Avengers: Doomsday Doctor Doom and Reed Richards history

I've been worried about one very specific thing in Avengers: Doomsday: Doctor Doom's connection to Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four. If Marvel didn't do this, I couldn't see why. It almost feels like they have to. But I think Marvel has just about confirmed it won't be a problem, and I think the Russo brothers know exactly what they need to do for Doom.

Two things have made me feel better. Marvel has released a new description for Doctor Doom on the Disney+ website. A plot leak for the entire movie also surfaced a while back, and one part of it about Doom and the Fantastic Four looks like it has now been proven true. I won't go over the whole leak, only that part.

Reed Richards finally stretches in the Avengers: Doomsday baseball scene

Marvel Studios recently released a new look at Avengers: Doomsday showing most of the Fantastic Four at a baseball game. We didn't see Sue, but we did see Reed throwing out a first pitch. I have to say, Reed stretched more in two seconds than we saw him stretch in the entirety of The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

That's one thing I figured the Russo brothers would get right. I don't know what the deal was in First Steps, or why they creatively decided he couldn't stretch that much, to the point where Galactus was stretching him out and almost tore him apart. Based on those two seconds alone, I think they've fixed that for Doomsday. The scene is also interesting because it seems to happen right before Doctor Doom arrives.

The Disney+ description pitches Doom as a master of sorcery and technology

The official new description calls Victor Von Doom the fearsome, mysterious and enigmatic monarch of Latveria, and says he is master of both sorcery and technology, with an intellect to rival Reed Richards and a will to match. I love that. They're setting Doom up to be the superior villain to anyone we've gotten in the past, and equal to or even superior to the heroes at hand.

I'm glad they're diving into both the mystic side and the intellectual and technological side. That's a big part of what makes Victor Von Doom so powerful: magic, technology and being a genius. Sue Storm says he is always the most intelligent person in the room. We'll have to wait and see how his intellect actually compares to Reed's, because Reed is supposed to be the smartest man alive and more intelligent than Doom. We'll see how the MCU handles it.

The description continues: "He shares a rich and complex history with the Fantastic 4 and one can never truly know what is happening behind his impenetrable mask." That last part has me wondering whether the Fantastic Four have tried to get past that mask at some point, or whether we'll see past events where people fought Doom. The leaked plot detail I'll get to below describes Doom as something like the Sorcerer Supreme of the Fantastic Four's universe, so it seems his sorcery is known there.

A "rich and complex history" points to Doom and Reed's college origin

That line about a rich and complex history makes me think they're going to get this right and give us a backstory where Doom and Reed went to college together. That's so important. For people who know Victor Von Doom's origin, it's a central part of it. He goes to New York and meets Reed Richards because they're assigned to be roommates.

From there, a lot happens. Victor builds a machine to communicate with his dead mother, who is being kept in a hell realm. Reed tells him he looked at the calculations and it won't work. Victor ignores him, the machine blows up, and it scars his face. After that he hates Reed and blames him for everything. I know there are complicated stories suggesting someone else sabotaged it, but as far as Doom is concerned, Reed did it.

The history keeps going from there. Doom fights the Fantastic Four many times, and sometimes he saves them. He helps deliver Sue Storm's second child, Valeria Richards. In saving Sue and the baby, he gets to name her, and he names her after his childhood love, Valeria. It's very complicated. I was worried that because Robert Downey Jr. came in so fast as Doom, they'd jump past much of this. But it does seem this Doom is from the Fantastic Four's Earth 828 and that they share a real history, which I was very happy to see.

The insider leak's baseball game detail lines up with the new look

The leak came from the No More Mutants insider account, and it was posted on August 21st, well before the new look at the film came out. I think a decent part of it was proven true by that new material. The leak says Reed Richards, Johnny Storm and The Thing are at a baseball game. That's interesting because Sue Storm wasn't in the new scene either, and the leak came out before that could have been revealed.

According to the leak, there's an accident involving the stadium fence. That's most likely what Reed was looking up at in the new scene, maybe the fence falling. The leak says Steve and Jim help people move and dismantle it. That's Steve Rogers and his son Jim, who are in that universe. We know that based on leaks, but Marvel basically confirmed it with the Avengers: Endgame encore scenes, where Loki shows up at Peggy's house, which Steve had just returned to, and says "I can help you both." He's going to move them to the Fantastic Four's universe.

It's got to be interesting for Steve. He came from a universe full of heroes, he was a hero himself, and now he's sitting back and watching other heroes. That's going to be a really interesting thing to see, and I can't wait.

The leak says Doom is waiting at the Baxter Building

The leak goes on to say Ben notices something unusual, and when he goes to investigate, they receive a burglary alert from the Baxter Building and start to panic. They race home in the Fantasticar, but on arriving they're surprised to find everything calm. There they see Doctor Doom with Sue Storm, H.E.R.B.I.E. and Franklin.

That matches the post credit scene from The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Victor teleports in, an alarm goes off, and Sue is on guard. But we saw his mask off, in his hand, with Franklin touching it. So it's interesting that the description calls it an impenetrable mask. Maybe Doom thinks Franklin could heal it, or use his powers to bring his mom back to life with the Power Cosmic. We'll have to wait and see.

The leak says that although Reed is surprised by the encounter, he knows Victor well, because Reed, Ben and Victor studied together at university. I love it. The beginning of this leak is already confirmed, and it was posted a while ago, so it makes sense logically to think the rest is probably true as well.

The leak says Doom fears an incursion and finds Steve's family

According to the leak, the connection runs deeper than Victor ruling his country. It's well known in that world that Victor lost his wife and son, and we've heard Sue talk about that in the last Avengers: Doomsday trailer. The leak says Victor only became ruler of Latveria later, when he overthrew a brutal regime with his Doombots. It also describes Victor as, so to speak, Earth's Doctor Strange, a master of magic and sorcery. I love that. Because of this, and rumors about witches and witchcraft, Sue is nervous.

The leak says Victor warns Reed that he fears their Earth will be the next victim of the invasion, or an incursion, as I would call it. He explains that when the fabric between two realities is torn, the centers of each are drawn to one another, and once the incursion succeeds, both universes cease to exist. The center, of course, is Earth.

Reed and Victor reportedly investigate and discover three anomalies in the same location. It turns out Steve and his family have been living on this Earth, with Steve now bearded and long haired and James about 10 or 11 years old. Victor and Reed are surprised to find they're simply a happy family. Steve explains how he got there, telling them about Loki, and they warn him about what is happening in the multiverse. The leak then mentions the Fantastic Four's exploits in the forest. I'm not sure about that part, but I think it leads into Thor and his daughter Love, since we've seen Thor in a forest.

Why this makes me feel better about Doctor Doom

That all sounds so good, and I'm glad they're diving into the backstory between Doctor Doom and Reed Richards. I don't think we'll get all of it, because I think a version of this specific Doom continues on in the MCU. You can't get rid of Doctor Doom. Marvel could keep it the same Doom without it necessarily being played by Robert Downey Jr., by keeping the mask on the entire time with an accent. I know they'll dive further into it in the future.

Still, the fact that they're already giving us the college backstory and their first meeting makes me feel so much better about Avengers: Doomsday, and about Doctor Doom specifically. I was worried they were going to rush everything. This makes me feel so much better.