Marvel StudiosIt’s always hard being left out of the loop on a huge footage presentation, like the ones Marvel puts on for Comic-Con and D23. The studio dropped some big previews for their most anticipated upcoming films at the former — fortunately, though, for anyone who missed those exclusive first looks at Comic-Con, the FOMO didn’t last long. When Marvel returned to Anaheim for the D23 Fan Expo this weekend, it brought an extended look at Avengers: Doomsday along with it. That clip is now available for all fans to watch, and it gives us a slightly better idea of what Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom is up to in the film.When Downey’s return was first announced in 2024, the question on everyone’s lips (other than “Umm... why?”) was “How?” After all, the actor spent a good 10 years playing Tony Stark in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe; to have him back, but in the form of a major villain, was a twist too weird even for the franchise’s Multiverse Saga. Answers have come piecemeal since: Marvel is keen to hold us in suspense until Doomsday hits theaters this December. In the latest teaser, however, Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) gives us a major clue about Doom’s origins in the MCU — and it seems to be reworking the characters from the ground up.“Victor was always the smartest guy in every room,” the Invisible Woman tells us in Doomsday’s special look. “He used to be different. He used to be kind.” Then, Sue says, “everything he loved was taken from him. I knew he was lost, but I did not realize that he was broken.”The Doomsday trailer backs that up with shots of Doom in (presumably) his castle in Latveria. He stands before a tapestry of a woman and child: it’s probably his wife and son. But how did he lose them? When Doom chimes in later in the trailer, he chides the Avengers for living “stolen lives.” We see New York City totally destroyed, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) holding his newborn baby in the past, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) with his adopted daughter, Love (India Rose Hemsworth). “Now, you must give them back,” Doom continues. Doomsday is all about him getting revenge for an off-screen tragedy... but why is he taking it out on the Avengers?How Doomsday changes Doom’s originsDoomsday isn’t giving us a version of Doom that we might recognize. | MarvelDoomsday seems to be changing a lot of Doom’s origin story, and not only because the former face of Tony Stark is now standing in for the villain. In the comics, Victor von Doom was forever changed by the murder of his mother: she was sacrificed during an exchange with the demon Mephisto, and Victor spent years searching for ways to rescue her from Hell. He turned to both science and magic, eventually becoming a brilliant inventor. That said, his attempts to build a machine that could potentially save his mother all backfired spectacularly, one even scarring his face. Doom eventually backburnered his rescue mission and instead turned his focus to world domination. Though most of those plans were thwarted by heroes like the Fantastic Four and even (ironically) Iron Man, Doom does briefly get his wish in Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars. When multiple realities crash into each other — a phenomenon called an “incursion” — destroying most life in the multiverse, Doom reassembled the remaining pieces to create a new reality: Battleworld. We’ll probably see that adapted on-screen in Marvel’s Secret Wars, but Doomsday might take a very different path to get there.Doomsday proves the Steve Rogers theories rightIs Doom still mourning his mother, or is Doomsday making a big change? | Marvel StudiosIt’s possible that the tapestry Doom is staring at in the Doomsday trailer actually depicts himself as a child and his dearly departed mom — but it’s just as likely that this art depicts a different dynamic. A common Doomsday fan theory posits that Doom’s wife and son perished when two universes collided. Doom blames the Avengers for this because their “Time Heist” in Avengers: Endgame likely triggered an incursion. There’s a reason why Steve is back in action after making a home for himself in the past and growing old with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell): his choice could be just the kind of “stolen life” that Doom is alluding to. Steve could very well have created a new universe with all that meddling through time, and that chaos might have put Doom’s own world in peril.That said, it might not be all Steve’s fault. Doomsday’s latest trailer makes a point of establishing a connection with the Fantastic Four, who hail from Earth-828. If Doom lost his family in an incursion, Sue would have known about it: it would have affected their world too, after all. But we get no mention of that in Fantastic Four: First Steps — all we know is that Latveria has retreated from the world stage, likely after Doom lost “everything he loved.” If this fan theory ends up proven correct, it’ll take a lot of finagling to explain how and when a possible incursion would have affected Doom. Either way, though, Marvel is taking major liberties with his new origins, and we probably won’t get a straight answer until the Doomsday clock finally reaches zero.Avengers: Doomsday opens in theaters on December 18.