Everything Avengers: Doomsday Expects You To Know From Marvel TV Shows

Marvel was riding one of the biggest highs in cinematic history after "Avengers: Endgame," which blew everyone away at the box office. Fans hardcore and casual alike stayed up-to-date with every new film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so "Endgame" felt like a giant reward. However, a lot can change in seven years. While there's little doubt "Avengers: Doomsday" will be a huge hit, the air surrounding it feels notably different compared to "Endgame." 

With "Endgame," fans just had to watch two or three movies a year. That's easy enough to keep up with, but post-"Endgame," Marvel began branching into television with a slew of Disney+ original series set within the MCU. These shows played into the films, often starring characters introduced on the movie side of things. 

You might be excited for "Doomsday" but worried about missing some important context. While we have no idea what specifics will factor into the next "Avengers" films, we can make some educated guesses. This is your Marvel TV show highlight reel, so you don't go into "Doomsday" too confused. There are other Marvel shows not mentioned here, like "Secret Invasion" and "Wonder Man," but based on what we suspect "Avengers: Doomsday" will be about, we're covering shows that feel like they have the greatest likelihood of affecting the plot. 

"WandaVision" is mostly a riff on classic TV, as Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), the latter of whom died in "Avengers: Infinity War," find themselves within a changing world of genres, mostly sitcoms. The show may have referenced "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Malcolm in the Middle," but it was clear something sinister was lurking beneath the surface. It turns out Wanda created her ideal, fictional world within Westview, basically forcing a town of people to act out simple and comforting TV plots. This also explains how Vision is brought back to life, but he, and the couple's improbable children, fade away once the spell is broken.

Wanda functions as the main antagonist of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," scouring the multiverse to find her children with the aid of the Darkhold, a powerful spellbook that can lead to chaos across universes. Wanda dies at the end of "Multiverse of Madness," but it's possible the Darkhold, or similar magic, could influence "Avengers: Doomsday." Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) specializes in both science and magic, so it's possible he could use some form of dark power to access other realities.

Olsen has been coy as to whether Wanda could come back in "Doomsday," telling The Playlist, "I love the journey she's taken. I think it's always a fun one to get to go back into, and I just have no idea how or when, for sure." Given Wanda's connection to the multiverse, she seems like a natural fit for "Doomsday." Or perhaps a variant of Wanda will show up, and there's a good chance she'd have a similar background to the Wanda we see in "WandaVision."

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) hands Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) his shield at the end of "Avengers: Endgame." "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" miniseries sees Sam coming into his own as the new Captain America and wondering if he deserves the responsibility. It's an arc that continues into "Captain America: Brave New World." Mostly what you need to know is that Sam will be the leader of the Avengers going into "Avengers: Doomsday." 

"The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" also introduces two key characters. First, there's Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez). He's Sam's right-hand man in the series, next to Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and he becomes the new Falcon in "Brave New World." He'll also be part of Sam's Avengers team. Then you have John Walker (Wyatt Russell), who becomes a government-sponsored Captain America on "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" before publicly killing a man in cold blood and stepping down in disgrace. He returns in "Thunderbolts*," and in that film, he joins the New Avengers line-up. 

The post-credits scene of "Thunderbolts*" reveals that the two Avengers teams don't get along, and that Sam's iteration is suing the New Avengers. It's a fun tease that should have a decent payoff in "Doomsday," but if Sam and Joaquin act cold toward John, now you know why. 

Season 1 of "Loki" is a little odd upon revisit. It's a crucial stepping stone in the MCU's Multiverse Saga, as we check in with a version of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who escapes the events of 2012's "The Avengers," as seen in "Avengers: Endgame." He's taken into custody by the Time Variance Authority, who seek to maintain the multiverse by pruning branches of possibility across the Sacred Timeline. They monitor the very concept of reality, and they use this version of Loki to track down one of his multiversal counterparts, Sylvie Laufeydottir (Sophia Di Martino), who, technically, is both a Loki and Enchantress variant.

Variants are counterparts to characters we know from the mainline MCU. For example, since Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom despite previously playing Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, many fans believe Doom will be a Stark variant, meaning he'll be a version of Stark who became a villain rather than a hero. Meanwhile, the Sacred Timeline exists as a collection of universes bound together by He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) to prevent a multiversal war among Kangs. The TVA prunes deviations to the timeline that could lead to an evil variant of He Who Remains, thus protecting these baseline realities. 

