Doctor Doom theory: was Kang a cover for Doom's endgame?

I think Marvel Studios spent the last few phases quietly laying the groundwork for Doctor Doom, even though it may have seemed to be about Kang all along. Looking back at Phases Four and Five, I believe the projects meant to lead into Avengers: The Kang Dynasty instead set up Doom's endgame for the multiverse, and his role as the main villain of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

When I wrote this, there were still plenty of questions about how Tony Stark from Earth 616 would return in the MCU as Victor von Doom, with Robert Downey Jr. taking the role. Those questions seemed likely to hang around until the film arrived, which was then less than two years away. So I set Downey aside to tackle what may be the bigger question: what has Doctor Doom been planning, where has he been for the past two or three years, and how does that make him the biggest villain of the Multiverse Saga?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Wakanda Forever earn honorable mentions on the road to Doctor Doom

I see four specific projects working on Doom's plan, but two others I left off the list deserve honorable mentions first. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness went a long way toward explaining what the multiverse is in the MCU, how it works and some of its basic rules.

That film also used terms like incursions, taken straight from Jonathan Hickman's 2015 Secret Wars comic series, which hinted at where the MCU was heading. The second honorable mention is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. It came with leaked concept art that was said to be for a deleted scene after the credits introducing Doctor Doom.

The four projects that I believe were building Doom's plan behind the scenes are Loki seasons one and two, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and, believe it or not, Deadpool & Wolverine.

Deadpool & Wolverine's anchor beings point toward Avengers: Secret Wars

Working backward, the most important dialogue in Deadpool & Wolverine for the Multiverse Saga and the road to Secret Wars was probably the explanation of anchor beings. Those beings were central to how Hickman's 2015 Secret Wars played out.

In that story, the Beyonders decide to wipe out everything and destroy all of existence. Their method is to make Molecule Man an anchor being across the multiverse, then detonate a bomb that kills every Molecule Man, erasing the universe and existence along with them. Doctor Doom learns of the plan and starts killing the Molecule Men, the anchor beings, one by one to limit the damage the Beyonders could do.

That's why anchor beings like Logan were dying one after another across the MCU's worlds. I'll come back to this, but I think there's a strong chance Doom had a hand in making sure that happened.

How God Emperor Doom rose in Jonathan Hickman's 2015 Secret Wars

In the comics, Doom eventually realizes that killing the Molecule Men one at a time won't work. Instead, he gathers them all together to lure the Beyonders out. He then turns their own bomb against them, takes their power and becomes God Emperor Doom.

It's unlikely things will play out exactly that way in the MCU, because there have already been some major changes and omissions. For one, the MCU doesn't have the Beyonders yet, and it would be an enormous task to introduce them, explain their power and lay out what the Beyonder race is within Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Who could be the MCU's anchor beings instead of Molecule Man

There's also no Molecule Man, and we now know other characters, like Logan, can be the anchor beings across the multiverse. The anchors may well be different characters across the MCU's multiverse rather than all the same one. We only just learned that Logan is the anchor of Earth 10005, but there is no Logan or Wolverine on Earth 616, at least not yet.

I think plenty of people confidently guessed that Tony Stark was our anchor being. But the theory is easier to explain if most of the anchor beings are Nathaniel Richards, also known as Kang.

Quantumania's Council of Kangs could serve Doctor Doom

If that's the case, the ending of Quantumania and its scene after the credits, reacting to that film's events, could help Doctor Doom. It gathers all the variants of Kang in one place as the Council of Kangs, the same way Doom gathered every Molecule Man in the comics to draw out the Beyonders.

Doom may be the one orchestrating all of this, now that the Kangs are all in the same place. He could be using most of the anchor beings, gathered together, to lure out the Beyonders in the MCU as well.

Loki, the God of Stories, could be Doctor Doom's real target

Bringing the Beyonders in this late would be difficult. But if Doom's goal is to steal that kind of power to control the multiverse, and the MCU doesn't have the Beyonders yet, what it does have is Loki, the God of Stories.

Conveniently, across Loki seasons one and two, the power of the Time Variance Authority and those variants of Nathaniel Richards, the Kangs, was taken and transferred to Loki. That put all the power of the multiverse in one specific place. Now you don't need to defeat every Kang; you only need to kill Loki and take the power from him.

You can see the parallels in the overall storyline. In the comics, Doom gathers the Molecule Men, which draws out the Beyonders. He kills them, takes their power and rules as God Emperor Doom. In the MCU's last few projects, many versions of Kang were gathered and their power was moved into Loki, the God of Stories, instead of the Beyonders. With it all in one place, Doom could end up killing Loki and seizing the multiverse's power, so that instead of a God of Stories, we'd have God Emperor Doom.

Loki's Yggdrasil throne points to God Emperor Doom

As further evidence, there's a major hint at the end of Loki season two. When Loki, as the God of Stories, sits on his throne holding the multiverse together, the show clearly shows imagery of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. That is the throne God Emperor Doom uses in the 2015 Secret Wars and on Battleworld.

The Kang projects may have been Doctor Doom's plan all along

Everything is set up. For a run of projects meant to lead to Kang, Marvel managed to set up Doctor Doom instead. It didn't seem that way at the time, but they moved many pieces on the chessboard toward a comics-accurate version of Secret Wars with Doom as the main villain.

I'm still a little stunned that Robert Downey Jr. is returning as Doctor Doom, and my friends feel the same way. I can't believe Marvel Studios made such a bold move, but at least it achieved exactly what the studio wanted: people have been talking about it since the announcement, and the studio knows people will keep talking about it until we get some answers.

Looking at how neatly those Kang stories lined up with the comics, it makes me think this was probably the plan from the very beginning, regardless of what happened with Jonathan Majors and the character of Kang.