ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - The Untold Story of Doctor Doom vs Kang - Avengers Doomsday Explained

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

What if I told you that he who remains in the Council of Kang's were the true heroes of the Multiverse saga and that Loki was the unknowing villain responsible for the creation of Doctor Doom? And this hidden truth all lies in the untold story of what really happened when Kang was banished to the quantum realm and ultimately set on a path to destroy Doctor Doom. Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn, and Avengers Doomsday hype is continuing to grow as we brace for the Battle of the Century with the Avengers, the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four going toe-to-to-toe with R.D.J's Doctor Doom. But it wasn't all that long ago that this multiverse saga was going in a pretty different direction.

What is now Avengers' Doomsday was once Avengers the Kang Dynasty, a film that would feature Jonathan Majors and the Council of Kings in a multiversal war with our heroes, as the mainline MCU, the Sacred Timeline began to collide with their multiverse, following the death of He Who Remains and Loki taking the throne. They're beginning to touch the multiverse. They will take everything we've built. Wait, I'm confused. Okay, yeah, sorry, super quick.

Let me explain all of that and how that storyline is still going to come into play and create Doctor Doom in Avengers Doomsday. And hey, by the way, be sure to check out Screen Crush on all major podcasting platforms and give our merch store a visit, at Screencrushmerge.com. We've got some awesome shirts I can't wait to share with you a little later in the video. So, Universe 616, the mainline MCU, the sacred timeline,

whatever you want to call it. It is one single universe, but within that universe, there are multiple strands of time. Now, when left up to nature, these timelines would branch off and join a vast multiverse of other universes with their own branching timelines, very similar to what we saw here at the end of Quantummania.

But when that universe was in the form of the sacred timeline, under He Who Remains Rule, all of these strands followed a very strict storyline that kept them flowing parallel to one another and not allowing for them to splinter off from their ring-like path. Now, as we learned in What If and in Dr. Strange of the Multiverse of Madness, universes, they have barriers. This barrier of reality has been seen from the Watchers domain, and it is represented here on the screens at the TVA.

When a branching timeline passes that red line, it is breaking through the barrier of its universe and entering, another. You could also refer to this as an incursion. So this is why the TVA always deemed that red line as the point of no return. Crossing that line exposes them to the wider multiverse. Now, he who remains in his strict storyline made it to where his universe was secluded from the rest of the multiverse, stowed away safe from the Council of Kangs who would seek to destroy it. Why would they want to destroy it? Well buddy for a few reasons. One, King the Conqueror, a native to Universe 616, and former member of the

the Council of Kings, he was a thorn in the Council's side. He had his own vision for how the multiverse should work and it included a lot of killing and destroying of entire realities to prevent threats like Dr. Doom from rising to power. He also just did not work well with his other selves. Now the Council of Kings, they didn't like this, so they banished him to the quantum realm of his own universe. As we heard in Loki, he was in the quantum realm that is adjacent to universe 616. One of them caused a little bit of a rocket. on 616 adjacent realm, but they handled it. So anyway, they're in the quantum realm he could never escape, and the Council of Kings

could instead oversee his universe themselves, and likely if they needed to just destroy it when they realized how dangerous it was and how much of a headache it would be to manage without its native king being a team player. So why would they ultimately decide to destroy it? Well, because Universe 616 is where the most dangerous version of Dr. Doom comes from. Now, do you say why now? Yes, I think that Universe 616, before it was taken over by He Who Remains and restructured into the strict storyline that he designed and that we've been watching since Iron Man won, it was originally a universe that gave birth not to a Tony Stark Iron Man who became that universe's greatest hero, but instead it gave rise to Dr. Doom, who would become the multiverse's greatest threat. Now, Dr. Doom and Universe's 616 threat to the wider multiverse is why the Council needed that universe gone.

And without its native Kang there to protect it, the council could have easily pruned it from reality, like clipping a vine from their sprawling canopy that we saw here in Quantummania. Doing so would leave that universe to crumble, wither away and die like we saw in Loki. Now, remember, there is a wider multiverse that's a collection of various universes that intermingle and is ran by the Council of Kangs.

Part of that multiverse are universes like the Foxx-Men universe, the two other Spider-Man universes, and just any other universe out there in existence that isn't part of that sacred timeline. The Council of Kangs worked together to keep these universes flowing in peace and they stomp out any threats that emerge. Very similar to how the Spider Council

and the Spider-Verse films work together to keep the web of life and destiny flowing by allowing for certain canon event tragedies to happen. You have a choice between saving one person and saving an entire world, every world. But 616, Kays, saw the downfalls of this approach, and he foresaw the death of the multiverse. I saw the multiverse, and it was dying.

So I took control. So he proposed taking away free will, destroying the splintering timelines, and creating a strict authoritarian rule across the entire multiverse, essentially what he does with the sacred timeline, but on a multiversal scale. Now, this conflict between the Council of Kings and Kang the Conqueror led to Kang being banished to the quantum realm of his universe and allowing for the Council of Kings to now manage his universe as they saw fit.

But their mismanagement and their silencing of 616 King, who tried to warn of the dangers to come, this is what leads to the emergence of Doom. And with nowhere else to turn, the Council of Kings is now prepared to just annihilate that universe entirely. But before they could do that, the universe vanished. What just happened?

It's gone. It vanished. Like, it was never there. It just disappeared? Yes, blipped away. And here's how. At the end of Quantum Mania, we see Kang get defeated by ants. By the Ant family, and he is sucked into his multiversal engine core.

