Marvel’s Contingency Plan Might’ve Been There All Along
Last week in a roundtable interview with reporters, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige offered a striking detail: talks about casting Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom began before Jonathan Majors was fired from the Kang the Conqueror role.
Feige’s account suggests Doom was waiting in the wings all along.
Let’s rewind the Multiverse Saga coverage to trace the timeline of Marvel’s pivot from Kang to Doom—and figure out when that shift reshaped the studio’s long-term storytelling.
The Kang Timeline: Rise & Fallout
| Date | Event |
| Sept 2020 | Jonathan Majors cast as Kang for Quantumania |
| July 2021 | Loki S1 airs — Kang variant appears |
| Jul–Nov 2021 | Quantumania films |
| Summer 2022 | Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars announced at SDCC |
| Feb 2023 | Quantumania premieres |
| Mar 2023 | Assault allegations against Majors surface |
| Oct–Nov 2023 | Loki S2 airs — Kang arc reaches “stopping point” |
| Dec 2023 | Majors convicted; Marvel parts ways |
| July 2024 | Avengers: Doomsday announced; RDJ revealed as Doom |
Feige, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, said:
“Even before what had happened to the actor happened, we started to realize Kang wasn’t big enough, wasn’t Thanos.”
Translation: Kang wasn’t the top-tier villain their sprawling saga needed.
When Did Doom Enter the Chat?
According to Collider, Joanna Robinson (former writer at Vanity Fair and co-author of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios) reported that Marvel settled on Kang after seeing Majors in Loki season one and reviewing Quantumania dailies. That puts Kang’s “locked-in” moment somewhere after July 2021.
But Doom’s arrival is fuzzier.
Since Secret Wars was part of Marvel’s big SDCC 2022 reveal, it’s fair to guess Doom was on the table—at least internally—before that moment. Especially because the Secret Wars comics are deeply tied to Doom’s arc.
MoM & the Secret Wars
The real turning point might’ve come in May 2022, with the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. That film introduced incursions—a key concept in Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars, where Doom rules a broken multiverse as its god-emperor.
MoM hauled in nearly $1B and proved audiences could handle trippy, interdimensional chaos. That likely emboldened Marvel to go all-in on Secret Wars and its narrative architecture, which centers not on Kang, but Doom.
So when Secret Wars was announced just two months later, it may have been the quiet unveiling of a two-pronged plan. Kang as a temporary menace. Doom as the saga’s final boss.
The Doom Development Timeline
| Date | Event |
| March 2019 | Disney’s Fox acquisition finalizes — Marvel regains Doom rights |
| July-November 2021 | Kang solidified post-Loki and Quantumania dailies |
| May 2022 | MoM releases, makes ~$1B, introduces incursions |
| Summer 2022 | Kang Dynasty & Secret Wars announced |
| July 2024 | RDJ confirmed as Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars |
Not Plan B
Feige called Downey’s casting a “long plan,” beginning conversations with him even before Quantumania debuted. Joe Russo backed that, as Variety quoted him telling a podcast:
“That was Kevin. Interestingly enough… that conversation was had a while ago.”
Marvel may have confirmed Kang as the Multiverse antagonist at SDCC 2022, but if Doom discussions began before then—and there is good reason to think they did—then Kang was likely a stepping stone only.
Feige’s framing supports that. So does Russo’s quote. Together, they suggest Doom, nested in the structure of Secret Wars and its multiversal stakes, was in play from the start.
Featured image by Bogdan Karlenko on Unsplash
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