A wild Doctor Doom theory was posed four years ago that the MCU is about to vindicate with the release of Avengers: Doomsday.

Over one decade after Doctor Doom’s most recent live-action appearance, the MCU is finally going to debut what may be the most comic-accurate version of the character to date in the story of Avengers: Doomsday, if not earlier in 2025’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps. As one of Marvel’s most beloved villains, the pressure is on for upcoming MCU releases to do right by Doom – but that pressure could have been felt as early as 2022.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is one of the first Multiverse Saga movies in the MCU timeline to directly deal with the eponymous multiverse, as Strange finds himself visiting 22 universes in his attempts to escape the Scarlet Witch and protect America Chavez. This brought him to Earth-838, where he encountered the Illuminati and, more pertinently, Doctor Doom’s arch-rival, Reed Richards. This is the closest the MCU has gotten to debuting Doom, but storyboards for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness teased that it might have gotten much closer still.