It took Marvel Studios precisely two minutes at D23 to wow us with a combination of explosions, Sentinels, and about 40 celebrity cameos. But when December arrives, seven words will create a stir.
“All of you have lived stolen lives,” says Robert Downey Jr.’s Victor von Doom, addressing the assembled heroes in the new Avengers: Doomsday teaser. In response to Reed Richards’ question about a destroyed city, Doom adds: “Now you need to give them back.”
The studio hasn’t explained that line yet, but it probably won’t have to, since Doomsday hits theaters on December 18th. However, a closer look at the teaser suggests what message Marvel intends to send.
Early descriptions of the scene put the “stolen lives” speech over images of Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang playing with his daughter Cassie, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm hugging his little nephew Franklin Richards, Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers holding an infant, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor with his adopted daughter Love, Letitia Wright’s Shuri, James Marsden’s Cyclops.
This isn’t an arbitrary selection of faces from the big ensemble. On the contrary, those people appeared in the teaser because their existence today was made possible only thanks to bending the laws of reality.
Steve Rogers is one of such people, obviously. After returning from the Infinity Gauntlet, Captain America slipped into the past. It created a happy li for himself, taking away the happiness of Peggy Carter, whom he has always loved. The baby in his hands is the clear evidence of that deal.
There is strong evidence for Thor. The Asgardian warrior decided to raise a child who was resurrected from death, using a wish from the end of Thor: Love and Thunder. Doom himself is making a similar argument: he lost everything, including his wife and little son whom he couldn’t help.
Franklin Richards, the child who brought his mother back to life in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, gives us probably the strongest evidence, yet most fans overlook that detail. Vanessa Kirby plays Sue Storm, who mourns the loss of the wonderful guy he was – the clever man who cared about everyone in all the rooms before something stole that from him. “I knew he was lost, ” she says, “but I never knew he was broken.”
So, one family lost a mom, but they received her back. The other family lost a husband and child and got nothing. There you go. This is how the film’s main emotional thread emerges, and it doesn’t require a single whiteboard.
We needed to include Loki here. While Thanos decided to kill half the people on Earth for no evident reason, Loki decided to save himself from the certain death that the script was offering him. And now Loki is at the center of many different realities, as God of Stories. If Doom sees the existence of multiverses as an anomaly, Loki isn’t just a victim of it. It is the structure that holds the whole system together.
X-Men is the final confirmation of that pattern. Professor X, Magneto, and Cyclops come from the film saga where their reality was rewritten in the sequel “Days of Future Past”. Doom wasn’t just accusing the Avengers of using the rules of that franchise for their advantage. Doom is accusing an entire franchise of constantly bringing the dead back.
And that is the first time Marvel’s Multiverse Saga turns to the problems inside its characters rather than outside, towards the man in the chair.
Thanos tried to kill half the world just because of a spreadsheet mistake. Kang tried to win a battle across the multiverse. Doom basically tries to get a refund. Those superheroes are accused of exploiting the mechanics of Marvel films time-travel, resurrection, rewriting the storyline, the multiverse itself as a way to provide themselves with happiness and leave ordinary people to bear the consequences. And every successful twist that the audience has seen in their favorite films became, according to Doom, a receipt.
It’s a serious accusation, partially because that’s what really happened there. But that’s exactly the complaint fans have expressed about these films for years. The only difference is that now this complaint goes to the movie’s hero and is delivered in a Latverian accent.
Of course, the problems it creates are obvious. Doomsday takes place in a universe with two other worlds, the merger of X-Men from two companies, and a whole telephone directory of a cast, while the Russo brothers try to convey their idea through the invasion of Sentinels. An overloaded film solves its themes in a battle. Doom’s final teaser line about hell and its owner is a perfect line, but not a theme.
However, “give them back” gives the film the backbone it might otherwise lack. It is not a threat to annihilate the world; it is a request to give these people back what fans admire them for. It’s the price that has to be paid, and it forces the viewer to face a real dilemma at the movie’s end: choose honesty over convenience, or vice versa.
Marvel has managed to evade that decision throughout all its history. However, now Doom has put it straight on the table.
