Over the weekend, Marvel Studios reclaimed its crown as king of summer blockbusters with the instant hit release of Deadpool and Wolverine and a massive return to his kingdom at San Diego Comic-Con.
During the studio’s annual Hall H panel, Marvel boss Kevin Feige announced that the Russo brothers are officially returning to the helm. Avengers: Judgment Day (replacing the now discarded Kang Dynasty film) and Avengers: Secret Wars in a duel that left fans stunned. As if that wasn’t enough, Marvel also ended the event by announcing that Victor Von Doom would be the new big bad of this phase and that he would be played by none other than Robert Downey Jr. You know, the guy who, until very recently, was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the sacrificial hero Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Which leaves us with the question on everyone’s mind: How the hell is this going to be achieved?
Let’s dive into some theories, based on some very interesting things we learned from Deadpool and Wolverine regarding “grounded beings” and the “Johnny Storm effect.” Major spoilers ahead, of course.
What are anchor beings?
In Deadpool and WolverineWhen Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is removed from his timeline by Mr. Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen) and the TVA, he is told that his universe is slowly deteriorating due to the loss of his “anchor being.” In this case, it’s the “best” of all the Wolverines, namely Hugh Jackman’s version of Fox’s Wolverine X-Men movies up to Logan. As Deadpool and Wolverine reminds us that the hero is super dead and that the timeline’s decline is a meta-allusion to the end of the Fox X-Men universe since its acquisition by Disney.
In order to save his timeline, Deadpool embarks on a journey through time to find a replacement Logan to simply insert into his universe, hoping that will be enough to stop the decline. In this “Power of Love” multiverse travel montage, we get the sense that these universes tend to have a Logan as their anchor being, and as such, they don’t go down without a fight, except for one: the “worst” Logan.
How it works Deadpool and Wolverine connect to the sacred timeline first?
This is where it gets interesting. This Wolverine variant has already screwed up his timeline by not being there when his X-Men were killed; the implication is that, potentially, it’s only being held together by its existence as punishment for Logan, who lived his super-long days wracked with guilt over his actions, which he desperately tried to drink away. So Wade takes him on as a project, making his “enlightened wish” that if Wolverine helps Deadpool’s timeline, they could go back and fix Wolverine’s as well. This is the plot of Deadpool and Wolverine— a fun and violent adventure — but there’s something in the sauce with these “anchor beings.”
There’s a fun scene early on that shows 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. It’s there that he learns and sees who’s on that list, 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 said, Wade was there for himself – and the Avengers became heroes to help others.
Where does Tony Stark fit into all this?
Okay, so… since Deadpool instinctively seeks out Tony Stark, perhaps we can assume that the “anchor being” of the sacred timeline is, in fact, Tony Stark. After all, why gravitate toward This universe, this Tony, if he could go to a reality where the Avengers exist? It’s only since Tony made his sacrifice End of Game that the fracturing of the multiverse has begun. For now, it is only held together by Loki’s will, while the TVA attempts to save as many timelines as possible, directly implementing Deadpool and WolverineThe arc with the renegade Mr. Paradox.
And like the Deadpool universe, which now has a new “anchor being” in Wolverine in place to hold it together, you can assume there’s a huge hole in the role of “anchor being” for the sacred timeline that’s ripe for the taking – perhaps by the “worst” version of a Tony Stark type.
During Marvel’s big Hall H panel this weekend, it was specifically stated that Robert Downey Jr. would be playing Victor Von Doom, making it unclear whether or not Victor could be a variation of Tony – even if he exists. comics that explore identity theft between the two.
But let us remember LokiThe first season finale of , and Kang’s warning that killing him would only set another, worse Kang free to arrive. This theory, of course, was presented for a villain we probably won’t see again. We’re guessing the spaghetti-ing of Loki Victor Timely, a Kang variant, from Season 2 will have something to do with erasing all Kangs from existence for the time being. Victor Timely also supports the idea that multiple characters can share the same actor’s face, even if they are variants or other people.
To avoid making too many mistakes, because we really don’t know how the inhabitants of the sacred timeline will react to the face of their hero facing an evil invader, let’s go back to Deadpool and WolverineChris Evans’ cameo. When Deadpool recognizes him in the Void, he assumes it’s Captain America, until he, like many viewers, is shaken by the revelation that it’s Johnny Storm from the 2005 film. The Fantastic Four movie.
This Johnny Storm looks exactly like Steve Rogers’ Captain America. And like Peter Parker (a good candidate for the role of Sony’s Marvel Universe “anchor”), he has three variations we’ve seen over the years with different faces; we’re guessing that includes Michael B. Jordan (2015’s Johnny Storm, who also shares a face with Black Panther(Killmonger!) and its latest variant, Joseph Quinn, who we will see in the next Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Thanks to the confusion between Captain America and Deadpool’s Johnny Storm, although we may not know it Why Some variants will share the same face with completely different characters, we know they’ll be recognized. That means when the villain Victor Von Doom arrives in the Sacred Timeline and takes off his mask (something Doom is rarely willing to do in the comics, and something that’s bound to happen in the MCU anyway, because you’re paying for Robert Downey Jr.) revealing a face identical to Tony Stark’s, it’s going to be awfully hard on Tom Holland’s poor Peter Parker.
This feels like a patch that retcons elements of how Kang’s character was meant to be used; due to the nature of the redirection between the box office disappointments that were meant to set up Kang Dynasty and Jonathan Majors’ departure from the MCU, Marvel had to find a solid solution. The return of fan-favorite Downey seems very safe.preparing him to be a Victor Von Doom who is potentially the worse Tony Stark’s form makes sense, especially if a collaboration is in the works between Marvel’s first family and the Avengers. Who else could stop Doom, really?
There are so many elements at play. Sure, Marvel probably wants to pit RDJ against Marvel’s biggest heroes to draw in the crowds. And there are a lot of threads connecting our anchor, Logan, to the Sacred Timeline now: Adamantium has been introduced to the Sacred Timeline, something that will be explored in Captain America: Brave New World. This could give our new Logan some motivation to fight against the Serpent Society, which we saw in The glutton with Viper, but now led by Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder, especially if or when Doom expresses interest in this valuable resource.
And while we are concerned about the benching of new heroes that these phases were planning to invest in, we see the overall vision of where this is going. This reorientation is One way to protect your movies from criticism: bring back a familiar hero to play the villain and take on Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine until he’s 90. Perfectly balanced as all things should be, as Cable (er, Thanos) said.
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