Avengers: Doomsday Leaked Hall H Trailer Shows Sue Storm Calling Doctor Doom Broken

The Avengers: Doomsday trailer shown in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con leaked onto social media the morning after the presentation. It went a lot further in establishing Doctor Doom as the threat he is than the first trailer did, and it did two things I think are really important for Doom's story.

It was an enormous convention center, and apparently security had really cracked down to try to avoid exactly this. But no one wants their first look at a trailer to be the way it was all over Twitter that morning: terrible angles, completely blown out, and really poor audio. The trailer was taken down in a lot of spots, but the internet lives forever. With plenty of reliable secondhand accounts of the dialogue going around, it was worth going back over.

In a lot of ways it reminded me of one of the early Avengers: Endgame official clips or trailers that gave us that important first act exposition dump. Infinity War had one, and Endgame had one. That is where the important characters are told what is going on while the audience is told at the same time. We heard some of that kind of dialogue at the start of this trailer, alongside some really interesting imagery.

Sue Storm Tells the Assembled Teams That Doctor Doom Was Kind Before He Lost Everything

The scene opens with Sue Storm basically talking to everyone, and by everyone I mean essentially every team we are being introduced to: the X-Men, the Avengers and the Wakandans. She explains that Doom is extremely intelligent, referring to him as the smartest man in every room. She also says that at one point Doom was a loving, kind person, then alludes to the backstory that has been rumored for quite some time, saying he was that way "Before he lost everything." She is actually crying as she says it.

While she gives this speech, it cuts to Doctor Doom peering through his mask at the tapestry that we know shows his wife and child, who have now passed away. That is who he lost when Sue says he lost everything. Then she says, poignantly, "I knew he was lost, but I did not realize he was broken."

I Find Exposition Dumps Boring, but Marvel Has to Have One

I have never hidden how I feel about exposition dumps. At the end of the day, if the dialogue has to explain to the audience what is going on, I think it makes for a very boring movie. But Marvel always has to have one of these at the beginning of the movie.

Think of Infinity War, when Wong explains to Tony Stark what the Infinity Stones are. Think of the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, when they are all standing in the Avengers Mansion making a plan to go after Thanos now that Captain Marvel has arrived. At some point you have to fill in the people who just sat down and have not seen everything as to what the plot is. Still, there are two things between the lines that make this scene so important and reveal so much about Avengers: Doomsday.

The Scene Confirms This Doctor Doom Is From the 828 and Has History With Reed and Sue

The first is that this confirms this Doctor Doom is from the 828. More importantly, as it was in the comics, there is previous history between Doctor Doom, Reed Richards and Sue Storm. This is really important. It was alluded to on stage at the panel, where Pedro Pascal joked that they were besties.

If you are going for a comic accurate Doctor Doom, you have to have the duality between him and Reed Richards, and that has to be sewn into their origin story, which it sounds like it is. Sue Storm is intimately acquainted with exactly who and what Doctor Doom is.

Everyone in One Room Means the Avengers and X-Men Fighting Is Already Over

The second thing heavily implied by this scene is that everyone is there. I mean a huge swath of representation from all the teams: the Avengers and New Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Wakandans. We have seen a lot of the Avengers and the X-Men basically facing off, especially in the first trailer. But by the time everyone is sitting around letting Sue Storm tell them who Doom is and what is going on, the fighting is done.

So I think that places a lot of what we have seen in the first act of the film, like Mr. Fantastic and some of the Avengers, such as Yelena Belova, approaching the X-Mansion. That has to be early on, because this should be a pretty early speech, at the end of the first act at the latest, and honestly these speeches usually come earlier than that. Everyone has already fought and is now on the same side. Enemies become friends. That tells us a lot of what we saw at the X-Mansion in the first two trailers is very early in the film.

Reed Richards Realizes Too Late That Doom Is Behind the Incursions

We can go even further. If Sue Storm is explaining that Doctor Doom is broken, then Doom has already revealed himself to be a villain and their enemy. And we know that, at least initially, Doom will present as one of their allies.

We see that in this trailer, where Reed Richards realizes that Doctor Doom is actually behind the incursions himself and says, "Did you do this?" He then repeats it, screaming "Did you do this?", realizing Doom has played them and it is too late. The two of them are standing next to each other as Reed realizes it, so at some point Doom will initially present as an ally. Yet we also have Sue Storm explaining that he is broken. I think a lot is packed into the very first act of this film, and it makes me feel, at least from the trailers released so far, that we have mostly seen the beginning of the film and not acts two and three.

Doctor Doom's Fast Superhero Landing Felt a Little Off to Me

There was a lot more in this trailer, and some of the imagery had me a bit bewildered. Doctor Doom pulls off an enormously forceful and extremely fast superhero landing. Doom in the comics does not normally move fast. He wears a lot of chainmail and armor, but he also wields extreme magic power, and we see a better extent of that in this trailer.

So it might have something to do with that, and with wanting to make him cinematic against other characters who have those power sets. It still felt a little off to see Doctor Doom move that fast.

We also get a couple of other shots. Scott and Cassie appear, which was in the first trailer. We also get Johnny Storm and Franklin Richards, and it is confirmed to be Franklin. You can see it better from this angle; it is the same scene, just from a different camera angle or after the camera has panned.

Doom Catches Thor's Axe and Declares Hell Answers to Him

Doom still gets very limited dialogue in these trailers, but he has a couple of lines in this one. He says, "All of you are living stolen lives. Now, you must give them back."

We also get a more elongated version, maybe five or ten seconds more, of the Thor scene from the first trailer. As Thor brings down Stormbreaker with all his force, he says, "I swear you will beg for hell long before I grant it." Doom then catches the axe, stops it, flings him to the side effortlessly and says, "Hell answers to me." That is when we get the official shot of him raising the Sentinels again, similar to the leaked material that was online about two or three weeks before Comic-Con, and he says, "I am Doom."

At least Marvel Studios is cognizant that Doom should be one of the more powerful, if not one of the most powerful, villains we have seen on screen yet. They even joked about it live, asking, "Is Doom more powerful than Thanos?" They have a very short runway in Avengers: Doomsday to make him the Doom we know before he becomes God Emperor Doom.

Robert Downey Jr.'s Doom Has Eased My Fears, but I Hope He Is Not One and Done

I will not lie: some of my trepidation going into this started with Robert Downey Jr. playing Doctor Doom. It seems that with the accent he has chosen, none of the Robert Downey Jr. that pervaded Iron Man is there. I am not complaining, because I love that character, but that is not Doom. It seems he has gone in a great direction, and my fears on that front have basically been lessened.

Still, they are doing something extremely ambitious: introducing Doom in one film, turning him into God Emperor Doom in the second, and then having him defeated. I really hope that does not spell, pun totally intended, the end of Doom going forward. I think he is one of those villains who absolutely should show back up in the future of the MCU. He is not one and done. I am surprised Marvel has not done that more: make a villain big and bad enough to be defeated, and still have maybe an end boss saga in front of him somewhere.

Should Marvel bring Doctor Doom back after his defeat, or is one introduction and one God Emperor turn enough for him?