It has been seven, count ’em, seven years since the Avengers last assembled on the big screen. In that time, the vice-like grip Marvel had on the cinema has come undone. Come the holidays, Disney is breaking the bank to bring audiences back with Avengers: Doomsday, another massive crossover. Teasers have been brief so far, but art emerging out of Shanghai Expo is giving our clearest look at who, exactly, will be assembling this time around.
The end of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame saw the death of Iron Man, the time travel retirement of Captain America, on top of the ends of Black Widow, Gamora and Vision. It wrapped the decade-long arc of these characters and a chapter of tentpole cinema, seemingly passing the torch to a new generation of heroes like Moon Knight, She Hulk and the Eternals. This was, for the most part, a complete disaster. Only Spider-Man and Deadpool making the returns Marvel Studios became used to, with superhero and nostalgia baiting blockbusters slipping from the zeitgeist all over.
First concept art for ‘Avengers Doomsday’ pic.twitter.com/QzpOEodmJ4
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Disney wants to get the box office cheat code working again, and they’re willing to pay any sum to do it. Robert Downey, reportedly being paid north of $80 million, is returning, this time as classic supervillain Dr. Doom. Chris Evans is back on as Captain America, but so are the X-Men, reprised by cast members who have been reeled back into these roles for a quarter century. In this new art, we see this includes Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellan), Cyclops (James Marsden), Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) with a bad hair day and newcomer Gambit (Channing Tatum) with that doofy accent from Deadpool & Wolverine.
Rounding out this lineup are the Fantastic Four, Thor, Loki, Ant Man, Black Panther, Falcon/Captain America, Shang Chi and the Thunderbolts. Absent are many of the newer additions to the overstuffed MCU, but more curiously there’s no hint of the two most bankable mutants (Wolverine and Deadpool) or stars of the upcoming Spider-Man movie (Spidey, Hulk and Punisher). In fact I only just learned that Spider-Man isn’t slated to show up in this thing at all. That’s really funny. Of course, this general art doesn’t mean heroes won’t pop out of windows like Hee Haw guests. Earlier Doomsday concept art circulated with Doop in it.
Like Grand Theft Auto VI, a lot of the industry seems to be riding on Doomsday’s returns. While Spider-Man movies perform consistently well, cape stuff seems to have completely lost steam, with Supergirl and He-Man being two of the biggest bombs of the year. Even the latest Star Wars under performed. Audiences seem far more interested in original genre films like Obsession, The Backrooms and Project Hail Mary. How much appetite there is for overproduced comic book crossovers will be tested when Doomsday releases in December. Directly against Dune: Part Three.