Connection Between Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom and Iron Man Is Bigger Than You Realize

Doom is no man’s second choice. And that’s why the MCU is going back to its first choice.

For years now, fans have speculated about the coming of the greatest villain in fiction, Doctor Victor Von Doom. And at the end of Saturday night’s Marvel panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige finally revealed the actor who will play Doctor Doom… and it turns out to be a familiar face: Robert Downey Jr. will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Doctor Doom! He will furthermore be the big bad of the fifth Avengers movie, which has now been officially retitled Avengers: Doomsday, and which will be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo.

I know what you’re thinking: What? How?!?! The MCU knows Tony Stark as one of its greatest heroes. How can its greatest villain have the same face. Well, there’s actually a few possible explanations…

Into the Doctor Doom-Verse

One possible and obvious answer for the shared casting is that you’ll never see Doom’s face. After all, the incredibly vain Victor Von Doom hides behind a mask and never shows his visage to anyone after an accident left it imperfect (at least in Doom’s estimation). So there’s no real need for us to see RDJ’s face as Doom… yet we doubt that’s the real reason for Downey’s return.

But the more likely answer for what is about to come is that this Doctor Doom comes from an alternate reality. Even if the new official title change of Avengers 5 confirms that Kang the Conqueror is completely done in the MCU, Marvel Studios is still in its Multiverse Saga phase, and Avengers 6 is still Avengers: Secret Wars. Furthermore, previous movies (especially Deadpool & Wolverine) have shown that the same person can have a different face, or that different people can have the same face.

That possibility seems even more likely given Feige’s announcement earlier in the panel. Feige confirmed that the Fantastic Four movie, now officially titled Fantastic Four: First Steps, will take place in an alternate retro-futuristic 1960s. A sizzle reel played at the convention included a peak at Ralph Ineson’s Galactus (in elaborate purple headgear—no cosmic clouds need apply!).

Between the confirmed setting for Fantastic Four: First Steps and the reveal that the FF will be in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, it seems likely that RDJ isn’t playing the only Doom. He may be the Victor Von Doom in Fantastic Four: First Steps, and who like the versions of the characters played by Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, and all the rest, comes over to the mainline MCU with them when their world gets (possibly) destroyed by Galactus.

The Comics Origin of a Doctor Doom and Tony Stark Switcheroo

Shocking as the reveal certainly is, there is some precedent for it in the comics. After the 2015 Secret Wars series, which will more than likely be the basis for the 2027 movie to come, Doom’s face gets healed when Reed remakes the world that Doom created. Between his new face and his titanic failure, this story’s Doctor Doom decides to devote his scientific knowledge to making the world a better place. With Tony Stark missing after Secret Wars, Doom takes on the mantle of Iron Man, at least for a while. This is chronicled in the series Infamous Iron Man (image above) where the briefly reformed Victor goes so far as even aiding suspicious Avengers in a post-Secret Wars world, attempting to make up for his mistakes and duplicate what he sees are his and Iron Man’s shared goals: to protect the world.

Other storylines and worlds, such as Earth-X or the Ultimate Universe, see Tony and Doom working closely together, both of them using their brilliance and machinery for some larger ends and points of what you might call superpowered bipartisanship. There is also a famous What If story, What If? Iron Man Demon in an Armor, where Tony Stark and Victor von Doom are college roommates and through typical comic book shenanigans, Doom is able to get them to essentially switch minds. Stark becomes Doom, going back to Latveria where he assumes the famous villain’s armor, while Doom becomes Stark: an authoritarian Iron Man if there ever was one. That approach would make sense, given a catchphrase shared during the SDCC panel is: “New mask, same task.” This suggests that there’s some similarity between Tony’s mission and Doom’s goals.

What is that mission? For that, we might benefit by looking back to Avengers: Age of Ultron when Tony saw a vision of is friends’ defeat. As a consequence of this nightmare, he dreamed of creating “a suit of armor around the world,” which in turn led to the creation of Ultron. Perhaps if Downey’s next role, be it as a vengeful Stark or a well-meaning Victor, sees his world destroyed by Galactus, he will presumably want to protect the next world he goes to from the same threat. Consider also that Tony’s desires for a safer world, such as agreeing to governmental oversight in Captain America: Civil War, time and again can lead to an overreach. Victor is a man defined by an extended hand that eventually turns into a fist.

From that perspective, the continuity between Iron Man and Doctor Doom makes quite a bit of sense.

Fantastic Four: First Steps rockets into theaters on July 25, 2025.