Why Does Doom Want Franklin Richards? The Avengers: Doomsday Question, Explained

Every few months the Marvel fandom collectively fixates on one question. Right now, that question is: why does Doom want Franklin Richards? It started with a post-credits scene, exploded again with the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, and it’s genuinely one of the most-searched Marvel questions on the internet this month. Here’s the full answer — what the movies have shown, what the comics say, and what the theories claim Doom is really planning.

The scene that started it all

Cast your mind back to the end of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The whole film was built on one terrifying transaction: Galactus — a being who eats planets — offered to spare Earth in exchange for one baby. He sensed something in Franklin that made a planet look like loose change. And in the final act, we saw a hint of why: newborn Franklin casually brought his mother back from death.

Then the post-credits scene: Sue steps out, comes back, and finds a green-cloaked, metal-masked figure kneeling beside her son. Doom didn’t attack anyone. He didn’t steal anything. He just… wanted the baby. Doom came for Franklin Richards, and he came quietly. Four years of MCU buildup, compressed into one silent image.

Rewatch the family Doom is about to visit:

Who Franklin Richards is in the comics (and why “omega-level” undersells him)

In Marvel comics, Franklin Richards — son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm — is routinely ranked among the most powerful characters in the entire Marvel universe, and the word “mutant” barely covers it. This is a child who has created pocket universes — plural. During the Heroes Reborn era, an entire alternate universe existed because Franklin dreamed it up to save the heroes inside it. He has reignited dying stars. Adult versions of Franklin casually make galaxies the way other people make sandwiches.

The core idea the comics keep returning to: reality is soft clay in Franklin’s hands. He doesn’t break the rules of the universe — the universe politely rewrites its rules around him.

So why does Doom want Franklin Richards?

Now connect the dots with what the Doomsday trailer showed us: worlds colliding, three universes on a collision course, and Doom warning that an “unthinkable decision” is coming. The multiverse is dying — incursions are eating it, universe by universe.

In the comics’ Secret Wars (2015), when the multiverse finally collapsed, Doom stole the power of god-like beings called the Beyonders and welded the surviving fragments into a patchwork planet — Battleworld — with himself as God-Emperor. The MCU doesn’t have Beyonders lying around. But it has something arguably scarier: a toddler who builds universes.

That’s the theory in one line: Franklin Richards is Doom’s engine. If everything is going to burn, Doom wants the one being who can build something new from the ashes — on Doom’s blueprint, under Doom’s rule. Why does Doom want Franklin Richards? Because you can’t be the god of a new world without the child who can create one.

The darker forks of the theory

• The resurrection play. Franklin has already resurrected Sue on screen. Fan theories claim Doom’s shopping list — which allegedly includes the Darkhold and the Book of Vishanti — ends with forcing Franklin to bring someone back. Candidates range from Doom’s parents (his defining wound in the comics) to Wanda Maximoff herself.
• Battleworld starts early. Some Redditors argue Doom doesn’t wait for Secret Wars — he starts welding salvaged universe fragments together during Doomsday, with Franklin as the furnace.
• The protector read. The most generous version: Doom isn’t kidnapping a weapon, he’s securing the multiverse’s only seed — in this read, Doom needs Franklin Richards alive, safe, and his. In his mind, he’s the responsible one. (He kneels to the baby, after all. Doom kneels to no one.)

The counter-reads

Worth stating: Marvel hasn’t confirmed any of this, and the Doomsday trailer conspicuously shows no Franklin Richards at all — which either means Marvel is hiding Doom’s most important chess piece, or the fandom has built a cathedral on one post-credits scene. (It wouldn’t be the first time — see the Hydra Cap theory for what this fandom can do with a single beard.) There’s also a rumor that the Fantastic Four’s ship arrives with hidden passengers — if one of them is Franklin, the kidnapping may already be underway when the movie starts.

And remember who we’re dealing with: RDJ’s Doom has been positioned as a manipulator first and a conqueror second. Whatever he wants Franklin for, he’ll make it sound reasonable.

What to watch for

Marvel’s Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con is this Saturday — if Franklin appears in any new footage, even for a frame, consider the theory upgraded to “basically confirmed.” Until then, our read: the Franklin-as-engine theory is the single most structurally sound explanation of Doom’s plan anyone has proposed. It connects First Steps, the incursions, Battleworld, and Secret Wars into one straight line. The fandom didn’t build a cathedral — it found a blueprint. It also dovetails with the surrender theory: if the Avengers lose on purpose, Doom needs Franklin Richards to rebuild whatever is left.

Would Doom actually hurt Franklin — or does he genuinely think he’s saving him? Tell us your read in the comments.

Sources and further reading: Bamfuzzle’s theory roundup, rumor roundup via AOL, Yahoo Entertainment on Franklin’s powers.

Image credits: trailer video © Marvel Studios / Disney, used for editorial commentary. Pedro Pascal photo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.