If Marvel Follows the Comics, “Avengers: Secret Wars” Ends With a Confession, Not a Battle

Doctor Doom had been able to become godlike, change reality to look like him, and still lose simply because he was too concerned about himself compared to Reed Richards.

This is what many Marvel fans expect of Avengers: Secret Wars, the movie that will end Marvel’s Multiverse Saga on Dec. 17, 2027. Here, Doom does not succumb because someone gives him a punch he can no longer take. He succumbs because of his insecurities and understanding of who the better man is.

This concept stems from the comic book Jonathan Hickman wrote in 2015 under the same title, a work Marvel Studios said inspired the movie. In the story, Doom becomes the possessor of the godlike power of the Beyonders, ruling what remains of the multiverse as a god. But even that does not save him from his inferiority complex.

Richards defeats him by diverting the stolen powers, depriving Doom of his godliness and reducing the whole situation to a mere fight between two rival lifetimes. And right in the middle of the fighting, Richards forces Doom to admit aloud that if Richards got the power, he would use it to fix the multiverse, rather than make him a dictator.

This realization destroys Doom; his concentration crumbles, the cosmic power shifts to Richards, and he uses it to fix the broken timelines and restore the multiverse.

Those who believe the theory say the scene fits a plot about solving conflicts through characters rather than strength, and that it would let the Fantastic Four join the story, returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to Pedro Pascal’s portrayal of Richards.

Marvel Studios hasn’t confirmed anything, though. Marvel has revealed no plot details or cast yet, mostly because the list of survivors of Avengers: Doomsday will spoil the movie, which hits theaters on Dec. 18. Robert Downey Jr. has been announced to return as Doom.

The Russo brothers are helming Secret Wars from a screenplay by Stephen McFeely and producing it with Kevin Feige.

Film adaptations don’t necessarily follow the source material, and Marvel had altered comics before. If the theory is right, however, the mightiest creature in the multiverse falls not because of some stronger entity but because of a sentence he could not refute.