Avengers: Doomsday: is Valeria Richards in the AGBO post?

A social post from people who work at the Russo brothers' production offices may have given us a first official look at some major characters in Avengers: Doomsday, and maybe also Avengers: Secret Wars and a Fantastic Four sequel. In the background sit a Susan Storm costume and a smaller kid's Fantastic Four suit with a wig. That smaller costume raises a question: does it belong to Franklin Richards, as it seems to, or to his sister Valeria Richards?

I don't want to get the horse too far ahead of the cart, because we barely know Franklin and how important he will be to the future of the MCU. But I think the way Marvel Studios could bring Valeria into the picture could be interesting. I also think pieces that seem unrelated could connect, from Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby, to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

The AGBO TikTok pairing Iron Man and Doctor Doom

On November 3, two employees at AGBO, the production company of Joe and Anthony Russo that was producing Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, posted a short clip. One employee, wearing an Iron Man mask, lip syncs to 4 Non Blondes' What's Up. Behind her, another employee in a Doctor Doom mask lip syncs to Nicki Minaj's Beez in the Trap, synced to the beat of the first song.

This remix had already been going around TikTok for a few weeks. I guess some users like how the instrumentals and lyrics line up, and maybe the contrast between Minaj's voice and Linda Perry's. Still, maybe there's some secret meaning in the song choices. What's Up is seen as a '90s stoner rock anthem, and its chorus of "I said hey, what's going on?" reads like an expression of exhaustion and confusion from overworked, underpaid workers.

Beez in the Trap, meanwhile, is a song I guess is about how Nicki Minaj is wildly successful and always in the studio working. So are we meant to take away that in this new mask, same task duet, Iron Man is the spent, confused one, while Doctor Doom is the young buck in the lab, far more successful at the same task of putting a suit of armor around the world? Really, I think it's these AGBO workers saying, first, they have no idea what's going on, and second, they're expected to be in the studio constantly working.

The Sue Storm and Franklin Richards costumes in AGBO's lobby

Then there are the suits the employees either accidentally or intentionally showed in the background. These are probably suits AGBO isn't too worried about the public seeing. If they're propped up in the production office lobby, anyone coming in and out of the building for any other AGBO project could see them. The whole cast and crew of Extraction 3 would recognize them.

The Doctor Doom outfit isn't the suit Doom wears in Avengers: Doomsday. It's the goofy green jacket, pants and draped collar Robert Downey Jr. wore when he was announced as Doctor Doom at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024. Posed alongside Sue Storm and Franklin Richards, I think these are suits from Fantastic Four: First Steps. The display is certainly meant to remind anyone of that film's post-credit scene.

There's valid debate over whether the kid's uniform belongs to Franklin when he joins the team or to Valeria, because the blonde wig is long. It's longer than the hair of the five year old Franklin in that scene. Many of us had a similar debate when a Doomsday crew tote bag went around and people spotted a new character with longer blonde hair in the bottom right of the grid. Plenty of people said it was Valeria, but it turned out to be Franklin. The hair here, though, is much longer than that.

Why the actor playing five year old Franklin was never credited

That brings up a minor mystery I'm surprised is still a mystery. Marvel never credited the young actor who plays Franklin at age five in the post-credit scene of First Steps. A very young actor is credited as baby Franklin, but no additional actor is listed for the older version, even though he has a line in the scene.

Sure, it's a post-credit scene, and it's more a part of Avengers: Doomsday than of First Steps. But composer Alan Silvestri is credited in the Fantastic Four credits for his Doom theme, even though, like the kid's line, it only comes up in that scene.

I guess it's not a big deal that this kid's name isn't out there. Even with SAG-AFTRA rules that actors of any age with speaking lines or named roles must be credited, it could be that the family didn't want their kid's name public. I'm only bringing it up because I hope this kid and the family are getting paid.

Who Valeria Richards is in Marvel Comics

Valeria Richards is an important part of the Richards family tree. Unlike her brother Franklin, she isn't a mutant with omega level powers. Franklin takes after his mother, something First Steps explored, while Valeria takes after her father, Reed. Her super intelligence surpasses his, and she ends up taking on the moniker Brainstorm.

She was first introduced in 1983 as a second child Reed and Sue conceived in the Negative Zone, and shortly after, Sue tragically miscarried. In 1999, in Fantastic Four volume 3 number 22, another storyline brought Valeria back as the daughter of Susan Storm and Doctor Doom from an alternate future timeline.

