We’ve got two new Avengers movies coming up starting late next year, so we’re a ways off. But I was giving Doomsday some thought the other day and realized I’d never done a List of Six on what I hope to see in the movie. I used to do these a lot for Marvel films. So here we are for my own personal hopes and dreams for Avengers: Doomsday in late 2026.

I’m still a major Marvel fan. Say what you will about me, but I’m still loving pretty much everything Marvel is putting out. I cannot fathom how anyone can say the Marvel products are “garbage”. They’re maybe not all amazing and phenomenal, but the films and TV shows are still well-made and very entertaining. I can’t wait to rewatch Thunderbolts* when it comes to Disney+, and Fantastic Four: First Steps is expected to be a highlight of the rest of my year.

So can Marvel make themselves a billion dollar movie-maker again with Doomsday and then Secret Wars? I’m more than willing to find out!

6. Avengers vs. X-Men

I enjoyed the Fox X-Men films as much as the next person, but I am in no way beholden to them. Honestly, I rather wish Marvel didn’t bother bringing them back for Doomsday. But we saw those chair reveals and all those classic actors will be back to appear in this movie. And then we had all that stuff in Deadpool and Wolverine. So it’s happening and I can’t stop it. And if it’s going to happen, I would love to see a classic superhero battle of Avengers vs. X-Men. Give us the airport scene from Captain America: Civil War. I want to see Cyclops’ optic blast bounce off Captain America’s shield. I want to see Wolverine take on the Hulk. I want a big action scene where these two teams clash. And then they can realize they should be on the same side, and then I want to see Cyclops shaking hands with Captain America.

5. A prominent role for the Thunderbolts*

I really enjoyed the Thunderbolts movie and I really like the team members. I also love the idea that they became the New Avengers in the end, and were apparently an official Avengers team for more than a year. That’s just plain neat! So since they’re coming back for Doomsday, I hope they have a fairly prominent role. We’ve got a lot of characters coming together for this new film, so I just hope the Thunderbolts aren’t minimized too much, or used as cannon fodder. I also hope they get new costumes. I want to see a cool, all-white costume for Ghost in particular! And a more colorful U.S.Agent outfit. That was one of my only real disappointments with the Thunderbolts movie, that the mid-credits scene jumped forward a whole year and they still seemed to be wearing the dark, drab outfits.

*The New Avengers

4. Sam Wilson’s fully formed Avengers team

Captain America: Brave New World ended with Sam deciding to reform the Avengers. Thunderbolts* ended with them complaining Sam had copyrighted the name for his team. So we damn well better see a fully formed team of Sam Wilson Avengers in Doomsday. While I’d love to see them actually come together as a team, I’m willing to skip all of that if it means we get right to the action. I want a full team. I want bright, awesome costumes. I want familiar faces. Shang-Chi, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Kate Bishop, Thor, Black Panther and whoever else; I want this faction to be fully formed and ready to go for Doomsday.

3. Daredevil and the Defenders

So we’re definitely getting some of the Defenders back together for the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, which is great news. I’m all for it. Those actors are still around. The fans want it to happen. And what better way to drive attention/eyeballs to this show than to occasionally give the fans what they want? It’s why Born Again exists as a TV show in the first place. So, like…let’s just go that step further and have the team cameo in Doomsday somehow. They’re filming both season two and Doomsday right now. Granted, they’re in different filming locations. But can they really not just load up the Defenders into an airplane and they spend a week filming their Doomsday cameo? It’s why God invented airplanes!

2. I don’t want to see Robert Downey Jr’s face

I am fine with Robert Downey Jr. being bast to play Doctor Doom. Marvel Studios has never failed in its casting. Obviously, this feels a bit like a gimmick or a bit like a stretch to try to bring back the old popularity. But I’m confident they can make this work. I only hope we never actually see Downey’s face and it’s never acknowledged that he technically looks like Tony Stark. I don’t want Victor Von Doom to be an alternate reality Tony Stark. I don’t want any sort of explanation. Doctor Doom famously never takes off his mask in the comics. So he doesn’t need to take off his mask in the movie. Like Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta or Karl Urban in Dread, sometimes actors make the sacrifice to not show their face for a big role. Does the success of Avengers: Doomsday really depend on Downey showing his face on screen? Is that what movie audiences demand?

Actors have played different characters in the same franchise before; it’s already happened in the MCU. This is just a bigger case of that. No need to acknowledge it. No need to explain it. Just let Downey act and let Doctor Doom keep his mask on at all times.

1. Justice for She-Hulk

She-Hulk is my favorite of all the Marvel Studios TV shows. But for reasons that we probably all know and fully understand, the majority opinion seems to be against the show. I don’t get it and I don’t care to get it. She-Hulk is a phenomenal show that’s both hilarious and awesome. And Tatiana Maslany was perfect as both Jen and She-Hulk. So I just want the character in the movie, with movie-quality CGI, and I want her to have a good and awesome role. I’d love for her to be on Sam Wilson’s Avengers team, but I’ll take a background cameo. I just want and need more She-Hulk in the MCU and this is the next best place to make it happen.

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