How Doctor Doom Saves the Multiverse in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars: A Theory Built on Loki's Void

I believe Marvel Studios has been showing us how Doctor Doom saves the multiverse all along. In my theory, he waits until the incursions get so bad that his only option is to prune the entire multiverse into the Void using a TVA reset charge. Then he turns that realm into his own Battleworld.

When I laid out this theory, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars were both still to come. The question it answers is one of the biggest people had about that conflict: how can one masked man save the entire multiverse from a collision of universes?

The Avengers: Doomsday title points to both Doctor Doom and the end of the multiverse

Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are meant to be a massive two part finale for the entire Multiverse Saga. That finale is very likely going to be based on Marvel's Secret Wars comic book event from 2015. It is a personal favourite of mine, because as far as I am concerned, "Jonathan Hickman can literally do no wrong."

Because the films will be based on that story, it is quite clear to me that the title Avengers: Doomsday has more than one meaning. It refers to the notorious Marvel villain Doctor Doom arriving to fight the heroes of Earth 616 when their two universes collide. It also teases the end of the multiverse itself. In my view, Robert Downey Jr.'s Doom helps avoid that doomsday by reforming the multiverse into one singular kingdom that he rules with an iron fist. That means a godlike fist, not the Netflix Iron Fist. In the comics, it was strong enough to remove Thanos's spine at a moment's notice.

In the comics, Doom took godlike power from the Beyonders to build Battleworld

Secret Wars number five revealed how the comic book Doom pulled this off. He had acquired godlike power from an extradimensional race of beings called the Beyonders. They did not simply hand it over. Doom took it by force, building a unique cosmic bomb to kill all of them. He then used their cosmic power to reshape the multiverse into one singular world, which most comic book readers know as Battleworld.

Marvel Studios is largely separate from Marvel Comics, though, so I expect the studio to approach the Secret Wars conflict in its own way. That means Doom will very likely create his multiversal kingdom by some other route. Based on what we have seen in Multiverse Saga projects like Loki and Deadpool & Wolverine, it seems clear to me that Doom has one and only one way to save the multiverse. He has to wait until the incursions get bad enough, and then erase the multiverse entirely.

Loki and Deadpool & Wolverine showed that getting erased is not the end

I know that erasing the multiverse to save the multiverse sounds like it makes no sense. But if you really think about it, it kind of does. Loki and Deadpool & Wolverine show us that "getting erased actually is not so bad." Anyone vaporised by He Who Remains's Time Variance Authority learned that erasure is not the end. Every person, item or universe pruned by the TVA was sent to the Void, a vast metaphysical plane at the end of time.

The TVA used the Void as a cosmic dump for everything He Who Remains felt did not belong in his perfect halo of timelines, the Sacred Timeline. It also doubled as a doghouse for his secret weapon, the nigh unstoppable absorption being Alioth. I described Alioth as a cousin of the Galactus cloud from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. During the last big multiversal war against his own variants, He Who Remains found Alioth in the darkness between timelines and turned it against them to win. He later shoved Alioth into the Void and used it as a cosmic garbage disposal, much like Jabba the Hutt used the Rancor in Return of the Jedi.

Until the events of Deadpool & Wolverine, the Void was ruled by Cassandra Nova. She was destroyed after those two heroes used the power of friendship against her, Guardians of the Galaxy style. I am recapping all of this because I think Marvel Studios has used these projects to establish the Void as a perfectly livable space for displaced beings from across the multiverse. Now that it has lost its ruler, I ask: who better to fill it than Victor von Doom, using this land to reorganise the multiverse into his own personal kingdom?

A single TVA reset charge could prune Loki's multiverse tree into the Void

Technically, all Doom would need is at least one reset charge from the TVA. As we learned in Loki, Sylvie killed He Who Remains with her knife. Since then, the multiverse of infinite possibilities has branched out wildly, and many of those branching timelines have connected and collided. Loki season 2 showed the explosive result. Countless universes jammed the TVA's Temporal Loom, and Loki sacrificed himself to restructure the multiverse into a giant ever growing tree to keep it alive.

However, I see Loki's sacrifice as a bandage on a problem he never fully solved. All he knew was that the Temporal Loom had to be destroyed so branching timelines could grow, thrive and survive. But a tree is still a tree. If you stop pruning its branches, it is only a matter of time before they grow in ways you do not want. The reformed TVA's refusal to prune is morally fantastic. But it has never neutralised the threat of timelines colliding naturally. There was a reason He Who Remains had them pruning in the first place: to keep order in the cosmos.

I think a time will come when those branches are so overgrown and twisted that a single match could burn the entire tree down, almost like lighting a fuse, because every timeline would be connected. At that point, Doom would only need one reset charge to prune Loki's doomed tree into the Void and save everyone from ceasing to exist. There would be no more Sacred Timeline and no more TVA, only Doom's new realm. He could restructure it in his image with his own powerful magic or a collection of six Infinity Stones.

The TVA's drawers of Infinity Stones and the Alioth problem

As teased in Sinister Strange's universe in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I expect Avengers: Doomsday to see the walls between realities breaking down. Because of that, I think there is a high likelihood the TVA will be heavily involved, since the multiverse tree they manage will be in major jeopardy. While Earth 616 is likely forced into a war with a neighbouring reality, we are likely going to see Hunter B-15 and the rest of the TVA trying to repair the rifts between universes and restore the natural order.

I believe that at some point during this chaos, Doom will come into contact with the TVA and acquire at least one reset charge. If he also finds one of the TVA's time doors and stops by their facility, he could find the Infinity Stones he needs to reshape the Void into his Battleworld for Avengers: Secret Wars. As we saw in Loki season 1, TVA agents have desk drawers filled with Infinity Stones.

After that, Doom would only have to deal with Alioth. He could imprison the beast, or send it out of the Void to wander the dark emptiness where Loki's tree used to be. As I put it: "I truly do not see another method for the multiverse to be preserved, to be honest." It is only a matter of time before portals to other realities appear everywhere and the multiverse dies. Someone has to do something cosmically drastic, and Doom is that somebody.

Strange Supreme's universe from What If could seed the next multiverse

The question that remains is what happens afterwards. If Doom does drop a reset charge and prune the whole tree, what hope does the MCU have of restoring the multiverse after Secret Wars? I think the last episode of the last season of What If might have laid down the seeds. At the end of season 2, Captain Carter talks about the unique universe that Strange Supreme created, where Strange shapes reality.

If you look closely at the window into the multiverse that Captain Carter opens, Strange Supreme's tiny branching universe is the one universe that does not appear to be touching Loki's multiverse tree. It sits in its own corner off to the side. So however Loki's tree ends in Avengers: Doomsday, I think it is unlikely the chaos will affect this Strange controlled cosmos. That could potentially make it the new multiverse tree for the MCU after Secret Wars, a tiny branch growing on its own, much like baby Groot became the new Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy.

That is my theory. The masked maniac prunes the entire multiverse into the Void and turns it into his Battleworld. The Void is the only place left for the people of the multiverse to live, because no timelines branch there. In that realm, all of time exists in one place, always.

Do you think Doom will really prune the whole multiverse into the Void, or does Marvel have another route to Battleworld in mind?