Avengers: Doomsday Ending Could Split Up the Fantastic Four and Bring in the Council of Reeds

In September 2025, a report suggested that Marvel Studios was taking a big page from Marvel Comics for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, particularly with the Fantastic Four. It looked like the team would split up at the end of Doomsday, and the Council of Reeds could show up in Doomsday, Secret Wars or both.

That is something I think a lot of fans would love to see, especially if the Reed Richards variants are played by previous actors. The same report also covered how Daredevil: Born Again season 2 builds into Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and I get to that further down this piece.

A Cosmic Circus insider said the Fantastic Four would not split until the end of Avengers: Doomsday

The report came from an insider at The Cosmic Circus, and it got a lot of attention because people started piecing together how Avengers: Doomsday might end. It came from a Q&A on his Discord. He was asked whether we would see the Fantastic Four split up, not in the sense of the team disbanding, but with half of the team working with one group while the other half was with another.

The insider simply replied: "not until the end." He also teased the possibility that the Council of Reeds would be shown for the first time in the MCU. I personally thought there was a different kind of twist to this report than a lot of people assumed.

Why I think Doom's victory, not teamwork, splits up the Fantastic Four

I did not think the team would split up only because one half was working with another group. That might be the case at first. Ultimately, though, I believed they would split up because Doom wins and takes a collection of the heroes around him to Battleworld.

So the Fantastic Four might break into different groups at the end of the movie. Reed and perhaps Ben go one way with certain Avengers or X-Men, while Sue and Johnny go another way, all in an attempt to find their son, Franklin Richards. You might ask why they would split up as a family and as a team. As Franklin's parents, and with Doctor Doom expected to take him, getting him back is their number one priority, and I thought they would probably be willing to do anything necessary to make that happen.

Leaked Secret Wars concept art put Sue and Franklin beside Doom

Ultimately, I thought this leads to Sue being at Doctor Doom's side. That is something seen in the leaked concept art for Avengers: Secret Wars, where Doom sits on his throne. To our left is Doctor Strange, and to the right are Sue and Franklin.

Thanks to that leaked art, it seemed clear that Marvel Studios was planning Battleworld. Essentially, we were going to get God Emperor Doom, and it looked like Sue and Franklin would be on his side.

My theory: Reed goes outside the multiverse while Sue stays in a universe

My theory about how Doomsday ends is that whoever is left alive in the multiverse ends up on Battleworld. As the multiverse collapses, Doom creates Battleworld from the remnants of the very few universes still alive. Doom takes everything at the end and makes one world, so the characters alive in those universes before the collapse end up there.

This is where I thought we get the separation between Reed Richards and Sue Storm. I thought Reed would go with a team to the TVA, a team tackling the technology and the multiversal travel side of things. Reed would obviously be one of those people, because he clearly figures out multiversal travel to reach the 616 universe from his own. That team would go to the TVA to try to save Loki, stop Doctor Doom and maybe figure out the science of whether they can actually save the multiverse.

I was sure there would be more than two teams, but for the Fantastic Four, Reed goes to the TVA while Sue and maybe the rest of the team go with some of the X-Men and Avengers to physically fight. They would most likely remain in a universe. It might not be Earth 616; it could be the X-Men universe or the 828 universe for all we knew.

Reed, meanwhile, would not end up in any universe. He would end up outside the multiverse, either at the TVA or, as I thought more likely, the void. I thought Doom would win, form his own solo universe with no more multiverse, and everything else would basically be destroyed. Since Doom would probably take over the TVA as well, Loki and others who know about the void would go there, outside space and time, to hide, survive and come up with a plan to win in Secret Wars.

The comics offer a blueprint with Reed's life raft

In the comics, the Fantastic Four also split up, in a very sad way, as the multiverse comes to an end. There are two Reeds: the Maker from the Ultimate universe and our main Reed. Each builds what is called a life raft, which is how they survive the end of the multiverse. The main Reed has his entire family aboard, the whole Fantastic Four plus his two kids, Franklin and Valeria.

As everything falls apart and they break out of the multiverse, part of the life raft gets broken off. Unfortunately, it is the part holding the entire Fantastic Four except Reed. He tries to save them but cannot. When he eventually reaches Battleworld, created by God Emperor Doom, he finds out Doom is married to Sue and that Franklin and Valeria are now Doom's children. Doom basically takes his entire life, and that is essentially what I thought would happen in the movie.

The void as a life raft could bring in the Council of Reeds

I thought the void would essentially work as a life raft, a place where Loki basically says they can survive anything Doom does and just need to figure out a way out, especially if the TVA is gone and none of the devices work. But they have Reed, the smartest man alive, and Loki, who is essentially the god of stories. They can figure it out, and it would lead to a comeback. "It's basically survive now so we can try to win later."

This is how I thought the Council of Reeds comes into play. We already know other Fantastic Four members have been in the void. In Deadpool & Wolverine, Chris Evans returned as Johnny Storm for a brief moment before his skin got zapped off, and he mentioned that his Reed even knew what the void was. So I thought there would be other Reed Richards variants there, coming together to escape the void, defeat Doctor Doom and restore the multiverse, or at least restore something, because I did not think Marvel would jump straight back into the multiverse after Doomsday or Secret Wars.

Given how long the Council of Reeds had been talked about, and the concept art showing Sue and Franklin by Doom's side, I believed they split up and that Reed would be outside the world Doom creates. In the comics, nobody remembers any universe before Battleworld; only the two life raft teams stand outside that. When the rafts eventually reach Battleworld and meet Doom, they realise he has Reed's family. Spider-Man even mockingly says, "We noticed you, you know, made yourself the god of it all. We're absolutely shocked by that." Doctor Strange, Doom's right hand man, says Doom is very good at playing God, which is why he did not stop him. I basically thought we would get this in the movie.

The Maker could hide inside the Council of Reeds

With the Council of Reeds, I believed the Maker, the evil Reed Richards, would come too. I did not think it would be obvious right away, or that he would wear the helmet immediately. Or maybe he does and pretends to be good. Either way, I thought it would come as a surprise and eventually introduce a new villain in the Maker.

If they did the Council of Reeds, I would hope and expect it to include previous actors like Ioan Gruffudd, Miles Teller and hopefully John Krasinski as well.

Daredevil: Born Again led into Spider-Man: Brand New Day

The same Cosmic Circus insider also said Daredevil: Born Again seasons 1 and 2 would both lead up to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as would the Punisher special presentation, which to our knowledge at the time came before Born Again season 2. That made sense to me. If Brand New Day arrived right then, it would almost have to address Kingpin as mayor and everything he had done, otherwise it would be kind of weird, since the MCU is all connected and Spider-Man is a masked vigilante in New York.

It sounded like that would get cleared up in Born Again season 2, and a season 3 had just been confirmed. We had not heard much about Daredevil appearing in Spider-Man, but that hope was still alive for a Daredevil and Spider-Man team up at some point. In the meantime, the Punisher was joining Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which I thought was awesome on its own.

Would you want Ioan Gruffudd, Miles Teller and John Krasinski back as part of a Council of Reeds?