He Who Remains is also a variant of Kang the Conqueror, who was originally going to be the main villain of the next "Avengers" movie, subtitled "The Kang Dynasty." However, after Majors was found guilty of assault, Marvel dropped him and pivoted toward Doctor Doom. The Kang plot points on "Loki" Season 1 may not mean much now, but you'll still want to know about the Sacred Timeline and where this Loki stands. Chances are the timeline will be in utter chaos once Doom is in the mix. 

"What If ...?" is an animated anthology series that ran for three seasons. For the most part, every episode stands on its own, presenting a unique story from somewhere in the multiverse, like one where Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) receives the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. There are all kinds of odd variants of pre-established heroes out there, and each season ends with some kind of multiversal threat that requires characters to band together. 

For the most part, "What If ...?" probably won't be important to "Avengers: Doomsday." It's meant to offer fun side adventures that don't have much bearing on the larger MCU. However, the aforementioned Captain Carter did appear in live-action in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," so there is precedent for some of these stories to move into the feature-length films.

"Avengers: Doomsday" already has a stacked cast, with two Avengers teams, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men in the mix. Will there be time to throw in Captain Carter, new character Kahhori (Devery Jacobs), and Uatu the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) in there, too? That remains to be seen. 

If nothing else, these characters feel like they could more easily be slotted into "Avengers: Secret Wars," when a bunch of heroes and villains duke it out on Battleworld, assuming the film follows the comics. More than anything, "What If ...?" shows how anything is possible with the multiverse, so expect the unexpected when going into "Doomsday." 

We know a bunch of teams will enter the fray in "Avengers: Doomsday," but that may only be the beginning. There's another super-team fans have been waiting for: the Young Avengers. And they've largely been set up on the Disney+ shows. For example, "Hawkeye" brings back the titular Avenger, played by Jeremy Renner, who mentors fellow archer prodigy Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) while dealing with his past. As a more grounded show, don't expect too much of "Hawkeye" to play into "Doomsday." It would be nice to see Kate again, though.

Then there's "Ms. Marvel," which introduces Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani). She acquires magical bangles that allow her to create hard light constructs. She came back in "The Marvels," and that movie actually ends with Kamala meeting up with Kate to talk to her about building a team. Marvel probably should've pulled the trigger on a Young Avengers movie (or at least a miniseries) a while ago, but "Doomsday" may become their formal introduction. 

It's also possible the bangles themselves will be important to "Doomsday." Some fans speculate the bangles could be connected to Shang-Chi's (Simu Liu) artifacts featured in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings." Both are powerful tools and could hold multiversal properties. Then again, both items were introduced when Kang the Conqueror was still the driving force of the Multiverse Saga, so it's possible they won't be connected to Doctor Doom. 

One major problem with the onslaught of Marvel Disney+ shows is how many interesting characters are introduced that never show up again. Case in point: She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) was introduced in her own show that aired in 2022. With "Avengers: Doomsday" coming out on December 18, She-Hulk still hasn't materialized again, so if she was going to appear in something, "Doomsday" would make the most sense.

"She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" isn't concerned with the multiverse, though. It's a legal comedy where Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, fights for her clients by day and battles villains by night. She, too, can become a Hulk after a blood exposure in a car accident with her cousin, Bruce (Mark Ruffalo). Jennifer reluctantly engages in superheroics, although she would prefer to stick with her legal career.

While the Hulk himself hasn't been confirmed for "Avengers: Doomsday," he will appear in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day." Depending on what happens in that film, it could set the stage for Hulk to make a surprise appearance in "Doomsday," and he might bring his cousin along with him. She could have gotten a taste for being a superhero, and she'd be a good fit for Sam Wilson's Avengers team. 

"Loki" spends much of its second season course-correcting. It came out in the midst of Jonathan Majors' legal troubles, and it's clear Marvel wanted a way out of its Kang conundrum. "Loki" Season 2 ends with some quick dialogue about how the TVA is hunting down Kang variants. But something else important happens ...

