The Avengers: Doomsday Plot Could Be Based On This Disastrous Marvel Story

Until recently, the upcoming fifth "Avengers" movie was known as "Avengers: The Kang Dynasty," and it was reasonably assumed — though never confirmed — that it would center around Kang the Conqueror's plan to dominate the multiverse with an army of his variants. But now that "The Kang Dynasty" has been revamped as "Avengers: Doomsday," and its big bad confirmed as Doctor Victor von Doom (to be played by Robert Downey Jr.), what could the film's storyline be?

Well, there is actually a Marvel narrative arc collectively titled "Ultimate Comics: Doomsday." The 2010-2011 story consists of 12 issues, all by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Rafa Sandoval. Its three parts, "Ultimate Enemy," "Ultimate Mystery," and "Ultimate Doom," all take place (as you might have guessed) in the Ultimate Marvel universe, a spinoff line of comics which revamped, reimagined, and rebooted many of the classic Marvel characters for new audiences.

"Doomsday" follows up the crossover event "Ultimatum," in which Magneto attempts to wipe out everyone in the Ultimate Universe over the deaths of his children, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. As "Doomsday" begins, many Ultimate heroes have been killed, while the Fantastic Four have broken up. A series of mysterious attacks on various heroes and bases lead to the revelation of the villain behind it all: a psychotic Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, who becomes known as the Maker.

Marvel Studios often appropriates titles, storylines, and characters from the Marvel Comics canon and makes significant changes to them, based on how, where, and whether they fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Movies like "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Captain America: Civil War," and "Avengers: Infinity War" took their initial inspiration and a number of story elements from classic Marvel Comics tales and then adapted them for the screen accordingly.

Yet it's hard to see how "Ultimate Comics: Doomsday" can be adapted faithfully from the comics. With Robert Downey Jr. agreeing to return to the MCU to play Doctor Doom, there's little question that the Latverian tyrant will be the central villain of both "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars." Not only would it be odd for Marvel to make Reed Richards the villain when you have RDJ as Doom, but it would also be jarring for the MCU's Reed (Pedro Pascal) to turn into a genocidal monster who murders his own parents just one film after his introduction in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps."

Most likely, the Marvel Studios brain trust has realized that the "Doomsday" title itself was a natural for a movie centered around Doctor Doom, and are planning a largely new storyline. But there is one other thing to consider: "Doomsday" will lead into "Secret Wars," and if they're going with the 2015 version of that story, Mr. Fantastic does actually end up battling his evil Ultimate Universe self, the Maker, in a massive multiversal plot orchestrated by — you guessed it — Doctor Doom.