Directors Joe and Anthony Russo have called the re-release “required viewing” ahead of “Avengers: Doomsday.”

What the Avengers Endgame: Encore bonus scenes tell us about Doomsday

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo have called the re-release “required viewing” ahead of “Avengers: Doomsday.”

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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September 25, 2026 2:27 p.m. ET

What ‘Avengers Endgame: Encore’ told us about ‘Avengers: Doomsday’. Credit:

*Avengers Endgame: Encore* screenings revealed new footage that connects to *Avengers: Doomsday*.

Multiple scenes signal the return of another Marvel alum and the collapse of the multiverse.

The Russos previously called the *Endgame* re-release screenings “required viewing.”

**This article contains spoilers from the *Avengers Endgame: Encore* screenings.**

Joe Russo, the co-director of the past few *Avengers* movies with his brother, Anthony, called this weekend’s *Avengers Endgame: Encore* “required viewing” ahead of *Avengers: Doomsday*. The re-release screenings of Marvel’s 2019 blockbuster features additional footage and post-credits scenes that, Russo said, connect the two movies together.

“There’s a natural progression from *Endgame* into *Doomsday*, which is also inclusive of all the other stories that have been playing out,” the filmmaker said in a late August interview with Fandango. “But I think it’s important to see *Endgame* again in theaters for two reasons: One, you’re going to have a lot of fun…and two, I think it’s required viewing for following the story in *Doomsday*.”

*Avengers: Doomsday*, hitting theaters this Dec. 18, brings Robert Downey Jr. back into the Marvel fold to play Victor Von Doom, a.k.a. Doctor Doom, one of the most well-known mega villains from the comics. In the context of the MCU, he hails from the alternate reality of the Fantastic Four. Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm recalls (in the trailers) how Victor “used to be kind” and “caring,” “and then everything he loved was taken from him.”

He now targets heroes from multiple different realities across the multiverse, including the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. The main hint behind his motivations is this declaration: “All of you have lived stolen lives. And now you must give them back.”

Here’s everything we learned about *Avengers: Doomsday* from the bonus scenes in *Avengers Endgame: Encore*.

There’s more to that Steve and Peggy reunion

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’.

Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

Part of the end of *Endgame* involves Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) using the Quantum Realm to achieve the life he always wanted. He returns the Infinity Stones to their proper places in time before giving Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) the dance he always promised her. We see a glimpse of that intimate moment in their house together, but one of the *Encore* bonus scenes lingers on this moment to see what happened after.

The couple hears a knock on their door, and it’s Loki (Tom Hiddleston), wearing his Time Variance Authority (TVA) attire. Peggy asks if she can help him, but Loki in turn says he can help them.

The last time we saw *Loki* was in the season 2 finale of his self-titled Disney+ TV series. He was literally holding the entire Marvel multiverse together to prevent it from collapsing. For him to no longer be seated on his self-made throne as guardian of all these realities, something must’ve gone wrong.

In a ticketed Q&A screening event on Thursday night, Anthony Russo spoke about this moment. “In that moment, that’s where *Doomsday* is born,” he said.

Atwell’s Peggy will also return for *Avengers: Doomsday* alongside Hiddleston’s Loki, as confirmed during Marvel’s Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con this past July. Based on the footage released so far, it appears Doom’s plotting could have something to do with the children of the Avengers, including an infant we see Steve cradling in his arms.

Bruce Banner returns

Hulk in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’.

Another bonus scene already has many presuming that Mark Ruffalo will return as Bruce Banner/Hulk in *Avengers: Doomsday*. (Marvel declined to comment when reached by **.) At the very least, we know it connects to the events of this past summer’s *Spider-Man: Brand New Day,* and it includes Doom. It makes sense to connect those dots.

After the chaos that came from Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey puppeteering the mind of Banner to transform him into the Hulk, he was carted off on a stretcher. The *Endgame Encore* scene revisits the character, who locks himself in a secured facility deep beneath the earth where he’s convinced that Hulk can never escape.

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Banner attempts further experiments to suppress his gamma radiation, but he receives an unexpected guest. Off camera, Downey’s Doom teleports into his holding cell. The villain announces, “I’m here to collect you.” And then they both vanish, leaving Doom’s glowing-green runic mark on the floor.

