Avengers: Doomsday will bring a feared comic concept to life: an Incursion, the catastrophic collision of universes that obliterates entire realities. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been heading towards this showdown for years, and the footage Marvel showed privately to theater owners at CinemaCon depicted how chaotic these Incursions will be. Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom stands in the middle of the wreckage, ready to choose which world survives. The trickier question is how the barriers between universes cracked badly enough to start the collapse.
That answer reaches back more than a decade. Incursions do not happen on their own; something must tear through reality first to cause this level of destruction. Doomsday will need to show which old mistakes lit the fuse, and at least seven multiversal scenes stand out as the prime suspects. Every one of them already left a scar on the Multiverse, and any could circle back when Doom arrives to collect.
The MCU already taught fans what an Incursion looks like in detail thanks to Doctor Strange: Into the Multiverse of Madness. Two universes press together until they collide, and at least one breaks apart, wiping out everyone caught inside. Per what's been teased in Doomsday's marketing, this collision will involve Earth-616, the MCU's home turf, and Earth-10005, the reality where the Fox X-Men live, with the Fantastic Four's Earth-828 dragged into the middle. So far, the cause of this multiversal collapse is unclear, but some decisions by the MCU's biggest players are likely the culprit.
Multiversal Scenes That Could Trigger Incursions in Avengers: Doomsday
Steve Rogers Staying in the Past in Endgame
Avengers: Endgame wrapped with Steve Rogers returning the Infinity Stones and then choosing to live out his life in the past with Peggy Carter. The Russo Brothers, who also direct Doomsday, have said that choice created a branched reality, one Steve left only to pass the shield to Sam Wilson.
The film's writers also view it differently, arguing that he stayed in the main timeline the whole time. Either way, the directors steering Doomsday see Cap's exit as a fresh branch, and a fresh branch is one more reality that can drift into another. It's also been reported that Steve's actions caused problems for Doom, leading to a potential confrontation in Doomsday.
Spider-Man and Doctor Strange's Runes of Kof-Kol
The biggest event from Spider-Man: No Way Home could contribute to the Incursions that happen in Doomsday. In the film Peter Parker, shut out of college because the world knows his identity, asks Doctor Strange to make everyone forget. Down in the Sanctum Sanctorum's undercroft, Strange casts the Runes of Kof-Kol, a forgetting spell with universe-wide reach. Peter panics partway through and keeps carving out exceptions for MJ, Ned, and Aunt May, which forces Strange to wrench the magic back again and again until it fractures. Strange barely traps the broken spell, but by then, the damage had already reached past his own reality.
The botched spell tore through the walls of the Multiverse and pulled in everyone across it who knew Peter was Spider-Man, bringing Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Electro, the Lizard, Sandman, and two other Spider-Men into Earth-616. People physically crossing from other universes into another Earth is a sure way to cause an Incursion. Strange only sealed the breach with another spell that erased Peter from the world's memory and sent the visitors home.
Wanda and Doctor Strange's Darkhold Dreamwalking
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is where the MCU properly explores the concept of Incursions. In the film, Earth-838's Reed Richards explains that an Incursion occurs when a being crosses into another universe and leaves a footprint too large to be contained. The film then shows that footprint at work. Wanda Maximoff, corrupted by the Darkhold, dreamwalks into the body of her variant on Earth-838 to seize America Chavez, butchering that world's Illuminati while she wears another woman's skin. Strange escapes only by dreamwalking himself, taking over the corpse of a dead variant back on Earth-616.
Dreamwalking is one person reaching out of their own universe to control a different version of themselves in another. The movie even shows the bill come due. Strange and Christine cross through a reality reduced to bone and rubble, a universe already killed by an Incursion after a Sinister Strange used his own Darkhold to chase happiness across the Multiverse. The post-credits scene then drags the hero himself toward the Dark Dimension to clean up an Incursion he caused.
Dar-Benn Using the Quantum Bands
The Marvels staged the closest thing to a full Incursion the MCU produced before Doomsday. The Kree leader Dar-Benn, desperate to revive her dying homeworld of Hala, uses a Quantum Band to rip jump points across the galaxy and haul resources between planets. In the film's climax, she uses her Quantum Band and Kamala's together. The overload destroys her and tears a hole in space above Earth, a hole that opens onto another universe, threatening to destroy Earth-616.
Two universes merging through a rip in reality is the textbook definition of an Incursion, and Monica Rambeau works out that she alone can seal it from the inside. Carol Danvers and Kamala Khan pour their energy into her, she flies into the tear and closes it, and the effort strands her on the far side. She wakes in a lab beside a Binary version of her mother and the X-Men's Beast. This sealed rift and the stranded Rambeau trapped behind it are unfinished business, which could play into the next Avengers crossover.
Loki's Sacrifice at the End of Time
Loki finished its second season at the End of Time, where He Who Remains has already warned that his death frees his variants and ignites multiversal war. Loki discovers that the Temporal Loom protecting the timeline is only a failsafe, a machine designed to burn away every branch except the Sacred Timeline. Loki destroys the Loom, walks into the storm of dying timelines, and gathers the browning branches in his hands.
He drags them to the throne and pours his magic through them, reviving every branch and reshaping the whole structure into Yggdrasil with himself at the center, holding it alive. This choice saves the Multiverse from collapse, yet it also dismantles the one system meant to keep universes from multiplying out of control. He Who Remains pruned branches for eternity for that reason, to stop realities from drifting into one another and colliding. Loki set them all free to grow instead, and a Multiverse this wide and this crowded increases the chances of an Incursion happening.
Deadpool's Trip to Earth-616 With Cable's Device
Deadpool & Wolverine shows Wade Wilson reaching for Cable's time-travel device and using it to jump out of his home reality, Earth-10005, and into the MCU's Earth-616. He strolls into an Avengers facility and pitches Happy Hogan on a spot with the team. Happy turns him down, and a deflated Wade returns to his own universe and wrecks the device after.
Mr. Paradox of the TVA later tells Wade that the agency noticed his jumps between realities, even while brushing them off as no real danger to the Sacred Timeline. Although Wade's actions aren’t significant, they could still play a small role in the Incursions that plague the MCU.
Reed Richards Hurling Galactus Across the Universe
The Fantastic Four: First Steps ends with Reed Richards facing an impossible problem. Galactus has marked Earth-828 for destruction and demands the Richards' infant son Franklin, who carries the Power Cosmic. The family refuses, so Reed engineers a staggering backup plan, a network of giant teleportation bridges meant to move the entire planet into a separate dimension where Galactus can never follow. The Silver Surfer wrecks all but one of the bridges before the plan can work.
Reed pivots to luring Galactus onto the last bridge in Times Square, using Franklin as bait, and Sue Storm and Shalla-Bal force the world-eater through the portal and across the cosmos. A machine capable of shoving a planet or a god between realities could cause breaches in the fabric of reality and open rifts to the multiverse. It is possible that Reed created an Incursion by doing this, which could lead to a clash between him and an angry Doctor Doom.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