Everyone is initially confused how that could happen in any universe. Then we learn that back in the 616 universe, when Valeria seemed to be stillborn, Franklin responded to the family's grief by using his reality warping powers to go back in time, extract Valeria from her native reality and send her "someplace else." That someplace else was an alternate reality where Susan Storm married a heroic version of Doctor Doom after Reed Richards had died.

Genealogically, Valeria isn't Victor von Doom's daughter, but Victor helped deliver her, and he named her Valeria after a woman he once loved. That version of Doom became an uncle figure to her. You can see where I'm going with this: if Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom in Doomsday, it's probably going to be a heroic version of Doom.

My favorite Reed and Valeria moment in the comics is when he puts his daughter down to sleep one night while confessing the guilt he has always carried for the mistake in space that cost his friends their normal lives, hoping that someday he could be forgiven. He says this to Valeria, maybe thinking that his kid, who is smarter than he is, will do better than he did.

Valeria in the 838 universe of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Valeria doesn't yet exist in the 616 universe or in the 828 universe of First Steps. She does exist in the broader MCU, though, in the 838 universe explored in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. When the Scarlet Witch came to the 838 Baxter Foundation and confronted John Krasinski's Reed Richards, two kids were mentioned, along with their mother still being alive. That means the 838 universe has both a Franklin Richards and a Valeria Richards.

My theory: Franklin sent Valeria to universe 838

So let's go into theory mode. The universe in First Steps was numbered 828 to honor Jack Kirby's birthday of August 28. But Marvel has to be aware of its numerical proximity to universe 838 in Multiverse of Madness. And from what we're hearing, Michael Waldron, the screenwriter of Multiverse of Madness and showrunner of the Loki series, was brought back into these same AGBO offices, presumably to help the Doomsday and Secret Wars team crack the multiverse logic from Multiverse of Madness and Loki. I think when Doomsday comes out, we'll all look back at Multiverse of Madness and be surprised how much of what Reed was talking about in the 838 universe connects.

From what we know, there's no Valeria in the 828 universe. If she were close in age to Franklin, we probably would have seen or heard a baby in the background of the First Steps post-credit scene. Sue did not look like a sleep deprived mother of two young kids. She looked like a refreshed parent of an only child headed into kindergarten who's already starting to read Darwin's The Origin of Species.

So what if in the 828 universe a similar tragic Valeria origin began, and Franklin similarly went back in time and used his reality warping powers to send his little sister to another universe? That universe could be the very nearby, cosmically speaking, 838 universe, where she would have been born to an alternate Susan Storm, the wife Krasinski's Reed referred to.

Did John Krasinski's Reed Richards work with Doctor Doom?

I know that in universe 838 Reed is still in the picture, and Susan Storm isn't married to any Doctor Doom. But we still don't know what Reed's relationship with that universe's Doom would be. We do know two things about Krasinski's Reed. First, he comes and goes using technology that people who worked on Multiverse of Madness acknowledged was Doctor Doom's time platform. In the film's commentary, producer Richie Palmer said the portal Reed enters through is "Dr. Doom's time platform, not a time platform inspired by Dr. Doom's time platform, but literally that's Dr. Doom's time platform." It belongs to a Doom in that universe.

So why would Reed have that technology unless he had a cooperative, friendly relationship with that universe's Doom? Maybe they were colleagues who went further than any other Doom or Reed because they worked together. Second, the 838 Baxter Building is patrolled by Stark Tech Ultron Sentries. We've always speculated that means there was probably some version of Tony Stark there. But what if it was instead a Tony Stark variant with the same intelligence, the same engineering brilliance and the same task, just wearing a different mask? Maybe the next stage of those Ultrons was going to be Doombots.

Yes, I'm postulating that Doctor Doom existed in that universe as an ally of Krasinski's Reed. Could the mysteriously empty seventh chair on the dais have belonged not to Balder the Brave, as concept art, a stunt clip showing Mjolnir crushing him and Daniel Craig's coy smile in an interview suggested, but to Reed's best friend and partner, Victor von Doom?

If that's true, the Doctor Doom of Doomsday and Secret Wars comes from the 838 universe, a universe with a Valeria sent into its Sue's womb by a Franklin from universe 828. And this 838 Doom would set out on his Doomsday mission to stop incursions partly because of what happened with Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch in Multiverse of Madness.