Who Defeats Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday? Every Candidate, Ranked

Something defeats Doctor Doom eventually, or there is no story. The question is what, and Marvel has been quietly stacking the evidence in plain sight since The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Here is every candidate for who stops him in Avengers: Doomsday, ranked by how much the films have actually set them up, and an argument at the end that the honest answer is none of them.

1. Franklin Richards

The front-runner, and it is not close.

Both public trailers contain the same shot: Johnny Storm holding Franklin tightly while a warm white light swells around the pair of them. The widely accepted reading is that the light is Franklin, throwing a shield around his uncle. If that is right, a small child is performing a reality-level defensive act in the middle of a war, and the film has shown it to us twice.

He has form. In First Steps, Franklin brought his mother back. Sue Storm died and a toddler undid it, which is the single largest power demonstration in the current MCU and nobody has really reckoned with it. In the comics his ceiling is higher still, routinely written as a being whose potential sits alongside Galactus.

Then there is the post-credits scene, where Doom appears at Franklin’s nursery. Marvel opened this chapter by putting the villain in a room with a four year old. The reason Doom wants him is the whole engine of the film, and we broke that down in why Doom wants Franklin Richards.

The neat version of the ending is that Doom spends the film chasing the one power that can rebuild a dying multiverse, gets it, and finds out it does not want to be held. If anything defeats Doctor Doom on screen, this is the shape it takes.

2. Nobody, because that is Secret Wars’ job

Ranked second because it may well be the truth.

Doomsday is the first half of a two-part story that finishes on December 17, 2027. Villains in that position do not lose. Thanos did not lose in Infinity War, and the reason that film is remembered is that he won completely and the credits rolled. Reports circulating since August describe a Doomsday ending in which the final incursion goes ahead and Doom is the one thing left standing.

If that holds, nothing defeats Doctor Doom in this film at all. He wins, Battleworld happens, and the defeat is a 2027 problem. Our post on whether the Avengers lose on purpose argues something even less comfortable: that letting him win may be the correct play, because his patchwork world is the only plan that saves anyone at all.

3. Scarlet Witch

Wanda is the great absence. She has the raw power to go at Doom directly, she has the reality-editing skillset the story calls for, and she is not confirmed to be in the film.

The theories run both ways. One has Doom hunting her as a power source for Battleworld. Another has Franklin resurrecting her, which conveniently gives the film a heavy hitter in the third act and hands Doom exactly what he wanted. Both are speculation, and we laid out the state of it in where is Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Doomsday.

She stays at three because an unconfirmed cast member cannot outrank a child who is in both trailers.

4. Steve Rogers

The billing order is the argument here. When Marvel published its cast order at CinemaCon, Chris Evans came second, above Chris Hemsworth. Robert Downey Jr. leads as Doom, then Evans, then Hemsworth, then Pedro Pascal, then Paul Rudd.

Second billing is not a cameo. Steve got his own teaser back in December 2025, and the ordering says the film considers him close to its centre. There is also a thematic case: if the incursions trace back to Steve’s happy ending, which is a live theory we covered in the Peggy Carter theory, then the man who broke it is the natural choice to pay for it.

What he does not have is a power level. Nothing about Steve Rogers defeats Doctor Doom in a fight. If he is the answer, it is as a sacrifice rather than a victory.

5. Thor

The film has gone out of its way to rule him out.

Doom catches Stormbreaker between two fingers. That is not a close call, it is a statement of policy, and we went through the mechanics in Doom’s gauntlet runes. Thor is third on the billing despite carrying the first trailer, and the fandom has spent months braced for him to die rather than win, which we covered in does Thor die in Doomsday.

When a movie shows you its strongest Avenger being handled without effort in the marketing, it is telling you where the solution is not.

6. Loki

The God of Stories sits at the centre of the multiverse holding every timeline, which makes him structurally important and physically useless. The likelier role, and the one the reporting keeps pointing at, is that Loki is the power source rather than the counter, and that Doom takes what he needs. We have the full case in every Loki theory and the darker version in does Doom kill Loki.

So what actually defeats Doctor Doom?

Put the evidence in order and a clear picture appears.

The film has shown us Franklin protecting someone, twice. It has shown us Thor failing, once, prominently. It has given Steve Rogers second billing and a personal teaser. It has put Doom in a nursery in a post-credits scene. And it is the first half of two.

The reading that fits all of that: nothing defeats Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday. He gets what he came for, and the cost is paid by whoever the film decides to spend, with Steve Rogers the most heavily signposted candidate. Franklin is the weapon that could stop him and the prize that makes him unstoppable, which is the same thing viewed from either end, and the resolution belongs to Secret Wars.

The counter-argument is simple and worth respecting: Marvel has been burned by downer endings before, tickets are already selling, and a Christmas release that ends with everybody dead is a hard sell to families. If the studio blinked, Franklin is the escape hatch that lets them win without contradicting a single frame of the marketing.

Avengers: Doomsday is in cinemas on December 18, 2026. Secret Wars follows on December 17, 2027.

More on the film: our release date and runtime guide, the Avengers vs X-Men breakdown, why Doom has Tony Stark’s face, and what is real in the script leak.

Franklin, or does Doom just win? Comments are open.

Sources: Bam Smack Pow, CBR, The Direct, Primetimer. Avengers: Doomsday is a Marvel Studios production; all rights belong to Marvel Studios and Disney.