New Avengers: Doomsday Poster Hints Loki Joins the Fight Against Doom

We have a brand new Avengers: Doomsday poster, and Loki is standing right in the fight against Doom and his Sentinels alongside the Avengers and the X-Men. That makes me think we've been missing something about Loki's role in this film, and that he may not be dead after all.

There's more in this poster too: which characters are present, which ones aren't, and later in this piece I'll get to a detail in the rubble that may connect to Deadpool, Wolverine and Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man.

The Avengers: Doomsday poster shows heroes outside what looks like the X-Mansion

At the top of the poster, Doom looms over everything, Darth Vader style. It's the same image of Doom that was featured in a poster released a few months back. Down below are Sam Wilson's Captain America, Reed Richards, Cyclops, Thor, Yelena, Professor Xavier, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Loki, Gambit, and Shuri as Black Panther.

Behind them are Sentinels controlled by Doom, like we've seen in the trailers, and in the distance an incursion is taking place, with two Earths crashing into each other. The characters are standing in rubble outside what we can assume is the X-Mansion.

I want to be clear that this is an international poster, a piece of marketing for an international audience. Which characters they put on it, where they place them and how they place them is all based on marketing data and analytics, so we shouldn't automatically assume this poster is a direct recreation of a scene pulled straight from the movie. Having said that, I think it is.

The poster suggests every hero travels to the X-Men universe

We know from some old leaks, which were then seemingly confirmed by the trailers, that a team will travel from Universe 616, the mainline MCU, over to Universe 10005, the Fox X-Men universe. That team will consist of Sam Wilson, Yelena, Reed Richards, Shang-Chi and Doom. Remember, this is while Doom is still pretending to be on the side of our heroes, before his betrayal is revealed.

Add the X-Men to those heroes and you get most of this poster. But some characters we know are in that scene fighting the Sentinels are missing: Magneto, Beast, Mystique and Nightcrawler. Again, that could simply be a design choice so the poster isn't overcrowded.

Another interesting addition is Bucky and Shuri being there. It wasn't clear from the start that they would travel from 616 with the other heroes to the X-Men universe, but it's all coming together now, and it makes sense, because it's looking like all of our heroes travel there. In the trailers, later in the film following Doom's betrayal, we see Shuri in a room with the same window that Doom gets thrown out of. So yes, I think they all travel to the X-Men universe together, and it's Sam, Yelena, Reed and Shang-Chi who go into the mansion.

Why Shang-Chi, The Thing, John Walker, Falcon and Ghost may be missing

Speaking of Shang-Chi, you'll notice he isn't on this poster either. I don't know if that's a marketing thing, but I tend to think it is. I know there was some situation for a while where Simu Liu wasn't allowed in China and his projects weren't allowed on Chinese screens, and this is a poster for an international market. So it could still be the case that Shang-Chi isn't allowed on some of the marketing for this film.

As for The Thing, John Walker, Falcon and Ghost, I get them not being on the poster, especially the latter three, if you don't want to overcrowd it. But I think they are in that room by the window with Shuri as well, because we can see them in that room by that window in a leaked set image that came out more than a year ago. I think this room is part of the life raft, or the ship, or whatever our heroes are using to travel from universe to universe.

Loki may survive the attack on the TVA

So what about Steve, Thor and Loki? From leaks, we're told that while the other heroes are in the X-Men universe, Steve will pull out the TVA card Loki gives him toward the start of the film. He'll tell Thor how Loki came to him and saved him, and Thor will say he wants to use it to travel to the TVA and find Loki. Once there, it has been said, they'll find a destroyed TVA, lots of dead agents, and maybe even Loki with a ripped out heart.

That's what will prompt Thor to be so angry when he returns, having learned of Doom's betrayal. It's the moment Doom uses the same resurrection magic as Hela to bring life to the dormant Sentinels and attack our heroes. We also get a look from Steve as if he feels betrayed, because of course he trusted Victor.

But with Loki on this poster, in this fight scene alongside everyone else against Doom and the Sentinels, I think Steve and Thor do find Loki in the wrecked TVA, but he isn't dead. He's just hurt, and they bring him back with them to confront Doom, because Loki is going to say who attacked the TVA. Loki, in the same garb from the end of Loki season 2, is there helping the Avengers and the X-Men take them on.

Getting to see Loki fight alongside Thor, Steve and the other Avengers and X-Men, and getting to be a hero standing with them against Doom, just gets me super pumped. I love it. Loki has been a good guy for a while now, but we have yet to really see him have his moment as an Avenger, and I think this poster shows us we're going to get that.

How Doom's betrayal could unravel in three places at once

Putting it together, it would appear that all of our heroes travel in this life raft from Universe 616 to Universe 10005. Doom, Shuri, The Thing, Falcon, Ghost and others stay on board while Reed, Yelena, Shang-Chi and Sam go down to meet the X-Men. They fight, realize they're on the same side, and start working together, and the X-Men maybe even explain that they were also recently attacked by a guy who sounds a lot like Victor von Doom, who is sitting up there in their ship.

I think that as this group, which includes Reed, is down there talking with the X-Men, the truth about Victor will begin to surface. Back on board the raft, I think the realization that things don't add up will become clear there as well, and it could be The Thing who realizes Doom is about to betray them and throws him out that window. But maybe not, because I think this reveal is happening in three places: down at the X-Mansion, up on the raft with Doom, and over at the TVA with Loki, Steve and Thor. So it could be Thor or Steve who returns and throws Doom out the window.

Reed, down on the ground, would then confront Doom and ask Victor if he did this. Doom would activate the Sentinels, the big fight ensues, an incursion happens, and everyone escapes to Universe 828. Well, almost everyone. I'm not sure Nightcrawler, Mystique, Beast and Cyclops make it. The heroes who do, I think, go to 828, the Fantastic Four universe. I originally thought they went to the Baxter Building, but it looks like they might actually go to Steve Rogers' house, which he remembers living in. Doom then returns to Latveria to prepare for the war he knows is coming, trying to get his mission done before they come for him.

Thor's yellow lightning points to the Odin Force

Speaking of Thor, the poster yet again features him with yellow lightning, hinting that Thor has been granted the Odin Force from the comics. I think that's likely what he was praying to Odin for in the Doomsday teaser we got a few months back.

The rubble may connect to leaked Wolverine and Spider-Man set images

Now for the Wolverine and Tobey Maguire Spider-Man reference. Look in the rubble of the poster and there's an object that looks an awful lot like something from the supposedly leaked set images of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man fighting in the film's opening scene. In that scene, Wolverine, Deadpool, Magneto and others are there to plant a bomb to destroy Tobey's Spider-Man universe in order to spare their own, in the midst of an incursion.

One of those images shows Wolverine up against some kind of red and yellow metal pillar that's likely part of the bomb mechanics the X-Men have been using to destroy other worlds, and he's holding some kind of device. To be clear, that image is an AI recreation. But there's a yellow metal pillar in the debris of this poster, outside the X-Mansion. Could this be the same tech the X-Men have been using to destroy other worlds? I think so, and I think this could be telling us that those images, despite being AI recreations, are real.

Do you think Loki will make it through Avengers: Doomsday?