The MCU's upcoming multiversal crossovers Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars need to avoid a team-up mistake from Avengers: Endgame. One of the most exciting parts about a vast cinematic universe like the MCU is the concept of franchise-wide crossovers, which bring together characters introduced across various individual installments. All Avengers movies so far have been wildly successful, and both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are two of the MCU's most anticipated releases in the Multiverse Saga's slate due to their star-studded cast and ambitious premises.
Custom image by Nicolas Ayala
Following Jonathan Majors' firing from Marvel and Robert Downey Jr.'s casting as Doctor Doom, little is still known about Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars' multiversal plots. However, it's almost a given that both movies will feature large casts of characters, both local to the MCU's main timeline and hailing from other universes. Characters such as Spider-Man: No Way Home's multiversal Spider-Men, Deadpool & Wolverine's multiversal survivor team, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' off-screen heroes could team up to confront Doctor Doom in Phase 6.
Multiversal Avengers Scenes Must Avoid Repeating Endgame’s Awkward A-Force Team-Up
Avengers: Endgame's Controversial Team-Up Scene Came Out Of Nowhere During The Final Battle
Avengers: Endgame's "portals" scene is undeniably one of the most exciting action sequences in Marvel movie history, as most of the MCU's heroes show up to fight Thanos and his army together. However, Avengers: Endgame's packed final battle has been criticized for its unexpected female Avengers team-up moment, which may have seemed impressive at first, but raised many questions on repeated viewings. Avengers: Endgame's female Avengers scene has no narrative explanation, as almost none of the female heroes know each other or have any strategic reason to join forces while they're busy fighting Thanos' army somewhere else on the battlefield.
The same could happen to a multiversal team of Avengers in Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars, where famous heroes from alternate realities are expected to assemble. A team-up scene featuring Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, and possibly Eric Bana's Hulk or the 2005 Fantastic Four would be a natural evolution of the Avengers' MCU team-up scenes. But if these heroes immediately seek each other as soon as they return, they would raise the same questions as Avengers: Endgame's female Avengers.
The MCU's Multiversal Avengers Need More Screen Time Than Endgame’s Heroes
Avengers: Doomsday And Secret Wars Need A Different Plot Structure Than Infinity War And Endgame
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars' surprise characters and cameos might team up similarly to Avengers: Endgame's final team of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. However, Phase 6's final MCU crossovers need to assemble their Avengers teams differently this time. Avengers: Endgame was able to focus on a core team because every main character had already starred in multiple MCU installments beforehand. Since neither the Earth-616 Avengers nor the MCU's returning multiversal heroes have appeared in the MCU in a long while — let alone together — Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars needs to distribute their runtime more evenly and have more main characters than any previous MCU crossover.
