Ever since it was announced that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to the MCU in a new role as Victor Von Doom, speculation has been rife about how his character will be linked to Tony Stark. Now some fans think we might have an answer, thanks to the Avengers: Endgame Encore footage.
We'll be getting into spoilers from the movie's post-credits scenes below so if you haven't seen them at the theater yet, wait before reading on.
In the original Avengers: Endgame credits, the Russos included a hammer hitting on iron noise right at the very end, calling back to Tony Stark making his Iron Man suit in the first movie. In the Encore rerelease, this is coupled with images of Doctor Doom forging his mask.
While it could just be a small nod to the new villain, some Marvel fans have been wondering if this is actually setting up a major link between Tony Stark and Doom. The theory is that we could be witnessing a parallel origin story for Doom that looks very similar to Tony's, just with a few differences. This would mean that Doom is actually a Tony Stark variant, which would explain them sharing the same face.
Posting on Twitter, one wrote about the post-credits scene: "And I’m supposed to believe they’re not just gonna make him a Tony Stark variant." Another added: "So its basically just a variant of tony in like a completely different timeline, and its his villain arc." A third simply put: "So this is basically confirmation that this IS an iron man variant."
This would be far from the first time we've seen a variant in the MCU, and we're about to meet even more in Doomsday when the original X-Men cast appear in the film. Given another of the post-credits scenes directly set up the fact that the multiverse is collapsing, I'm definitely expecting a lot of multiversal madness in the upcoming film.
Adding fuel to this theory are the Russo brothers comments earlier this year. "I'm not going to give away anything. It will all make sense when you watch the movies," Joe Russo said of the fact they share the same face. Expect it to be explored at some point in Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars then.
In the meantime, check out our guide to upcoming Marvel movies and shows as well as our breakdown of the Marvel timeline.
