Over the weekend Marvel Studios reclaimed its crown as the king of summer blockbusters with the instantly successful release of Deadpool & Wolverine and a massive return to its kingdom of San Diego Comic-Con.
At the studio’s annual Hall H panel, Marvel boss Kevin Feige announced the Russo Brothers are officially coming back to helm Avengers: Doomsday (replacing the now-scrapped Kang Dynasty movie) and Avengers: Secret Wars in a one-two punch that left fans stunned. As if that wasn’t enough, Marvel also mic-dropped the event with the announcement that Victor Von Doom would be this phase’s new big bad and played by none other than Robert Downey Jr. You know, the guy who, until very recently, was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as sacrificial hero Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Which leaves us with the question on everyone’s mind: how the heck is this going to be pulled off?
Let’s dive into a couple theories, based on some very interesting things we learned through Deadpool & Wolverine regarding “anchor beings” and the “Johnny Storm Effect.” Big spoilers ahead obviously.
What are anchor beings?
In Deadpool & Wolverine, when Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) gets pulled out of his timeline by the Mr. Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen) and the TVA, it’s explained to him that his universe is slowly decaying due to the loss of its “anchor being.” In this case, it’s the “best” of all the Wolverines, a.k.a. Hugh Jackman’s version of Wolverine from the Fox X-Men movies up to Logan. As Deadpool & Wolverine reminds us, that hero is super dead—and that timeline decay is a meta allusion to the Fox X-Men universe’s end since it was acquired by Disney.
In order to save his timeline, Deadpool goes on a journey through time to find a replacement Logan to simply insert into his universe, hoping that will do enough to stop the decay. In that “Power of Love” multi-verse travel montage, we get the sense that these universes tend to have a Logan as their anchor beings, and as such they don’t leave without a fight—except for one: the “worst” Logan.
How does Deadpool & Wolverine first connect to the sacred timeline?
Now here’s where it gets interesting. This variant Wolverine has already screwed up his timeline by not being there when his X-Men were killed; the implication is, potentially, it’s only being held together by his existence as punishment for Logan to live out his super long days burdened by the guilt of his actions, which he’s desperately tried to drink away. So Wade takes him on as his project, making his “educated wish” that if Wolverine helps Deadpool’s timeline, they could also go back and fix Wolverine’s. That’s the plot of Deadpool & Wolverine—a fun, violent romp— but there’s something in the sauce there with those “anchor beings.”
There’s a fun scene early on that establishes Deadpool visiting the sacred timeline circa 2018 (using Cable’s watch), hoping to join the Avengers through an interview with Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) in order to be a hero in Vanessa’s eyes and live up to his potential. This is where he learns and sees who is part of that roster, including Chris Evans’ Captain America and Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. Deadpool wanted to talk to Stark but didn’t get an audience because as Happy put it, Wade was in it for himself– and Avengers became heroes to help others.
How does Tony Stark fit into this?
Okay, so… since Deadpool instinctively seeks out Tony Stark, maybe we can take an educated guess that the sacred timeline’s “anchor being” is, in fact, Tony Stark. After all, why gravitate to this universe, this Tony, if he could go to any reality where the Avengers existed? It’s only been since Tony made his sacrifice in Endgame that the multiverse’s fracturing began. Right now, it’s only being held together by the will of Loki, while the TVA attempts to salvage as many timelines as possible, directly setting up Deadpool & Wolverine‘s arc with the renegade Mr. Paradox.
And like Deadpool’s universe, which now has a new Wolverine “anchor being” in place to keep it together, you can posit that there’s a mighty big hole in the sacred timeline’s “anchor being” role that’s ripe for the taking—maybe by the “worst” version of a Tony Stark type.
At Marvel’s big Hall H panel this weekend, it was specifically stated that Robert Downey Jr. will play Victor Von Doom, which muddies whether or not Victor can be a Tony variant–even though there are comics that delve into identity-usurping between the two.
But let’s recall Loki‘s first-season finale, and Kang’s warning that killing him would only bring about the freedom for another, worse Kang to arrive. That theory, of course, was presented for a villain we’re likely not seeing again. We’re guessing the spaghetti-ing of Loki season two’s Victor Timely—a Kang variant—will have something to do with erasing all Kangs from existence for now. Victor Timely also backs up the idea that multiple characters can share the same actor’s face, even if they’re variants or other people all together.
To avoid getting too confused, because we truly don’t know how the inhabitants of the sacred timeline will react to the face of their hero on the face of an evil invader, let’s go back to Deadpool & Wolverine‘s Chris Evans cameo. When Deadpool recognizes him in the Void, he assumes it’s Captain America—until he, like a lot of audience members, is shook by the reveal that this is Johnny Storm from the 2005 Fantastic Four movie.
This Johnny Storm just so happens to look exactly like Steve Rogers’ Captain America. And like Peter Parker (a good candidate for Sony Marvel Universe’s “anchor being”), he has three variants we’ve seen over the years with different faces; we’re presuming that includes Michael B. Jordan (2015’s Johnny Storm, who also shares a face with Black Panther‘s Killmonger!) and his latest variant, Joseph Quinn, who’ll be seen in next year’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Thanks to Deadpool’s Captain America/Johnny Storm confusion, while we may not know why some variants will share the same face with other completely different characters, we know they will be recognized. This means that when the villainous Victor Von Doom arrives in the sacred timeline and takes his mask off (something Doom is rarely willing to do in the comics, and something that will inevitably happen in the MCU anyway, because you’re paying for Robert Downey Jr.) revealing a countenance identical to Tony Stark’s, it’s going to be awfully rough on Tom Holland’s poor Peter Parker.
It feels like a fix that takes on elements of how the Kang character was intended to be used; due to the nature of the redirect between the box office let-downs that were supposed to set up Kang Dynasty and Jonathan Majors’ MCU exit, Marvel had to come up with a strong solution. Bringing back the fan-beloved Downey feels very safe. Setting him up to be a Victor Von Doom who’s potentially the worst form of Tony Stark makes sense, especially if there’s a team-up in the works between Marvel’s first family and the Avengers. Who else could stop Doom, really?
There’s so many elements at play. Sure, Marvel likely wants to set up RDJ versus Marvel’s biggest heroes to get butts in seats. And there’s plenty of threads connecting our anchor being Logan back to the sacred timeline now: adamantium has been introduced into the sacred timeline, something that will be explored in Captain America: Brave New World. That could give our new Logan motivation to fight against the Serpent Society—which we’ve seen in The Wolverine with Viper, but now led by Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder—especially if or when Doom expresses interest in that precious resource.
And while we’re worried about the benching of various new heroes these phases were planning to invest in, we see the vision, overall, of where this is going to go. This re-direction is one way to critic-proof your films; bring back a familiar hero to be the villain and face off with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine until they’re 90. Perfectly balanced as all things should be, as Cable—er, Thanos—said.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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