The American Sci-Fi and Fantasy Media Track hosted the “MCU: Doomsday Incoming? But What Does It MEAN?” panel on Saturday at 2:30 PM in their dedicated spot in the Marriott M302-M303. Birma Gainor moderated and the panelists spent the hour speculating on what we can expect to see when Avengers: Doomsday hits the theaters worldwide on December 18, 2026. The topics ranged from which characters were the most likely to die, to who these mysterious followers of Doom’s seen in the trailer might be, to what Loki’s role in this whole thing is supposed to be. That apparently has been a topic of great debate among the fans, which goes to show just how enduring Loki’s popularity is for fans of the MCU. And I used to think I was the only one. Well, I am definitely not alone.
The list of characters who are most likely to die grew as the panel went on. Some were surprising, like Deadpool and Wolverine, since their movie was so popular. Ant-Man and Hawkeye were both mentioned, because when characters are close to retiring and have families, this is a perfect moment for writers to kill them off for maximum impact on the viewers. Though they also speculated that they were also candidates to mentor the future generation of Avengers that the MCU is building towards. They nominated Johnny Storm and The Thing for making heroic sacrifices, since Doctor Doom, the primary antagonist, is specifically the archenemy of the Fantastic Four. The one thing that may help them to survive is that this iteration of the characters has only recently been introduced and it may be too soon to consider killing them off.
Speaking of being killed off by the writers, this led into a discussion of Loki and what role he would play in the movie. It’s been agreed that Doctor Doom is likely to seek out his power as the God of Stories to maintain the multiverse, so that he can steal it and his throne for himself and probably destroy the multiverse instead. They did say that it was unlikely that Loki would be killed off again because he has been killed more on screen than any other character in the MCU and so it would be redundant at this point to do it again.
An interesting theory that was put forth was that some of Doom’s followers may include the likes of Doctor Strange and even the somehow resurrected Wanda/Scarlet Witch. Or they could be variants of these characters. Another possibility is Sylvie, one of Loki’s variants from another, now destroyed, alternate timeline. Doctor Doom may promise to help her free Loki from his role as the multiverse’s caretaker so that he can return to their reality but leave out his true plans. This way she would end up leading them to Loki.
What is pretty clear about the movie is that Avengers: Doomsday is going to mark the end of many of the old characters we have come to know and love, and the existing multiverse as a whole. Then from the ashes will come Avengers: Secret Wars next year, acting as the rebirth of Marvel. It will introduce a new status quo, new characters, and set up the next overarching conflict that will hopefully continue to drive the franchise for years to come. Considering that it is said that the next chapter for Marvel is the Mutant Saga, with the X-Men set to be front and center, this is a very exciting development for me and certainly for many other fans with mutant popularity, in our reality at least, at an all-time high.
