Avengers: Endgame Encore is now in theaters, and the four post-credits scenes included have given us enough confidence to predict what's next for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hint: It ain't gonna be pretty.
Warning: there are massive spoilers for Avengers: Endgame Encore from here on out. If you haven't seen Encore and don't want to know what's in those extra scenes... do not keep scrolling.
There are somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 Marvel comic books out there, so the studio has had quite a bit to pick from when it comes to deciding what to adapt for the big screen. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame serve as very loose adaptations of Jim Starlin's 1990 comic Thanos Quest and the 1991 comic The Infinity Gauntlet. But when Avengers: Secret Wars was first announced, fans wondered if it would adapt the 1984 Secret Wars comic, or the 2015 Secret Wars comic written by Jonathan Hickman. But wait, what does any of that have to do with Avengers: Doomsday?
Well, in Hickman's Avengers arc, which spanned 100 issues (including New Avengers, Secret Wars, and Infinity) from 2012 to 2015, Earth-616 and several other universes are completely destroyed by what's known as an "incursion." In Marvel comics, an incursion is when the boundaries between universes suddenly erode, causing them to collide and explode into a fiery ball of nothingness. We know that Kang the Conqueror and Doctor Strange (especially in the film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) have both caused incursions before within the MCU, though Strange's weren't on purpose.
In Time Runs Out, the final chapter of Hickman's Avengers run, Earth-616 and Earth-1610 (the Ultimate Universe, which we have not yet seen in the MCU) collide and are completely destroyed. And in one of the Endgame Encore post-credits scenes, we see Mobius and Ouroboros monitoring something very carefully on a screen: multiple impending incursions.
That bright explosion scene in the trailer is actually an incursion
We hear our first mention of the word "incursion" (in the specific context of Avengers: Doomsday) in one of the post-credits scenes at the end of Avengers: Endgame Encore, where Mobius and Ouroboros are back at the TVA. According to the monitor, an incursion is about to take place between Earth-10005 (the Fox X-Men universe) and Earth-1127 (a universe we have not yet been introduced to yet). The monitor then reveals that over 3,000 universes have impending incursions.
When the last Doomsday trailer came out, one fan took the scene where Johnny and Susan Storm are hugging while crying (which you can see above) and lowered the brightness. The image then revealed what appeared to be fiery balls of destruction in the sky behind them... i.e, an incursion. At first, I was skeptical. Any photo on the good ol' internet can be altered. But now that we know for sure that incursions will serve as the main threat in Doomsday thanks to that added scene... I really and truly believe that Johnny and Susan are hugging during what they believe to be their final moments on Earth. It kind of feels like The Blip all over again.
All of the Fox X-Men die will die at the beginning of Avengers: Doomsday
It's because of the incursion. Well, one of the incursions. Prepare to hear that word approximately 300 more times throughout the rest of this article. This explains why Charles Xavier is looking up at the sky in horror in one Doomsday trailer, and why Cyclops is on his knees screaming in the second special look at the film. It also explains why we saw a ruined X-Mansion as part of the interactive Marvel experience at San Diego Comic-Con.
We also see Shang-Chi and Nightcrawler beating each other up in one of the trailers, which tells us that Earth-616's heroes were likely sent to Earth-10005 to save the X-Men. It's going to be pretty sad to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen's Professor X and Magneto meet their tragic ends (especially since they originated those roles in live-action), as well as the rest of the OG X-Men who debuted all the way back in 2000. However, it makes sense that Marvel would want to give them a proper end before introducing the official MCU X-Men, who will arrive in 2028.
The end of Avengers: Doomsday will take us right into Battleworld
If Marvel is indeed following the Hickman Avengers run, then the ending of Doomsday (and a possible post-credit scene) will take our heroes right to Battleworld... which will feature as the central location for Avengers: Secret Wars.
At the end of Time Runs Out, the final issue in Hickman's comic series, the incursions begin to do their thing and Tony Stark and Steve Rogers fight seemingly to the death as everything is destroyed around them. Then boom: Secret Wars. It's Doctor Doom who scrapes together the fragments of all the different universes and creates Battleworld, which he then makes himself the God Emperor of. In the 1984 Secret Wars comic (which Robert Downey Jr. posted on his Instagram as part of his pre-Doomsday reading material), a villain named the Beyonder is the one who sends all of Earth-616's heroes to Battleworld... which is what I'm sure most of us thought would happen when Marvel announced a Secret Wars movie back in 2022. But the 2015 Secret Wars event makes much, much more sense now, as opposed to a bored supervillain plucking our heroes off Earth for evil funsies.
Avengers: Doomsday will re-assemble the Illuminati
We briefly met the Earth-838 Illuminati in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse, which consisted of Black Bolt, Mister Fantastic, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel, and Professor X. You might recall that Wanda Maximoff, in her most evil Scarlet Witch form, killed them off one by one, horror-movie-style.
In the Hickman run, Earth-616 has its own Illuminati. This consists of: Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Black Panther, Namor, Doctor Strange, Beast, Black Bolt, with Hulk later joining. Captain America (Steve Rogers) is a member for some time, but he morally opposes their tactics to save the universe i.e. destroying one universe to save another (not unlike how Jubilee doesn't approve of the X-Force going around killing everyone in X-Men '97 season 2). Namor also eventually leaves for similar reasons, but not until much later.
Because this is an ultimate team-up movie, it makes sense for the Illuminati to form at the center of it in order to make a plan and keep everyone else in line. However, I don't think they get very far in their world-saving plans... which brings me to my next point.
The TVA will try to solve the incursion crisis, rather than the Illuminati
The Time Variance Authority does not appear in the Hickman Avengers run. In fact, the TVA hadn't appeared in a Marvel comic since 1993 until Loki season 1 premiered on Disney Plus in 2021... then it took another three years for the TVA to get their own dedicated comic book arc. If the Illuminati had the help of the TVA in the comics, I think things would've gone a bit differently (and maybe Steve Rogers would've been a lot less angry). The TVA are essentially the keepers of time, with Loki becoming the God of Stories after holding the branches of Yggdrasil together at the end of Loki season 2.
As we learned in the post-credits scenes, the TVA can see and track all of the oncoming incursions, and are probably the ones who sent the Avengers to Earth-10005 to save the Fox X-Men. We also know that it was Loki who went back into the past to fetch Steve Rogers from his nice, quiet life with Peggy Carter... for reasons that are still unclear. And if you're wondering how he was able to leave his seemingly permanent position of holding that damn tree together, we also have no idea. But the fate of the world, and all the time travel and universe-hopping we're going to see, is definitely on Loki, Morbius, Ouroboros, and co.
Avengers: Endgame is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18. Avengers: Endgame Encore is in theaters now.
Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next re-watch. See you next week as we revisit Avengers: Infinity War.
