Avengers: Doomsday Jeep ad: is this Castle Doomstadt?

Spoiler warning: this piece discusses plot leaks about the film's third act.

Marvel Studios has pushed its Avengers: Doomsday marketing into overdrive, and with its latest commercial it went maybe one step too far. A Jeep crossover ad gives what I see as the first official look at Castle Doomstadt in Latveria, a major location that, if the plot leaks are right, belongs to the film's third act battle. We know that Marvel has not shown anything from the third act battle, and that's why, in my opinion, this is maybe the craziest reveal so far.

Avengers: Doomsday brand commercials use staged scenes, but the imagery comes from the film

In a 24 hour span, Marvel released three separate marketing campaigns for Avengers: Doomsday. The commercials use staged pseudo footage; none of these scenes are in the film, from Gambit drinking Dunkin' coffee with H.E.R.B.I.E. to Doom standing over a KFC.

What is drawn from the film is the imagery, the iconography and the concept art. All of that was shared with the marketing department early on, and it is taken directly from the movie. It reflects some semblance of scenes that will happen and locations that will appear. That's why Gambit was shown talking to H.E.R.B.I.E. in the new Avengers Tower.

What the Jeep commercial shows across the 616 and 828 universes

These ads are usually too loosely canon for me to cover, but the third one, a crossover between Marvel Studios, Jeep and Avengers: Doomsday, changed that. It moves through several settings. It opens on the new Avengers Tower in New York in the current timeline of the 616 universe, with Falcon flying away. It then shows H.E.R.B.I.E. driving the Fantasticar alongside the Human Torch, which places it in New York in the 828 universe.

Next comes a Jeep in part of the ocean, with Namor holding up a wall of water. That is presumably where the capital of Talokan sits in the 616. Then the Jeeps all arrive through portals in front of Castle Doomstadt.

When I removed the Jeeps and text and extended the frame in Photoshop, what's left is Latveria in the 828 universe, with Castle Doomstadt at the center.

Castle Doomstadt is a brutalist tower, not a Bavarian castle

This version is very different from the traditional take on Doom's home. The classic look is a Bavarian castle with its normal peaks and turrets. This is a brutalist approach built around a singular tower.

Earlier promos hinted at this kind of design, going all the way back to a laser show in Shanghai. I pointed out then that this is probably meant to be a parallel, or an antithesis, to the Baxter Building, or more specifically a parallel to Stark Tower, which would be yet another similarity between Doom and Tony Stark.

I can see why someone would compare it to Isengard; it definitely smacks of that a bit. But I like this approach and the brutalist architecture they've used. It feels like the solitary monolith of a villain who's lonely, like Doctor Doom.

Why a third act location in a Jeep ad surprised me

The bigger point is that this is third-act material, and it showed up in a Jeep ad.

The battle already teased between Thor and Doctor Doom, where Doom raises Sentinels, takes place in the courtyard of the X-Mansion in the 10005 universe. That fight is going to happen in the second act. The third act is said to be the major set piece and the final battle.

Almost every plot leak has corroborated that by the end of the film, in act three, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Wakandans all band together and march on Castle Doomstadt in the 828. That is the location in this ad. In fact, the frame might be their exact point of view as they approach the castle.

None of the action or trailer scenes Marvel had released came from the third act, and that's why this is a big deal to me. Even for Avengers: Endgame, Marvel gave us some shots from the final act, though plenty of them had CGI changes. Marvel hadn't done that with Doomsday, and then it suddenly gave us this frame in a Jeep promo.

There's also a lot of open sky around Latveria in this frame. That's typical for an Avengers fight, because it lets the effects teams paint in the Doombots the heroes will be fighting. That's my major theory for how the battle will look: if the heroes are fighting Sentinels in the second act, they're probably fighting a bunch of Doombots in the third.

The red window theory and a possible hidden red sky

There's one more detail in this frame. Look at the center window near the top of the tower. It's very clearly red, yet we know that window is the green stained glass window seen in so many promos right behind Doom's throne. It's possibly red because it's reflecting the sky, although in this frame the sky behind the clouds and smoke reads yellow, not red.

From the very first preview trailers, such as Thor in the forest or Steve Rogers pulling up on his bike, the greens in this film have held a weird, almost blue or turquoise value. I've mentioned before that this may be a coloring trick to change the sky to a more normal color, when in the film it will be hued in complete red. Marvel Studios has already hidden a lot with CGI. If this is another case, it would be an impressive sleight of hand: the sky in all the trailer scenes would be red, which is why they look the way they do, and a window we know is green would look red because it is reflecting that red sky.

Will more Avengers: Doomsday reveals land in commercials?

I'm curious whether this is a harbinger of more promos with even bigger reveals. From these companies' point of view, it's a huge deal. Marvel has done this before: Giganto fought the Fantastic Four in a pizza commercial.

If there are any more major reveals, I'm hoping Marvel puts them in the final trailer. We don't need them in a State Farm commercial.