"Loki" Season 2 sees the destruction of the Temporal Loom, which refines raw, chaotic time into a single stable timeline, and as a result, realities within the Sacred Timeline fall apart. There's no fixing the Loom, so Loki assumes its position in the grand scheme of the multiverse. Loki then becomes the God of Stories, personally holding together the very fabric of reality. Instead of focusing on pruning branches, the TVA then focuses on removing Kang variants, and Loki curates a more varied multiverse than what He Who Remains permitted. 

Tom Hiddleston is confirmed to return in "Avengers: Doomsday." While it's possible we'll see some other variant of Loki, there's a good chance he'll still be the God of Stories. In fact, one fan theory posits that Doctor Doom wants to kill Loki in this form, unleashing multiversal havoc. Doom may want to reshape the multiverse how he sees fit, and he could be amassing allies to help him kill the newly powerful entity. 

"Agatha All Along" checks in with Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), who wanted to harness Wanda's powers for herself in "WandaVision." Here, she goes on a quest with some fellow witches, as well as a young man who turns out to be Billy Maximoff (Joe Locke). Billy is one of Wanda's sons, and his soul entered a boy about to die after Wanda's hex on Westview wears off. They traverse the Witches' Road together, but Agatha dies at the end by the hands of her former lover, Death herself (Aubrey Plaza). 

"Agatha All Along" also helps to set up "VisionQuest," which will bring back the alternate version of Vision seen at the end of "WandaVision," and it's set to bring in Wanda's other son, Tommy, who also wound up in a boy about to die. It's a long shot, but on comic canon principles, Billy and Tommy Maximoff would be good to have in a Young Avengers live-action team. If that happens. 

Meanwhile, Agatha is still around. She returns as a ghost to guide Billy, so, if he returns, Agatha will be right there with him. Additionally, we'd love to see Death again. In fact, one of the "Avengers: Doomsday" trailers sees Magneto (Ian McKellan) say, "Death comes for us all." That same line is spoken in "Agatha All Along" to another witch, Lilia (Patti LuPone), before her death. "Avengers: Doomsday" has the potential to offer a massive body count with universes on the line, so perhaps Death will come back to oversee the destruction Doctor Doom brings — since she didn't bother to with her ultimate fanboy, Thanos (Josh Brolin).

"X-Men '97" is very much its own thing. That doesn't mean you should ignore it, as the animated series does a phenomenal job of picking up storylines from the original '90s "X-Men: The Animated Series." It's set in a different continuity from the MCU, so while it may seem like it wouldn't be required viewing before "Avengers: Doomsday," you may want to think twice before overlooking it. 

When "X-Men '97" first came out, executive producer Brad Winderbaum told Variety that, with the multiverse in play, any stories involving this set of X-Men is open for inclusion: "Even though 'X-Men '97' is not in the Sacred Timeline, there is a universe of '90s cartoons that we know. Because of 'Loki' and every other multiverse story, we know that if your brain wants to go there, you know there's always potential for connections."

The X-Men will appear in "Avengers: Doomsday," but the actors we know about hail from the early live-action films, like Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier and James Marsden as Cyclops. Even if "X-Men '97" isn't integral to "Doomsday," it may not hurt to familiarize yourself with its rich selection of mutant lore. You may also want to go back and rewatch the "X-Men" movies from the 2000s to catch up, too.

Finally, there's "Ironheart." Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) basically wants to be the next Iron Man, but she starts working with a nefarious gang led by Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) to get the money to build her suits of armor. While Riri uses technology, Parker has a magical hood that allows him to utilize devilish magic, and that intersection of science and magic makes for an intriguing parallel to who Doctor Doom is as a character.

Riri winds up defeating Parker by infusing her Ironheart suit with magic, earning her the attention of the character who gave Parker his hood in the first place — Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen), who enjoys making deals with ironic consequences. Mephisto strips Parker of his magical hood, and Parker turns to Zelma Stanton (Regan Aliyah) to regain his access to magic. 

There are many ways "Ironheart" sets up the MCU's future. A second season appears increasingly unlikely, but there's now precedent in the MCU for someone like Doctor Doom to blend magic and science together. Ironheart could appear in "Doomsday" if, like other characters mentioned here, the Young Avengers play into the story. Otherwise, it's a good watch to see how Doom's powers could operate in "Avengers: Doomsday."