Chris Evans will return as Steve Rogers/Captain America in Avengers: Doomsday – but reportedly, fans almost got to see him onscreen again before that. The rollout to Doomsday has been slow and steady, but there have been some increasingly big foreshadowings of the multiversal calamity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films of the last few years. We’ve heard tell of a final showdown between realities (Captain America: Brave New World) and even seen a glimpse of the figure who will attempt to be the sole ruler of it all (Doctor Doom). However, even with an Avengers: Doomsday teaser showing Steve Rogers entering his fatherhood era, we still don’t know much about how he figures into the film’s dark storyline.
Today, however, there is a scoop that claims one Marvel movie was going to help set up Steve Rogers’ Avengers: Doomsday arc more concretely, but Marvel Studios decided to change it. Take this with a grain of salt, of course, but it does raise some interesting questions about Captain America’s arc in Doomsday…
Fantastic Four: First Steps Allegedly Had A Steve Rogers Post-Credits Scene
The post-credits scene of The Fantastic Four: First Steps got a lot of buzz, as the film’s post-credits scene was the first official appearance of Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. Doom appeared to Reed (Pedro Pascal) and Sue (Vanessa Kirby) Richards’ young son, Franklin, seemingly to harness the boy’s reality-altering superpowers. However, according to Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic podcast, First Steps was originally supposed to have a much more pivotal post-credits scene surprise:
“The Fantastic Four and Doom ask Steve Rogers to come with them to the MCU, Earth-616, to help them gain the heroes’ trust … This was supposedly a post-credits scene in Fantastic Four that got removed. It could still be a scene in the movie.”
There have been a lot of Avengers: Doomsday plot leak rumors floating around in the last few months. One of the more consistent plot points in those leaks is that Steve Rogers using the Infinity Stones to alter time at the end of Avengers: Endgame is a dangling thread that Endgame and Doomsday directors, the Russo Brothers, are going to finally address. The details are unknown, but Steve breaking the timeline seems like it will be tied to the collapse of the multiverse and the “incursions” that see realities collapsing onto one another like falling dominoes. A lot of theories place Doom (and Robert Downey’s casting) as initially presenting himself as a benevolent figure – a Tony Stark variant trying to save his world and the multiverse. The theory is that Doom will fool the MCU heroes into thinking he’s an ally, and the Fox X-Men movie universe (Earth-10005) is their main obstacle to surviving.
“Maybe initially they’re not enemies. Maybe they’re working together because something Steve did caused a problem in their world,” Sneider speculated. “They’re coming over supposedly to help fix it, but then Doom betrays everyone and backstabs them.”
Sneider’s report about the alleged Fantastic Four: First Steps post-credits scene sounds in line with what could be happening towards the end of Avengers: Doomsday‘s first act: Doom having gone from the Fantastic Four’s world (Earth-828) after recruiting them, and seeking out Steve Rogers as a multiversal anomaly, and guilt-tripping him into leading the rescue mission he helped to create. It does make sense: seeing Steve Rogers and someone with Tony Stark’s face return together to save Earth from incursion would be enough to get the MCU heroes to fight the X-Men, and give Doom the time and space (so to speak) to pull off his real plan. It also gets further credit for being true as First Steps conspicuously avoided a post-credits “button scene,” only offering the mid-credits tease of Doom approaching Franklin, and a “joke” post-credits scene, depicting opening credits to the team’s in-universe Saturday morning cartoon. If the post-credits scene was an actual clip from Doomsday at one point, it could’ve easily been pulled and substituted with the animated credits without fans ever knowing.
The reason for pulling it? That’s not hard to imagine, either. The clip Sneider describes would’ve raised so many questions about Doomsday‘s plot; it would’ve been the first full footage of Downey’s Doom, and the first onscreen confirmation that Evans was back as Steve Rogers. That alone is too much franchise marketing capital to spend on a post-credits scene for a movie that wasn’t going to be a guaranteed smash hit. No further proof of that than the way Marvel Studios is now using both Evans and Downey as major marketing rollouts for Avengers: Doomsday. Evan’s teaser trailer kicked off the entire promotional campaign, while Downey’s full look as Doom is being held back for a major marketing moment milestone to come.
Fantastic Four: First Steps is streaming on Disney+. Avengers: Doomsday will be in theaters on December 18th. Discuss all things MCU with us on the ComicBook Forum!