The Road to Doomsday Part 4 — Avengers (2012)

How is each one of them important to Avengers: Doomsday? Steve Rogers is confirmed to be featured in the film, as is Thor (they are both seen together in the first trailers). There are rumours regarding appearances by Clint Barton (most recently featured in Hawkeye) and Bruce Banner (most recently featured in Spiderman: Brand New Day). While Natasha Romanoff will definitely not be in the movie, she left a legacy and passed on the mantle to Marvel’s new Black Widow (who we will discuss in 9 weeks, for Thunderbolts*). 

But ultimately, this film’s importance isn’t simply in the characters we are first introduced to. It introduces the idea of having powerful and influential people merging forces to become something bigger than themselves, and to fight increasingly menacing threats. It is also arguably the first time audiences felt something that can only be described as pure enthusiasm, as the original six team up with the Avengers theme playing in the background. 

MCU: The Road To Doomsday:

• The AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY Trailer is Out, and It’s Everything We Could Hope For!
• Avengers: Doomsday Trailer, X-Men Cast Announcement, VisionQuest Trailer and more! — Everything that happened for Marvel during D23
• The Road to Doomsday Part 1 — X-Men (2000)
• The Road to Doomsday Part 2 — X2 (2003)

The main villain is also worth mentioning; the brother of Thor who seeks to rule Earth. While, for now, this may seem like a simplistic villain arc (which it is), it is the first chapter for Loki, of Marvel’s best developed characters who will surely play a very significant role in Avengers: Doomsday. Again, this is something we will delve deep into in 3 weeks, when discussing the Loki television series.

With regards to its storyline, some of the best aspects in Avengers (2012) are the relationships established between these characters, including Natasha and Clint’s unbreakable bond — “Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call” — and the personal character arcs — including Bruce Banner’s “In case you needed to kill me. But you can’t, I know. I tried”. 

The series of parallels that started from Steve’s “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you” and Tony’s “Everything special about you came out of a bottle” goes on for almost a decade. These relationships are carried on to other MCU productions, embodying the more human side of superheroes.

In the podcast series Countdown to Avengers: Doomsday, actress and fan Iman Vellani truthfully describes the battle in New York as “the nexus event of the entire MCU”; it truly is the starting point for so many stories that follow. The scene happens when the Chitauri invade New York leading to one of the best-paced action scenes ever.