Avengers: Doomsday’s Nostalgia Bet Could Backfire on the MCU’s Greatest Achievement
Avengers: Doomsday is stacking the roster with new faces and returning icons — including a reported Chris Evans comeback as Captain America — but the nostalgia blitz could undercut Marvel Studios’ biggest achievement.
Marvel is cracking open the time capsule. A new Avengers: Doomsday teaser playing with Avatar: Fire and Ash confirms Chris Evans is back as Steve Rogers, and yeah, that will light up the crowd. It also pokes a hole in one of Marvel Studios' cleanest goodbyes.
What just happened
After years of chatter about Evans returning, the studio finally put it in front of audiences: Steve Rogers shows up in Avengers: Doomsday. How big his role is remains a mystery, but the tease is clear enough — Cap is back.
- Teaser reportedly attached to Avatar: Fire and Ash confirms Steve Rogers appears in Avengers: Doomsday
- Chris Evans' screen time is unknown
- Robert Downey Jr. is also back — not as Tony Stark, but as Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom
- More familiar MCU faces are rumored to pop in
- The broad read: Marvel is leaning on legacy characters after a few bumpy post-Endgame box office runs
Why that stings a little
Avengers: Endgame was designed as a curtain call for the first decade of the MCU. It delivered the Thanos finale and sent multiple OGs off the stage: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and others.
Specifically for Steve, Endgame gave him the rare superhero happy ending. He handed the shield to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), then time-hopped back to live the life he never got with Peggy Carter. That was the point: closure. Clean, earned, emotional — and, frankly, final.
Endgame also hit like a meteor commercially: just under $2.8 billion worldwide, at one point the top-grossing movie ever. It wrapped an era with a satisfying bow and cleared the runway for the next generation.
Now Marvel is untying that bow. Bringing Steve back — even for a limited role — blurs the finality of Endgame and dulls the impact of that handoff to Sam. If Evans is again front-and-center as Cap (unclear!), what does that say about the transition the franchise already made?
The strategy under the hood
This is the playbook when a shared universe needs a jolt: stack an Avengers movie with new faces and heavyweights fans already love. Hence Evans returning as Steve, and Downey reappearing as Doom — a twisty bit of casting that is both surprising and very on-brand for a universe that treats multiverses and variants like a vending machine.
Will it work? Probably, in the short term. Evans is one of the MCU's most bankable stars, and Marvel knows exactly what that pop feels like on opening weekend. The trade-off is story integrity: every time a definitive goodbye becomes a 'just kidding,' the past feels a little less permanent.
Where this leaves Doomsday
Hype: elevated. Stakes: also elevated. The movie is setting itself up as a reunion special stitched to a soft reboot. If the balance tips too far toward nostalgia, it risks undercutting what Endgame did better than almost any superhero film: endings that stick.