At last, we’ve seen the final teaser for Avengers: Doomsday. Rather than a single peek into the next MCU outing, Marvel’s been conducting a weekly rollout for the multiversal epic, giving us minute-long glimpses of ex-Captain America Steve Rogers, Thor, the X-Men, and the Wakandans and the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm, with each one punctuated by a countdown to the film’s December release date.
In theory, this type of marketing makes sense; with a cast this big, the film needs to highlight its biggest players, particularly those coming back into the fray for the first time in years. Whether you went to see these on the big screen in front of Avatar: Fire & Ash every week or at home, their releases clearly got people talking, and if nothing else, these could be a good table setter for the first real trailer or whatever’s coming to the Super Bowl next month. Unfortunately, it feels like a plan this well-intentioned has slightly backfired: once fans knew Marvel’s game, leaks for each trailer subsequently went up and got viral on social media, diminishing some impact from seeing the official versions. Watching Thor’s vignette on Tuesday morning feels less impactful when you know a rip of the X-Men or whoever else will hit your feed on Friday.
Speaking of, what’s meant to be the takeaway of these teases? That “x character will return” is the unifying point being made, but that was already given to us when Marvel spent nearly a quarter of a day last year using chairs to announce Avengers: Doomsday was in production and hyped up its veteran cast. Chris Evans’ comeback as Steve Rogers was something reported before even filming started. (Not that we needed it confirmed; if he’d come back as Human Torch for two minutes, he’d obviously be Cap again.) However long he’s actually in the film, his being the first big return onscreen is a more direct way of confirming those rumors and others of the OG Avengers getting in one last avenging after the last time they did that.
That Steve was the opening salvo for this four-week experiment also garnered concerns about how much Doomsday will prioritize legacy characters to the detriment of newer heroes that’ve yet to headline a crossover feature like this. In their best moments, Avengers movies let some characters make a better case for themselves than their debut or previous appearances may have allowed. The final product will still determine whether that can be the case, but it does feel unfair that guys like Sam Wilson and Shang-Chi are potentially overwhelmed out of mattering in their own movie by the likes of clear attention-grabbing gambits like Steve and whatever Robert Downey Jr. will do as Doctor Doom.
When you look at early marketing of previous Avengers films, Doomsday’s teasers lack any real surprise or the promise of seeing something completely new. That may just be unavoidable when it’s this specific sub-franchise’s fifth film and we know its direct follow-up will come a full year later. It also speaks to the shifting priorities of the MCU: each of the Avengers movies had something to prove, ranging from “will this megafranchise experiment work?” to “can this expand and conclude its 11-year, multi-movie storytelling arc?” By comparison, Doomsday doesn’t have anything to prove so much as it needs to advocate to the audience to stick with it. With the Avengers name becoming synonymous with saga closers, this has to promise that Avengers: Secret Wars will close out the Multiverse chapter so the next, hopefully better grand epic can take place across the MCU’s third decade.
The MCU’s always been aware of itself and its status in pop culture, and it’s had no problem acknowledging that. As we get closer to Avengers: Doomsday and the clock ticks down to December 18, Marvel’s going to ramp up the marketing until we’re basically sick of it. With each trailer, poster, and commercial, do as the Russos say and “pay attention”—ask yourself what the recurring thread is between them, what it all wants to tell you about the film, and how they each connect to the finished product. The marketing isn’t always the film, but in the case of this one, those promotions will tell us some of the story.
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