cast sling ring portals, especially in the same location the commercial shows.

Leaks reportedly place the final Avengers: Doomsday battle in Latveria

Spoiler warning for anyone who doesn't want to know. According to some leaks, the big final battle of Doomsday takes place on Universe 828, the Fantastic Four universe, in Doom's kingdom of Latveria. The Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the X-Men reportedly charge on Latveria to stop Doom from completing his mission of collapsing the multiverse.

In that battle, it is said that Strange, as the masked figure, will be casting some kind of final spell while everyone else fights on the ground. Some heroes will reportedly try to stop him, while the others on Team Doom try to protect him. So we could see Strange open portals at the same time to deploy soldiers or Doombots to defend him as the heroes charge. That would be a fun mirror of Endgame, when it was the good guys coming out of the portals.

Again, these don't have to be Strange's portals. I think it'd be pretty cool to see the Avengers, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four charging on Latveria, then portals opening and out step the witches, flanked by Doombots, maybe with a giant masked Hulk on Team Doom. I'm not looking for a repeat of the Endgame battle, but I also kind of am, because this one would include all new characters. It would be the first time ever on the big screen that Marvel's three biggest teams share a battlefield against Doctor Doom. "I'm getting chills" saying it.

Why I think the portals appear in the movie

The portals are so associated with Marvel at this point that it makes sense to see them in a commercial. But I don't think the commercial makers would add them at random unless they knew the portals appear in the film. The only exception would be if somebody simply thought it would be cool to have Jeeps come out of portals.

I would assume whoever makes these commercials gets concept art and certain footage, maybe the same material trailer houses get. They work in tandem with Marvel and the Doomsday marketing department, so they may have seen that the portals are in it. So I do think the portals are in the film.

The Multiverse of Madness Disney Plus poster isn't confirmation either

We also recently got a map of Latveria, plus a new Disney Plus poster for Multiverse of Madness showing Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff in front of a green glass Doom window. Marvel has done this for several titles on its Road to Doomsday watch list, the movies and shows it recommends before seeing Doomsday. Sometimes, instead of a green glow around the title, the poster puts the characters in front of the green Doom window.

We've seen it with Loki, with Doctor Strange and Spider-Man for No Way Home, with Shang-Chi, with Captain America: The First Avenger, and now with Multiverse of Madness. Loki, Shang-Chi and Steve are all in Doomsday for sure. But Tom Holland's Spider-Man, Wanda Maximoff and Doctor Strange have not been officially confirmed, and yet here they are in front of Doom's window.

These posters simply put the glass behind promotional images from those older movies. The Wanda and Strange shot is a Multiverse of Madness promotional image layered over the Doom window, not anything from Doomsday. Recommending No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness doesn't necessarily mean those characters are in the movie. They could simply be key multiverse stories. Multiverse of Madness does a lot to set up incursions, and No Way Home has Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man and explains how he's from another universe. As I've long said, even before certain rumors started going around, I think Tobey's Spider-Man is definitely in Doomsday.

So neither these two posters nor the Jeep commercial automatically means Strange is in the movie. I still think he is.

Why I think Doomsday's Wanda is a variant from Latveria

I don't think our 616 Wanda is the Wanda in this movie. Maybe we'll see her in a post credits scene out in the void, because that's where I think our 616 Wanda is. I think the Wanda we get in Doomsday is a variant. She could be one we've already met, the Universe 838 Wanda.

Or she could come from my theory about Latveria being the same geographical location as Sokovia in the MCU. In Universe 828, that land becomes Latveria because that universe has a Doctor Doom and not a Tony Stark. Wanda Maximoff is from Sokovia, that same patch of land. So who could be from Latveria? The 828 Wanda Maximoff, and she could therefore become a Latverian witch.