Doomsday Is Exciting & Worrying

Chris Evans has long been rumored to be returning as Steve Rogers for Avengers: Doomsday. Trade reports from before production began stated that Evans would be back as Captain America, alongside Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter, potentially allowing the film to build on their happy ending from Avengers: Endgame. Evans has denied returning in Doomsday, but the general belief is that he’s been trying to preserve a Marvel Studios secret.

If Steve is in Doomsday as believed, the matter of his role becomes more intriguing. Would it be just a cameo, one to bring back an original Avenger to inject some extra nostalgia into the movie? Or, would the Russo brothers be bringing back the character they’re most familiar with in a larger, more important capacity? According to a new rumor from DanielRPK, Evans’ Captain America will be “the lead character” in the upcoming release.

Whether that proves to be true or not remains to be seen, but the possibility of Steve occupying a role of such significance in Avengers: Doomsday brings about mixed emotions.

Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers Playing A Major Role In Avengers: Doomsday Is Exciting

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America looking up in The Avengers

As one of the original Avengers, Evans’ Steve Rogers is one of the MCU’s biggest and most beloved characters. He’s always been my favorite character (#TeamCap forever), but the affection for his hero goes well beyond me. The chance to see him back in the MCU in a major capacity is exciting.

Endgame gave his Captain America a perfect ending, allowing him to get the life he always wanted with Peggy but never got. Yet, the Phase 3 MCU movie also teased so many other adventures worthy of exploring, such as returning the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir or remaining the hero he is at heart in the new reality with Peggy. We can now see one of them.

If Evans was going to return in Doomsday, it never made sense for it to be in a small role. He’s too important to the MCU overall to keep in the background. A small cameo or a few brief scenes would feel unsatisfactory. Not only to fans, but even to Evans.

In the years post-Endgame, Evans has been very consistent on his stance about a potential MCU return. For instance, back in 2022, Evans detailed the difficulties in coming back as Captain America:

I don’t want to disappoint anybody but it’s tough to… It was such a good run and I’m so happy with it. It’s so precious to me. It would have to be perfect. It just would be scary to rattle something that is, again, so, so dear to me. That role means so much to me. So, to revisit it, it would be a tall order.

From that stance, Evans basically ruled out coming back for a cheap cameo. If he was going to come back, he’d want it to have meaning. In his words, it “would have to be perfect.” While a pessimistic view of Evans’ rumored MCU return does exist (pointing to his struggles with critics and at the box office after Endgame, coupled with him already doing a Johnny Storm cameo for Deadpool & Wolverine), taking the actor at his word is still best.

Playing the lead character in Doomsday would likely fulfill Evans’ wishes. It’d ensure a meaningful development for Earth-616’s Steve Rogers alongside many of his MCU familiar pals: the Russo brothers, Robert Downey Jr. (playing Doctor Doom, not Iron Man), and Chris Hemsworth. That is where the problems start to arise.

Steve Rogers’ Lead Role In Doomsday Continues Marvel’s Overreliance On The OG Avengers & Nostalgia

Black Widow, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man, and Hulk in the Battle of New York in The Avengers

As exciting as it is to have Evans’ Steve Rogers back and playing a major role, it adds to the existing feeling of Marvel Studios leaning too much on the past for Doomsday.

It’s got three of the original six Avengers cast members back, and they’re all positioned for major roles. RDJ’s Doom will be the main villain, and Hemsworth was previously said to be “the second lead” of the movie in a report about Thor’s role. That would mean Evans and Hemsworth are the two heroic leads, with RDJ being the villain lead, and possibly the lead of the whole film.

Marvel Studios and the Russo brothers are leaning on what they and audiences know best. This even includes bringing back many members of the Fox X-Men cast. Even if they didn’t originate in the MCU, the familiarity people have with them thanks to various past movie appearances adds another layer of nostalgia.

Taking the movie down this route is disappointing on some levels, as it reflects the mixed results Marvel has had in establishing new heroes after Endgame. Phases 4 and 5 did introduce some fan-favorite characters, like Shang-Chi and Yelena Belova, who will be in Doomsday, but the majority of the cast relies on more established heroes.

Endgame was sold as the culmination of the first 11 years of the MCU, especially when it came to Thanos’ storyline and the participation of multiple original Avengers. The first Avengers movie after that should have been an event that unifies newer characters. Doomsday will do that to some degree, but if Steve and Thor are the leads, other heroes will fall more into the background.

Doomsday is leaning hard on the MCU’s most popular era and characters rather than pushing the franchise beyond those elements. Avengers: Secret Wars is only going to do that to an even greater degree. Marvel certainly thinks this could help them reset the MCU for Phase 7 and beyond, but they’re just reaffirming the belief that audiences care most about the original Avengers and not any newer characters.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still excited to see my favorite MCU hero back in action and receive a major role. But if Marvel Studios isn’t careful, Avengers: Doomsday could make moving on from these iconic characters even harder. Deadpool’s joke about Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine until he’s 90 may wind up applying to the original Avengers cast, too.