Face front, Marvel fans, because Avengers: Endgame – Encore is now in theaters. The limited rerelease of the Infinity Saga’s finale is actually quite a big event for the MCU, because it has additional footage for the IMAX and Infinity Vision versions of the film. We can also confirm that the leaked footage is indeed legitimate, with a new ending where Loki visits Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, and additional post-credits scenes that connect to Avengers: Doomsday. But now that we’ve seen this new footage, has Marvel tipped their hand as to what Doctor Doom’s plan is in the next Avengers installment? Going by the scene where Doom kidnaps Bruce Banner, it appears that Doom may in fact be putting together his own team of heroes!
How would this work? Let’s look at the comics and the implications of Encore’s additional footage to piece it together.
Is the MCU Adapting Time Runs Out?
Now that we’ve seen the extra scenes from Encore, it seems clearer than ever that the Russo Brothers turned to Jonathan Hickman’s run on New Avengers for inspiration when shaping Avengers: Doomsday. While we always knew that Secret Wars was coming, and that the film would most likely be based on the 2015 version of the event, adapting the events from Hickman’s Avengers run that led into that Secret Wars was not a guarantee. After all, the fifth Avengers movie was originally supposed to be The Kang Dynasty before Jonathan Majors was fired and the Multiverse Saga switched gears to feature Doctor Doom. Now that Doom is set in place, it makes sense to use more of Hickman’s material from New Avengers, which was a multi-year saga about a group of Marvel’s most intelligent heroes trying to prevent the death of the multiverse.
If you aren’t familiar with the comics, here’s a brief rundown. Hickman’s New Avengers actually starred the Illuminati — a team consisting of Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Black Panther, Namor, Doctor Strange, Beast, and Black Bolt. Together they worked in secret to stop the threat of the Incursions, which occur when Earths from two different realities collide, destroying both universes in the process. However, the book is far more depressing and tragic than most superhero fare, with the heroes betraying their morals and turning on each other as it becomes more and more apparent that no matter what they try, the death of the multiverse is inescapable. They even go so far as to destroy other Earths before they can collide with Earth-616, the primary Earth of Marvel comics, but it only delays the inevitable.
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