Doom is stronger than Thanos in Avengers: Doomsday, and the Marvel comics explain why

Blocking Thor's hammer with two fingers is child play for Doom

If you’re one of the 48 million people who watched the latest trailer for Avengers: Doomsday (and that’s just on YouTube), then one of the many questions that’s rolling in your head now must be: “How, by Odin’s beard, was Doom able to stop a fully charged blow from Thor’s Stormbreaker with just two fingers?” The answer likely lies in the comic book stories that served as inspiration for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s upcoming blockbuster.

If Avengers: Doomsday stays at least a little faithful to the comics, the MCU's Doctor Doom won't just be one of the most fascinating versions of the character, but also one of the most powerful to ever appear.

Time Runs Out was a long storyline that was published by Marvel between 2014 and 2015, primarily in Avengers (vol. 5) and New Avengers (vol. 3). It’s the climax of many years of careful and intricate storytelling by writer Jonathan Hickman, which led directly into the next big event, Secret Wars. The story is complex and multilayered, but to summarize it: The heroes of Earth are struggling to find the cause of the incursions, catastrophic multiversal events where Earths from different universes collide with each other, leading to the destruction of one or more of those realities.

Some factions emerge as the antagonists and possible culprits: The Black Priests, the Mapmakers, the Builders, and the Black Swans. The latter worshiped a mysterious entity known as Rabum Alal, who many consider responsible for the incursions. Doctor Strange, taking command of the Black Priests, hunts down Rabum Alal in his fortress, only to find out that he is Victor von Doom from Earth-616 (the main Earth in the Marvel multiverse).

Doom isn’t trying to destroy the Multiverse, but rather to save it. After recovering an artifact of the Mapmakers following an incursion in Latveria, Doom realized its energy signature matched that of Owen Reece, aka Molecule Man, an incredibly powerful (and usually mentally unstable) villain who first played a major role in the original Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, the crossover that inspired Hickman’s long saga. After restoring Reece’s sanity and traveling with him to the future, Doom learns that Molecule Man is a bomb planted by omnipotent and inscrutable Beyonders to “detonate” every universe at the same time as a scientific experiment.

Doom assumes the identity of Rabum Alal to escape the Beyonders’ detection, and he even starts a cult of himself (because of course he does) after finding the Black Swans. Doom’s first plan is to kill the Molecule Men of each universe before the intended time to foil the Beyonders' plans, but this is still causing the collapse of the Multiverse. So Doom starts collecting the Molecule Men instead, hoarding their power for a final gambit against the Beyonders.

Judging by what we know about Avengers: Doomsday and its sequel, Secret Wars, the first movie should roughly adapt the events of Time Runs Out. The Doom played by Robert Downey Jr. is thus close to the comics’ Rabum Alal. Traveling through universes and across time, he has already transcended the character’s classic status as a scientist-sorcerer with delusions of grandeur, and has accumulated powers beyond the normal scope that Earth’s heroes are used to. In particular, if this MCU Doom already possesses an arsenal of Molecule Men, stopping Thor’s blow with two fingers is a trivial feat.

The Rabum Alal version of Doom is one of the most fascinating iterations of this charismatic character. It perfectly represents Doom’s nature and his approach to knowledge. Longtime rival Reed Richards seeks knowledge just for the sake of discovery and is rarely changed by it. (Richards’ character is one of the most static in Marvel canon, if we exclude alternate versions like The Maker.) Doom is different: Knowledge and power go to him. He absorbs them to transcend to a higher state.

This is also what happens at the end of Time Runs Out. Doom turns the Molecule Men into an anti-Beyonders bomb, using the last remaining Owen Reece to absorb the power of the entities and become the god of Battleworld, the only remaining planet in the now-collapsed Multiverse. Of course, being Doom, he lets his pride get the best of him, and absolute power ultimately slips through his fingers.

The upcoming Avengers: Doomsday will show one of the best and most powerful versions of Doctor Doom to ever appear in the canon. MCU fans who have Thanos as their villain benchmark will soon have to change their standards once the smartest man on Earth takes the stage. And if you think that title belongs to Richards, then the Latverian Ministry of Truth might soon pay you a visit.

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Avengers: Doomsday releases in theaters on Dec. 18.