Avengers: Endgame Encore’s Hulk Changes All But Confirm An Avengers: Doomsday Theory

Published Sep 27, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT

Zoë Miskelly is an editor and second in command for Screen Rant's Movies team, having covered the entertainment industry for almost 10 years now. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture.

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Avengers: Endgame Encore's changes to the Hulk's MCU storyline seem to nigh confirm one major theory that's floated around about the character's prospective role in Avengers: Doomsday for quite some time now. Given the considerable gap between the release of Avengers: Endgame in 2019 and Avengers: Doomsday in 2026, there's been time for fans to theorize aplenty about what to expect in the December 2026 release.

Of course, these theories have changed drastically over time alongside the teased plans for the fifth Avengers film, especially after the reveals that Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to play Doctor Doom in the film, and after the information we've gotten both about the rest of Avengers: Doomsday's cast, and how the MCU is handling the concept of the multiverse at this point in time.

This has led to theories involving just about every character under the sun in the MCU timeline thus far - and several who don't exist yet within it - given the prospective scope and scale of what we're about to experience with the franchise's next releases. Interestingly enough, one of the biggest theories around the Hulk has gotten new evidence via the new expanded version of Avengers: Endgame, which support the idea fans may have been right on the money when it comes to the character's future on the big screen.

Avengers: Endgame Encore's Hulk Scene All But Confirms The Hulk Being An Avengers: Doomsday Antagonist

Avengers: Endgame Encore's additional new added bonus scenes provide a lot of context for what's set to come in the next chapters of the MCU, and most clearly set up Avengers: Doomsday, which is due to debut at the end of this year. One crucial scene featuring Doomsday's central antagonist, Doctor Doom, sees the villain arrive in an isolated bunker that Bruce Banner is contained in while he tries to work on controlling the Hulk once more, following him reverting to his berserker form in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Doom states he's come to collect Banner, and then appears to teleport the scientist away with him as he transforms back into the Hulk. As such, it's easy to imagine that Doctor Doom's plans for the MCU hero either involve using the Hulk as a living wrecking ball of sorts that he can unleash where he needs to, or that he seeks to use Banner's own intellect to help with his plans.

Either way, this scene means the theories that the Hulk would serve as an antagonist in some form within the story of Avengers: Doomsday do seem to hold more weight, even though these often theorized around the idea that the evil Hulk variant of Maestro would appear, versus the central MCU Hulk himself.

The Hulk Working With Doctor Doom In Avengers: Doomsday Would Help Set Up Avengers: Secret Wars Perfectly

While Bruce Banner's morals would generally keep him from working with most MCU villains, if Doctor Doom is able to present him with the idea of doing work to save the multiverse - or save his universe, at least, from the implied destruction other universes are facing - it's easy to see how the scientist could be convinced to carry out Doom's orders. This would theoretically be even easier when it comes to the Hulk, who only needs to be aggravated and pointed in the right direction to do some serious damage.

Both of these scenarios tie in perfectly to the conceptual premise of Avengers: Secret Wars too, with the context of the comic versions of this story in mind. Doom's efforts to make the Battleworld out of fragments of destroyed universes seem like something Banner could help with in the MCU, and the Hulk could act as Doom's policing force of sorts, much in the way that many Thor variants are in the 2015-2016 comic run.

Altogether, it seems the Avengers: Endgame Encore post-credits scene resulting in the Hulk working with or for Doctor Doom in some capacity would work well for the wider story of the next Avengers movies, making it even more exciting that we'll soon get to see how things play out in Avengers: Doomsday later this year.