AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Director Responds to Wild Tony Stark and Doctor Doom Connection Theory

Avengers: Endgame Encorehas arrived in theaters with additional material connecting the 2019 film to Avengers: Doomsday, and one of its additions has fans thinkingRobert Downey Jr.’s Victor Von Doom might have a much stronger connection to Tony Stark than Marvel has revealed.

During an Avengers: Endgame Encore Q&A, Anthony Russo was asked whether there was any “connective tissue” between Stark and Doom. The Doomsday co-director offered an appropriately cryptic response:

“You tell me. Look, it's certainly a pregnant question. But I will say that we are fully committed to Robert Downey as Victor Van Doom, and yes, there is a curiosity around the casting, but you know everything is best left for the theater.”

So, no confirmation, but Russo certainly isn’t shutting the theory down either. The speculation comes from an altered post-credits sequence included with Endgame Encore.

The original Avengers: Endgame credits featured the sound of a hammer striking metal, a callback to Stark building his first Iron Man armor in the cave. The Encore version takes that familiar sound and follows it with images of Doctor Doom forging his mask.

It could simply be Marvel repurposing one of Endgame’s most memorable callbacks to introduce Doom. Fans, naturally, have another idea.

One theory suggests the hammering is meant to connect two moments happening across different universes. While Stark was forging the armor that transformed him into Iron Man, Victor Von Doom could have been forging his own armor and beginning a very different journey.

That opens the door to the bigger theory that Doom could actually be a Tony Stark variant.

It would certainly provide Marvel with an explanation for why Doom happens to have Tony Stark’s face. Of course, that only becomes an issue if Doom actually removes his mask.

Now, I have to point out that the Russos previously said there are "zero similarities" between Doctor Doom and Iron Man. So, who knows what is true and what they are saying just to mess with fans.

Stark sacrificed himself to defeat Thanos at the end of Endgame, making a traditional Tony-versus-Doom encounter unlikely. But the MCU is firmly in its multiverse era, and if Doom is somehow connected to Stark, seeing his face could create a wild moment for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, and the other Marvel heroes who knew Tony.

There’s also every possibility that Downey Jr. is simply playing Victor Von Doom with no secret Stark identity attached. The casting itself guarantees audiences will be waiting for Marvel to address the resemblance, and Russo clearly knows that question is hanging over the movie.

Whatever Marvel has planned, it looks like the answer is staying locked away until Avengers: Doomsday reaches theaters on December 18.