A Theory That Robert Downey Jr. Doctor Doom Is A Ploy To Get Tony Stark Back In The MCU

Ever since it was announced that Doctor Doom would be played in the MCU by Robert Downey Jr, previously the lynchpin of the universe as the now-dead Tony Stark, I have been unable to wrap my head around what exactly is happening here. Yes, it’s stunt casting but…what is the stunt? How does this make any amount of sense with even a cursory amount of examination?

At this point, I’ve developed a theory that this is all essentially a trick, that Marvel has told us information that is technically true, but is trying to kill two Falcons with one missile. The idea is not only to introduce Doctor Doom to the MCU, but also bring Tony Stark back to life, so to speak.

Here are a few facts we know:

• Robert Downey Jr. is reportedly being paid upwards of $100 million to return to the MCU for this role.
• This is a role for a character that is almost exclusively behind a mask at all times, if we’re staying true to the comics.
• Downey Jr. is confirmed to be playing literally Victor Von Doom, and not some sort of alternate universe version of Tony Stark that builds Doom armor instead of Iron Man armor or something like that. He is Victor.

So, working backward from that, we have to examine the one link that we have to the comics that might make some possible amount of sense as source material. That would be a storyline in which Victor and Tony switch bodies for a time. So that means Victor Von Doom is walking around wearing Tony Stark’s face and using his voice, while the real Stark is behind Doom’s mask, his memory wiped.

You might start to see the idea here take shape. That if this storyline is used, that Robert Downey Jr. can play both roles, and one of those roles will involve him looking like…Tony Stark. The other role would effectively be (likely modified) voicework from behind the metal mask. In that story, Doom Stark transforms Latveria into a beacon of progress while Stark Doom is an evil corporate villain. They eventually square off using opposite-colored armor.

So maybe that’s the base story, but what happens after? The idea would be that they would have the ability to switch back. This creates a situation where:

• Robert Downey Jr. is back in the MCU playing Tony Stark, albeit a Fantastic Four universe version of Stark (and we know those universes will merge).
• At that point anyone could really be playing Doom under the mask, and if his face is ever revealed, it would not be RDJ. The idea is that they switched bodies, not have identical faces.

All of this is the only theory that makes any amount of sense to me, as you simply do not pay Robert Downey Jr. $100 million to sit inside a mask for 80-90% of his screen time. That does not track at all. But nor do you have a Doctor Doom where it’s just RDJ’s face under a green hood the entire time.

I don’t see how this works otherwise.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.