The first four teaser trailers for Avengers: Doomsday make it look like Doctor Doom’s plan involves some surprising characters. The first four teasers for the event hit over the four weeks since Avatar: Fire and Ash’s theatrical release, and they involve some very familiar faces. This includes Captain America, Thor, the X-Men, and the Wakandans.

However, looking deeper at these trailers, they might be hiding clues that indicate something Doctor Doom might be planning as he prepares to create Battleworld ahead of Avengers: Secret Wars. In fact, the Russo brothers said these were not teasers, but were instead stories and clues, and they asked people to pay attention.

Avengers: Doomsday Theory: Doctor Doom Is Kidnapping The Heroes’ Children

The first Avengers: Doomsday teaser featured Steve Rogers holding his baby. The second teaser had Thor talking about how he never believed his biggest role would be as a father to Love, and he prayed to Odin for help. The third had Cyclops going wild with a massive blast of his beams. The fourth saw the Wakandans mobilizing.

What does this all mean if the Russo brothers claim they are clues? It might have all started in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. That film ended with Doctor Doom sitting in The Fantastic Four’s tower talking to Franklin Richards, who was a toddler at this point. Sue Storm walks in and catches them, and the scene ends.

This was the theme that played out both in and possibly behind the scenes in the Avengers: Doomsday teasers. The first one had Captain America with his child (clearly from the past, where he stayed after he traveled back in time to return the Infinity Stones). The second had Thor’s adoptive daughter, Love, the daughter of Gorr the God Butcher.

The next two teasers were a little different. The X-Men trailer had Magneto and Professor X talking about mortality, but then it flipped to the money shot of Cyclops taking off his visor and letting go with his optic blasts. What would have caused Cyclops to get this angry? What was causing the Wakandans to mobilize in the fourth teaser?

The idea is that Doctor Doom needs help in creating his Battleworld, and the keys to his kingdom come with these young heroes. The third teaser could have hinted that Cyclops had just lost someone he loved, and that could have been his comic book daughter, Rachel Summers. Shuri could be mobilizing to save T’Challa’s son.

What This Means For Avengers: Secret Wars

Doctor Doom is clearly going to end the world as it is known at the end of Avengers: Doomsday, where the heroes will deal with the fallout in Avengers: Secret Wars. However, as the comics showed, he can’t do this by himself. In the comic books, he needed to use Molecule Man and kill the Beyonders.

Neither Molecule Man nor the Beyonder exists in the MCU outside the Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur animated series. This means Doctor Doom needs to find another source of power, and he might have found that in Franklin Richards. Since each of the new teasers features a parent or relative of a child, it could be that Doom is collecting these kids.

Doctor Doom becomes God Emperor Doom in the Secret Wars world, which he only did thanks to the help of Molecule Man. If he needed Franklin to help him, and he somehow convinced the child that this was for the greater good to save his family (from the Incursions), Franklin might have come up with a way for Doom to get to each world to get these kids.

On Battleworld in the comics, each of the lands on the new planet has its own groups, and Doctor Doom might be building his army with children whom he can manipulate to run things how he wants, all by stripping Earth’s heroes of the people that meant the most to them.

Who Are The Hero’s Kids Who Could Be Involved In Doom’s Plan?

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As mentioned, there are three kids already shown: Franklin Richards, who is all-powerful; Steve Rogers’ child, who likely has the Super Soldier formula in their body; and Thor’s daughter, who is a mighty warrior on her own. Love could easily lead the Thor Corps from the comics on Battleworld. Franklin could be Battleworld’s battery.

Rogers’ child could be Doom’s right hand, similar to how Doctor Strange was in the comics. If Cyclops has a daughter like Rachel, she’s another extremely powerful mutant who could assist Doom, while Black Panther’s son could be a key to uniting the people under Doom.

Also, don’t forget that Wiccan exists, and he should be finding his brother Speed in VisionQuest. Cassie Lang is still around as Ant-Man’s daughter, and Skaar made his debut at the end of She-Hulk. Hawkeye and Tony Stark also have kids, although they have no powers.

There’s almost a year before Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters, and another year after that for Avengers: Secret Wars, so there’s a lot of time to speculate. However, with all the Avengers: Doomsday teasers either showing an Avengers child, or hinting at another hero’s child, it lines up that these second-generation heroes have a big part to play.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18, 2026. Expect a full trailer to arrive from Marvel shortly to possibly tie these various teasers together, as more clues are expected to arrive for the MCU’s next major release.