This July marks two years since Robert Downey Jr. made a dramatic entrance at Marvel Studios’ San Diego Comic-Con panel to reveal that he was returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe—but not as Tony Stark. Instead, he revealed that he would be playing iconic Marvel villain Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, which was a casting shock as brilliant as it was perplexing. How are they going to explain how the guy who played Iron Man is now Doctor Doom? Well, we still don’t know, but that doesn’t mean Doom has been idly chilling in his castle for the last few years. He’s actually been pretty busy… but only in Marvel’s comic books. In what seems like an odd bit of mistimed synergy, Marvel Comics’ big yearlong event in 2025 was “One World Under Doom,” a story in which Doom took over the title of Sorcerer Supreme and effectively achieved his dream of conquering the world. It was a fun event, led by writer Ryan North and artist R.B. Silva, with juicy stuff for a lot of classic Marvel characters (the Fantastic Four, obviously, but also Alpha Flight, the Masters of Evil, and the Living Tribunal), but its definitive ending came a whole year before Avengers: Doomsday is set to finally open. That means anyone leaving the theater in December who is hoping to get into floppy comic books will be a year late for Doom’s biggest showcase since Secret Wars in 2015. However, strict synergy between the MCU and the comics has always been a poisoned chalice, so that disconnect is actually better for everyone involved. Doomsday is going to be a long-awaited team-up for the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Thunderbolts/New Avengers, X-Men, and the Wakandans, but the MCU wasn’t always so open to that level of unity. Before Disney bought 20th Century Fox in 2019 and took over the movie rights to the X-Men, it tried to push a Royal Crown Cola-style alternative in the form of the Inhumans—a significantly less popular group of super-powered individuals from the comics who were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the ‘60s. Marvel Studios tried to get an Inhumans movie off the ground for years before ultimately dumping the concept into a mercifully short-lived ABC TV series, but more damage was done in the comics.