With *Avengers: Doomsday* and its follow-up, *Avengers: Secret Wars* (opening Dec. 17, 2027), the Russos drew inspiration from both Secret Wars storylines in Marvel Comics. The earlier iteration, from writer Jim Shooter and artists Mike Zeck and Bob Layton, focused on a cosmic entity called the Beyonder, who snatches up heroes and villains from across the universe to fight each other *Hunger Games*-style on a planet he created, Battleworld. Doom’s line about collecting Banner feels reminiscent of that arc.

The other *Secret Wars* hails from writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribić. That story saw the main Earth, Earth-616, on a collision course with multiple other dimensions, thanks to a plot from Doom. Given the next big bonus scene from *Endgame Encore* (see below), the inspiration is clear.

The destruction of the multiverse

Tom Hiddleston’s Loki in the ‘Loki’ season 2 finale.

Courtesy of Marvel Studios

Another bonus scene, set inside the TVA headquarters, tells a lot about where *Avengers: Doomsday* will go.

Owen Wilson’s Mobius, Eugene Cordero’s Casey, and Ke Huy Quan’s O.B. from *Loki* are back in the TVA office pit, along with James Dryden’s Ralph from *Deadpool & Wolverine*. They are all forced to watch their monitors as the multiverse actively collapses.

First, Casey mentions that Earth-10005, which is the reality containing 20th Century Fox’s past X-Men movies, is about to collide with an unknown reality called Earth-1127. Before it happens, both universes launch missiles in an attempt to destroy the other before the incursion destroys them all.

Other TVA agents report this is happening to a number of Earths as a screen in the background shows the strands denoting the various realities rapidly vanishing. It’s hard to make out, but based on the visual, it appears only three Earths now remain. We can surmise those three realities to be the main MCU Earth containing the Avengers, the Earth containing the Pedro Pascal-era Fantastic Four, and the Earth containing the X-Men.

One could say Marvel found a narrative way to clean house. The Multiverse Saga, the storyline that began after *Avengers: Endgame*, didn’t prove to be as popular with audiences as the Thanos-driven Infinity Saga. And now the studio is no longer flooding the zone with numerous movies and TV shows in a calendar year.

At the same time, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige signaled that a reset would follow *Avengers: Secret Wars* to pave the way for a new era of the X-Men in the MCU. (Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, Kit Connor’s Cyclops, Inde Navarrette’s Rogue, Maya Boyd’s Storm, Asa Germann’s Angel, Christopher Abbott’s Professor Xavier, Samara Weaving’s Emma Frost, and Adam Driver’s Mr. Sinister will lead the first new X-movie.) The consolidation of the multiverse seems like part of how they’ll introduce these characters.

Revamping an Endgame moment

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man in ‘Avengers: Endgame.’. ©Marvel Studios 2019

At the very end of the original *Avengers: Endgame* release, as the screen rolls the final few credits and logos, the sound of Tony Stark hammering his mask into creation can be heard. It’s a quiet tribute to Downey’s time in the role and how the character shaped the MCU as we came to know it.

At the end of *Avengers Endgame: Encore*, this moment gets new meaning.

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The hammering is still present, but now the sound is layered on top of quick flashes of scenes of Downey’s Stark making his mask in the first *Iron Man* before we switch to Downey’s Doom making a new mask for *Avengers: Doomsday*. It’s far less emotionally resonant, but it at least further reinforces a long-held theory that this Doom is a variant of Stark from the reality of the Fantastic Four.

In a previous conversation with EW, Feige said of recasting Downey in the MCU, “At the time, he was on his way to winning the Academy Award for *Oppenheimer,* and there was every story about ‘the greatest actor in the world,’ and we thought, ‘This could be it. Let’s do it.’ It’s our universe. It’s a multiverse. We can do whatever the heck we want. He played the most iconic hero. Let’s have him play the most iconic villain.”

Explaining the similarities between Stark and Doom, Downey said, “There’s the science thing, and they’re considered pretty brilliant guys. But Tony had the trauma that turned him into a hero, and Doom’s got the exact opposite, to where it takes the prowess of all of these folks to go up against him, and it was a joy to behold.”

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