Now, contrary to popular belief, this didn't kill Kang. No, it freed him from his ouster to the quantum realm. It freed him from the quantum realm. And he entered a place where the laws of physics, quantum mechanics, and time operate very differently. Just like we got a tease at earlier in Quantum Mania, when Ant Man just got close to the engine core didn't even enter it. Every choice you could make existing all it was. But from inside the core, what we saw happen with Ant-Man when he was just close to it,

that was now dialed to like a trillion, and Kang was able to now escape the realm like he had always wanted to. And in this blink of an eye moment, remember when operating outside of time, anything that is done seems instantaneous to those who are operating within time. So Kang, operating from within the multiversal power core and having access to any possibility, possibility that is possible, he was able to separate his universe entirely from the multiverse. From his core, this is where he found Eliath, just like he who remains told us about in Loki Season 1. So he tamed this reality and time-feeding Cloud Monster, and he isolated his universe from

his brother's multiverse. He then built the TVA and from his multiversal engine core, the center of existence, he built his citadel outside of time where he oversees his new creation. And in order to make his universe completely separate from his brother's multiverse and stay hidden outside of reach of them, he would have to manage the flow of time and prevent any further branches. But despite saving his universe from the wrath of his brothers, King the Conqueror, now known as he who remains, he still had his doom problem to tend to. And this meant making some major edits to the flow of time, thus the creation of Tony Stark. I'm doing a video soon explaining in detail the adoption theory of

of how Doom became Tony, but here's the TLDR, in the natural flow of time, untampered with by he who remains. This guy would have been born in Latviria and grown up as Victor von Doom. His brilliance would lead to his discovery of time travel and the wider multiverse, and his lust for control and fear of outside threats

would lead him to taking over this multiverse and becoming the God Emperor Doom that we know all too well from the Secret Wars comics. Now, a Doom this powerful was not only a threat to the Council of Kang's, but he remained a threat to he who remains. So what He Who Remains did was make a small tweak. He caused the Starks, Maria and Howard, to have a miscarriage,

and that laid the path for them to then adopt a newborn from a foreign country known as Latvira, thus removing Victor von Doom from his path and setting him on a new one. Now known as Tony Stark, he'd have a very similar life to the one that was destined for Doom. He too would be plagued with great knowledge and a craving for control to protect his world, And he'd still end up creating a metal armor and mass that he felt most comfortable hiding behind.

And he would still discover... Time travel. Time travel. But he'd never reach the God Emperor tyrant status that we saw Tony flirt with so many times. And I think one of the main reasons that Tony never quite reached at was really because he was neutered. And what I mean by that is he was dropped into a family of scientists who dismissed things like the mystic arts and instead embraced science and science alone, thus preventing him from ever becoming the master sorcerer we know him to be,

and we know that Doom's knowledge of the mystic arts is going to be a big key to him taking over the multiverse and Doomstain's Secret Wars. Now, this small change in the life trajectory of Victor, now Tony, kept the multiverse's greatest threat from ever rising to power, and instead he has now just become a pawn if he remains empire, a necessary pawn because, after all, it was Doom, and now Tony who discovered time travel in the first place. So how does this all tie into Doomsday and Secret Wars?

Well, he who remains, we know, is dead. He's gone gone. Where do you go? And in Quantumania, when the council has this discussion in that post-credit scene. The exiled one is dead. You sure he's dead? If it wasn't true, I wouldn't call you. They're talking about he who remains and his death at the hands of Sylvie.

and the instantaneous outside of time occurrence of Loki then taking the throne and allowing for Universe 616 to rejoin the Multiverse. They're beginning to touch the multiverse. Essentially, Universe 616 blipped back into existence for the Council, and it is coming in hot. And the Council are scared of this universe coming back into play, because without He Who Remains strict storyline, this timeline where Doom wasn't adopted can now exist.

and the God Emperor is now on his way. And with the Kang's guard down, it may be too late to stop him. In fact, I think we could see in the opening minutes of Doom's Day, Doom destroying the entire council. Oh, and hey, by the way, be sure to check out our awesome Marvel-inspired parody shirts up on the merch store right now. We've also got some great peacemaker-inspired designs, such as this one that speaks truth to the seriousness of bird blindness. Shopping our merch store is the best way to support the channel. Thank you so much for your support. So where is the previous storyline for Avengers 5 when it was the Kang Dynasty was about

Universe 616 rejoining the multiverse and going to war with the Kings who were trying to annihilate them and then likely seeing Kang the Conquer re-emerge from the Beyond, his power core as the Beyonder version of Kang, and I'm not just making that up, that is what is reported to have been the plot of the movie. We also would have likely seen him then work with the Avengers to defeat the Council and thus winning the Multiversal War. And I ended, I ended the Multiverse And I'm sure we would have seen Loki be very weary of working with him because he's fought him before. Time for you to leave, asshole.

Look, I fought him before. But now this movie, I think, is still largely going to be about universes colliding as a result of Loki's actions, but the new thread is going to be Doom, who is seeking to bring order to the multiverse, a role that he would have likely had in Avengers Secret Wars and he would have squared off with Kang, aka He Who Remains, but following the incident with majors and quantumania underperforming and Marvel's big pivot, Doom is now coming into play much sooner. But I think we are still going to see big elements from Kang Dynasty happen in Doomsday, such as a split between the Avengers who ultimately sided with Loki and the ones who side

with Doom, who is now taking the place of Kang. But hey, those are just my thoughts and theories. I would love to hear yours down in the comments below. And if you have any questions about Doomsday that you think would make for a great video, feel free to drop those down in the comments as well. If you're new here, be sure to subscribe, hit the bell so you get notified every time we upload a new video for Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn.