Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Breakdown: Why Doom's Landing Might Be a Mjolnir Knockout, Plus the Two Doctor Dooms Theory

The most debated few seconds in the entire Avengers: Doomsday trailer are the shots of Doom flying out of the Fantastic Four ship and landing on the ground. I think there is a lot more going on in that moment than it first appears, and I also want to walk through a theory that there could actually be two Doctor Dooms in this film.

This matters because that landing, the mismatched suits, and the destroyed New York shot are all being picked apart frame by frame by the fan community right now, and there are some genuinely interesting reads on what they could set up for the movie.

Doom's landing looks like he's been hit by Mjolnir, not just leaping from the ship

My first read on the shot is that it does not look like Doom simply jumps out the window and lands. I actually think he gets knocked out by Mjolnir. If you zoom in while he is in midair, you can see he is flying backwards, almost like he has just been smashed, with his back to the frame. As he continues the descent you can catch Jonathan flying out from him. His body then twists around and there is a strange effect where he almost looks like a wraith, before he lands and corrects his stance into a perfect pose.

The wraith effect could point to Doom being corrupted by the Darkhold

That weird wraith effect could show that Doom has been messing with forbidden magic, going beyond what sorcerers are meant to study. Back in WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness, Wanda was studying the Darkhold, the same book Agatha had used, and it left Agatha's fingers turning black. If someone kept studying it without interruption, they could potentially become fully corrupted and use dark magic without limits. We also know the Darkhold lets you traverse realities, and dreamwalking gives insight into the multiverse. That could be how Doom knows about these other Earths, possibly even that his loved ones exist somewhere else, and how he knows the heroes are living what he calls stolen lives. Doom's magic in the trailer is mostly green, so this black magic moment could be signalling that corruption, a point that was also raised by Canadian Lad in his own breakdown.

Doom's two suits reportedly show a diplomatic look versus a kill mode

Canadian Lad also pointed out that Doom has not just two masks but two suits in the trailer. Both were shown at Comic-Con, and according to Cryptic 4K on Twitter, the leaner suit is the more diplomatic version he wore in the post credit scene of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. That is probably what he uses to appear more open and approachable, before that changes once he moves into kill mode. I think the wraith moment lines up with the betrayal, where Doom explains that he wants to rule the multiverse, and this may even be the moment he tells the heroes they have lived stolen lives.

The stolen lives line could tie back to Doom losing his own family

That stolen lives line is dropped over images of Stephen, his son, and Thor and Love, which could hint that Doom is resentful his own child and wife were killed because of the Avengers' actions. The mural in his home could even be of Morgan and Pepper, killed as a result of what the Avengers did. I think this stems from the time travel setup in Endgame, where the Ancient One tells Bruce Banner that removing an Infinity Stone from reality can cause massive repercussions, spinning off a dark timeline that decays without one of its pillars of reality.

The multiverse's collapse may be a knock on effect from Endgame's time travel

My theory is that this could have a knock on effect extending to everything. If something is shifted out of place and a new reality is created, that reality could spin off into its own thing. At the end of Loki season 2, the multiverse was collapsing and Loki was struggling to hold together as many branches as he could. That entire situation stems from the Avengers going back in time and enabling Loki to free himself in 2012, which could have caused the knock on effect that led to the multiverse's birth in the first place. That multiverse could now be collapsing because of the Avengers reversing the snap and getting their loved ones back, which again could be what the stolen lives line refers to, and could be the reason Doom lost his own loved ones. We know from D23 that Loki launches a massive attack on the TVA, and he may personally blame them for what happened to his reality, which could destroy the multiverse and pit him against other realities like the X-Men.

The two Doctor Dooms theory rests on mismatched eye colors in the trailer

There is a theory floating around that there are actually two Doctor Dooms, with Robert Downey Jr. playing one version of the character. This comes from the two suits and from a specific shot in the first trailer. The Twitter account Marvel Perfect Gifts and Clips posted the two shots of the character's eyes, which appear at different moments, one looking green and one looking brown. Some have gone as far as saying the green eyed shot resembles Cillian Murphy, who was at one point fan cast as Doom. Doom is also known in the comics for using doubles, tied to his Legion of Doom bots, and there are theories the actor may not be playing Doom at all, with the whole thing built as a misdirect before a reveal that it is someone else entirely under the mask. I am not convinced by that. I think the green eye shot is just a reflection of Doom's own magic. On top of that, a fan account called Always Kakra pointed out there is a small mole next to Robert Downey Jr.'s eye that also appears on the Doom mask, which pretty much undercuts the double theory. As I put it myself, "I am an absolute fraud, mate," for missing that detail before someone else spotted it.

The destroyed New York shot may tie into rumours of a Raimiverse vs X-Men opening

Heavy spoiler warning here, because this moves into rumour territory. In the teaser we see a completely wrecked city, then a cut to Reed asking if Doom did it. I have started to wonder if this is actually the world rumoured to appear in the film's opening. The rumour is that Doomsday begins with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man universe currently at war with the Fox X-Men universe, with both worlds caught in an incursion and hurtling toward mutual destruction unless one is destroyed first. So it is possible one of the destroyed New Yorks in the trailer belongs to one of those two worlds, though I want to stress this might not actually be the opening, it is simply a rumour people are paying close attention to. That rumour has even reached podcaster Walter Skolnick, who said on his show, "The leak is that the X-Men, like the Fox X-Men, are going to have to fight Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, because he's the only hero of his universe. So he's going to have to fight all of them for his universe to continue existing, and that is the coolest thing I've ever heard." Credit to Avengers Updates for surfacing that clip as well.

Do you think the trailer's wraith effect really points to Doom being corrupted by the Darkhold, or is there a simpler explanation for that landing?