Is Disney+ Giving Away Avengers: Doomsday Secrets?

Avengers: Doomsday is all but guaranteed to be the biggest movie of the year when it arrives in December. The fact that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the highest-grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, and that Avengers: Endgame Encore was the highest-grossing movie at the box office last weekend, is all the evidence you need that despite arguments from some corners of "superhero fatigue," there are lots of people still following the Marvel Cinematic Universe. People are excited to see what Avengers: Doomsday will do for the broader MCU, as there are still a lot of questions about what might happen. But I wonder if Disney+ might have answered some of them.

I should preface the rest of this discussion with a spoiler warning. On the off chance that my suggestions here are in any way accurate, I will end up giving the game away. That said, I won't be suggesting anything that you haven't already heard if you've been paying attention to Avengers: Doomsday rumors.

I opened up Disney+ today, not even sure why, but my attention was grabbed by something I hadn't noticed before: the Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday Collection. It's a list of 14 movies and one series that are implied to be key to Avengers: Doomsday. If you think watching Marvel movies is becoming homework, this is the homework. Most of them make sense, but a couple have me curious.

The first two films aren't even MCU movies, but the first two films in Fox's X-Men franchise. This obviously makes sense, as we know several characters from those films will be appearing in Doomsday. In fact, several of the movies on the list seem to be there simply as a way to make sure you're introduced to particular characters. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are on this list. If you missed them, you wouldn't know Shang-Chi at all, nor would you know that Shuri is the current Black Panther. We've seen both of them in the Avengers: Doomsday trailers.

Other films make sense for the list as they set up where the story of Doomsday will pick up. The original Avengers is there, alongside Infinity War and Endgame, just to give you the CliffsNotes version of the Infinity Saga. Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* introduce the fact that there are two different superhero teams who see themselves as the heir to The Avengers.

After that is where things get interesting. Loki is in the list, and the show will explain to viewers where the character is at the start of Doomsday, but it is also part of the MCU that deals specifically with the concept of the Multiverse. This is also likely why Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is included, but then, so is... Spider-Man: No Way Home?

Why is No Way Home on the list? It could be for the very simple and boring reason that it's a movie that deals with the Multiverse. But if that's the reason, you can cut either No Way Home or Multiverse of Madness off your rewatch list, as I think either movie gives you basically the same information. There is another reason that it could be there, and that is the fact that it's been consistently rumored that while Tom Holland isn't in Doomsday, Spider-Man is, specifically the Tobey Maguire and/or Andrew Garfield versions we saw in No Way Home.

This could also be why another movie is on the list. Deadpool & Wolverine is there, and while it might simply be there because that's where we're introduced to Channing Tatum's Gambit, who we know is in the film, another appearance by Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, specifically the version of the character he played in that movie, has also been regularly rumored to happen.

Is it possible, even likely, that I'm reading more into this than is really there? Of course it is. There are perfectly rational reasons why these movies might be included that aren't secret teases. Studios like Marvel don't actually plant secret hints to their audience nearly as often as people want to believe. Except sometimes they do exactly that. We do know that the complete Avengers: Doomsday cast is bigger than has been officially announced. There are characters set to appear who have not been revealed through official channels, so why not this?