More Marvel rumors are making the rounds courtesy of The Ankler’s Jeff Sneider. On the podcast The Hot Mic, Sneider revealed that his sources tell him Doctor Doom will not be the villain in Fantastic Four, but will appear in a post-credits scene. Sneider doesn’t know who the Four will face, just that it won’t be their arch-nemesis. His next reveal is that Marvel is developing a Disney+ series called Vision Quest that will center on Vision – presumably the white version of him from the end of WandaVision who acquired the old Vision’s memories and flew off to find himself. According to Sneider, a writers’ room for the show is being put together and will get to work next week.
I’m not sure how I feel about the Doctor Doom story. Theoretically, I’m fine with him sitting out the first movie in a Fantastic Four series and letting them slowly build to him. But there won’t be any sequels between Fantastic Four and Avengers: Secret Wars, in which he will almost certainly be the villain. That means he won’t be built up all that much; he’ll appear in a post-credits scene and then suddenly face the whole Marvel Universe (or what’s left of it), with no movies establishing him as the Four’s main antagonist. The other option is that they don’t use Doom as the bad guy in Secret Wars, which would be a very big divergence from the comic books. This makes it seem like a mistake to have put The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars so close together; now, you’ve got two big villains competing for the spotlight, and at least one will probably be short-changed. As for Vision Quest, I’m not all that interested. I liked Vision in the MCU, but I don’t relish watching a series about a new version of him finding himself; I saw him do that in Age of Ultron, and really all of his film appearances. This is probably leading to his eventual reunion with Wanda, and after everything she’s done, I don’t really want to see her have a happy ending with her dream guy. As with most Marvel news lately, none of this excites me.
Should Doctor Doom be the villain in Fantastic Four? Does Vision Quest interest you? Is Marvel under the impression that these reveals will steer excitement away from Superman and DC’s new bosses? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned to Geeks + Gamers for more underwhelming Marvel news!