Avengers: Doomsday Leak Claims Doctor Doom Has a Kill That Is Shocking for a Disney Movie

Industry insider Daniel Richtman reported that Doctor Doom has a kill in Avengers: Doomsday that is shocking for a Disney movie. Paired with his note that characters from the Thor franchise will appear, the added details make me think we may know exactly who dies.

At the time of writing, the film was still about six months from release. That leaves plenty of time to dodge spoilers if you want to go in blind, and I will flag the biggest one before I get to it.

Deaths in Avengers: Doomsday may be permanent once Secret Wars reboots the MCU

We already know from previous interviews that the Russos and Kevin Feige are on a mission not to make Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars into Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame part two. They have talked pretty much at length about some of their plans to avoid doing so. Around the time of this report, Joe Russo had remarked that this was the most emotionally complex outing we have ever seen from the Avengers franchise. There are a lot of ways to take that.

What we do know is that one of the main differences from Infinity War and Endgame is that the massive consequences during or at the end of Doomsday reportedly will not simply be undone when the multiverse is remade in Secret Wars. The plan to reboot the MCU in Secret Wars means that by the end of that film, what we have is what we have. So if a major character dies in Doomsday, there is a good chance they never return to the MCU and that the death is permanent.

Daniel Richtman says Doctor Doom has a shocking kill

The latest comes from Daniel Richtman. If you are unfamiliar with his work, he has been in the Marvel scoop game for a long time and has probably established the most proven track record, up there with the likes of Jeff Sneider, except he has been around much longer. Take that as you will.

In his update, he wrote: "In Avengers: Doomsday, there will be cameos of characters from the Thor franchise. Without spoiling it, I'll say Doctor Doom has a kill in the movie that is shocking for a Disney movie." He wrote the word shocking in all caps.

Why I welcome a death with real stakes in Doomsday

My first reaction was excitement. Not because I want one of our heroes or beloved characters, or someone close to them, to die. It is going to be tragic. But I am excited for consequences, real stakes, and Doctor Doom being Doctor Doom. Sometimes the big bads in these movies do not exactly do anything big and bad.

The Russos have said something along the lines of this being one of the more complex emotional movies the Avengers have ever done, with a tone markedly different from Infinity War and Endgame. Looking back, there were times in those films when the tone got pretty serious. Now we are talking about something on the level of a lot more shocking and a lot more emotional than we have ever seen. As a Marvel fan, I am very excited for that, and I think that is exactly what this movie needs.

As I said above, there is a really good chance that some of the exits we see in Doomsday will be permanent. Even when Secret Wars concludes and the multiverse has been remade into what Kevin Feige called "singular timelines," the deaths will not be reversed.

Why I doubt the victim comes from Valhalla or the adult Avengers

As for who dies, Richtman prefaces the update by saying members of the Thor franchise will appear. Several plot leaks have mentioned Odin leading an army from Valhalla, or at least sending an army from Valhalla led by the mighty Thor. There are plenty of Thor franchise characters whose deaths would be shocking on screen, but I stop short of saying anyone coming down from Valhalla would be that shocking a death, because they have already died to be in Valhalla.

The same goes for the qualifier that this is shocking for Disney. It makes me think it is not one of our adult Avengers. We have seen adult Avengers die on screen before, like Tony Stark. It really cannot be more shocking than that, even if it is an original Avenger we have had for a long time in the MCU, say Ant-Man. I think that when Richtman says shocking for Disney, he is more specifically talking about a kid, which leads me to two possible conclusions.

Could Love be the one who dies in Avengers: Doomsday?

The first conclusion comes from the preface about Thor characters being in the film, which makes me think there is a chance Love may die. But given the plot leaks and what we saw in the preview trailer, Thor's prayer comes to Odin at a time when he knows exactly what threat Doom is.

Doom will reportedly start on the front foot as an ally, and it is only later in the film that the heroes figure out they are actually fighting him, in what may be the final battle at the end of the film, or maybe at the end of the second act and the beginning of the third. At that point, Love is still alive. Unless her death takes place much later, with not much film left, that makes me think Love does not die.

The rumour pointing to Steve Rogers' son, James

So Richtman may instead be referring to another leak, which would mean he is now confirming a plot point that has been going around for a while. Consider this the lightest of spoiler warnings: the character in question is Steve Rogers' son, James.

We have heard that he will be aged up from a young child at the beginning of the film to about the age of 9 or 10. By the end, when Steve Rogers finally makes it to Doctor Doom's castle, Doom will reportedly exact his revenge for losing his own family. In this version, Steve's decisions created a branch timeline and an incursion that caused Doom to experiment, and those experiments led to the death of his family and his disfigurement. Doom will exact his toll by killing Steve's son in front of him. And yes, for Disney, this would be shocking.

I think there will certainly be way more death than this, though maybe none quite as heavy. We all saw Tony Stark, one of our favorite Marvel characters, sacrifice himself on screen, and we are gearing up for what should be the fourth or fifth death for Professor X. At this point, it would be a little more shocking if he did not die in the film.

Shocking could describe how Doom kills, not who

Just to play devil's advocate in case we are barking up the wrong tree, shocking could also describe the way the death is shown. This movie is going to maintain a PG-13 rating at the absolute most. There are very strong rules about PG-13 ratings when it comes to profanity, the amount of blood you are allowed to show, the way people fight and the way they are injured. Once you go over a certain threshold, you are rated R, and Doomsday is not going to be rated R.

Still, there are creative ways to show very shocking and, in my view, very brutal deaths in the way Doctor Doom may choose to kill or execute other Avengers. So I could be a little wrong, and it is not the character being killed that is shocking but the way he does it, or the number of deaths. Then again, we have also seen Thanos kill trillions with half of the population, so Doom may not kill more people than that.

I am very curious who and what this death is. We want this movie to be different, to have stakes and to be emotional. Directors, Kevin Feige and people at Marvel Studios have said all sorts of things while promoting movies. Sometimes the quotes are spot on, and sometimes they are just talking to promote something. If this really is the most emotional Avengers movie ever, it is going to take events like this scoop to press those emotional buttons, and I am certainly stoked.

Who would be the most shocking death for you in Avengers: Doomsday?