Finally! The first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday is here giving us our first look at Doct-... wait was that Steve Rogers?!

It's official. Steve Rogers is set to return in Avengers: Doomsday. The last time we saw Cap was in Avengers: Endgame. He was an elderly man, grown wise, reflecting on the life he was able to live after returning back in time to be with his lost love, Peggy Carter. (Yeah, there's a lot of time travel and alternate timelines in that movie if you're struggling to follow along.) He looked content. It felt like his story was told, but now he's back. He's not alone this time either. In the brief visuals the trailer gives us, a much younger Steve is seen riding a motorcycle, putting his old uniform in a chest, and then holding a baby! We can only assume this is his and Peggy's, which is interesting considering this is a big departure from the source material. 

In Avengers: Endgame both Chris Evans' and Robert Downey Jr.'s characters either died or were given an ending that felt closed, now after a few short years and some underperforming movies later, they're BOTH back. Endgame felt like it actually had some stakes and now Doomsday feels underwhelming. Of course we all know that RDJ will be portraying Doctor Doom, so not Tony Stark/Iron man but that role could've gone to any other actor. His casting also implies that Doom, a very significant villain in the Marvel universe, won't be around for too long because Marvel would most likely go bankrupt keeping RDJ on payroll.

When Avengers: Endgame came out in 2018, it felt like Marvel was on top of the world. The movie brought in over two billion dollars, making it the second highest grossing movie of all time. The energy amongst fans was electric. After investing ten years into these characters, the payoff was action packed and emotional. Things have not been that smooth in a post-Endgame world though. Lockdowns in 2020 closed theaters, pushing Marvel's follow up movie, Black Widow, back to 2021 which released in theaters and on streaming at the same time to a fraction of the grossings of its predecessor. With the advent of Disney+ and theaters not recovering to their former potential, there was a massive shift towards television series...and they didn't stop. In just two years, eight series were released, all tied to the MCU. Some were well-received, but to the average MCU fan, it felt like homework. MCU fatigue began to set in. 

The excitement of the MCU leading up to Endgame was the slow build. Each movie gave us a little piece of the larger narrative. There's been no clear narrative post-Endgame leading up to Avengers: Doomsday. Of course we can't talk about Doomsday without mentioning the allegations against Jonathan Majors. His Disney firing definitely played a role in the direction Avengers: Doomsday went in, (it was initially titled Avengers: Kang Dynsasty with Jonathan Majors' Kang being the big bad), but even still there wasn't the same level of buildup that we got to Thanos in Endgame. He made an appearance in one movie. The groundwork was hardly paved. 

Given the above, I get why these two actors were cast again from a business perspective. If the new product you're giving fans isn't resonating like the old one used to, give them some version of the old product again. I'm sure Evans and RDJ will for sure get butts in seats, and maybe do pre-pandemic Marvel numbers at the box office. From a fan perspective, it feels lazy. Both Steve Rogers and Tony Stark had emotional departures, casting both Evans and RDJ in the very next Avengers movie feels like a hail mary to save their bottom line. Adult comic fans are often criticized for being in a state of permanent adolescence, in that they can't grow up or move on. Well, it doesn't necessarily help that these movies can't even move on past their big characters either.