Marvel Studios is releasing its first Doctor Doom film, Avengers: Doomsday, on December 18, and the studio just made MCU history with the blockbuster's latest poster. Robert Downey Jr. is returning to play the Latverian villain, and Marvel is putting the spotlight on him as much as possible. Doom is arguably the greatest villain in the Marvel Universe, after all, so it's fitting that he receives maximum attention and is portrayed by one of the greatest actors of his generation.
Marvel released the latest Doctor Doom poster in August at Disney's D23 Expo. The artwork features only Doom, looking as ominous as ever, hooded in his green cloak, with light shining through the ornate green stained-glass window behind him. The poster arrived the same day tickets for the film went on sale. This kind of treatment is historic. Never before in MCU history has a villain exclusively headlined a character poster, and Doomsday has now done it multiple times.
The first character poster for Doomsday accompanied the film's first full-length trailer in July, and it also belonged solely to the Latverian, unless you count the figures in its artwork. In that image, Doom stands with his head bowed before a towering mural of a woman and child, his metal mask clutched in one hand.
The pair are presumably his wife and child or possibly a younger version of himself alongside his mother, Cynthia Von Doom. No other MCU villain has ever received a poster spotlight like this.
Days later, at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel unveiled another Doom-only poster, handed out to Hall H attendees. That artwork showed the Latverian ruler hooded once more, with green smoke filling almost the entire image.
Even the first-ever Doomsday poster, the teaser released in late 2025 featuring the Avengers logo, had Doom's fingerprints all over it. The famous "A" symbol was set against the same stained green glass seen in the D23 poster and engraved with runes, a nod to Doom's Latverian magic.
Marvel Studios and concept artist Andy Park also revealed artwork of the full ensemble, finally giving the likes of Steve Rogers, who is making a surprise return to the franchise, a bit of attention.
Aside from this piece, every official poster the studio has released has featured only Phase 6's big bad.
Marvel Has Never Given a Villain This Much Focus
To grasp how big a deal this is, it pays to look back at the attention Marvel gave its previous big bads.
The first Avengers film put its heroes front and center on the poster instead of Loki, which was the right call for the team's debut. General audiences needed to form an attachment to the core lineup, and that approach worked perfectly.
The same strategy carried over to Avengers: Age of Ultron, which had one of the most memorable Avengers team posters. The first character posters for that film spotlighted the heroes before Ultron eventually got his own. Even Black Widow appeared on more posters than the murderous AI.
Then there's Thanos, the biggest villain Marvel had put on screen before Doom, and even he never got a poster to himself. The Infinity War and Endgame campaigns grouped him with other characters rather than giving him the solo treatment.
The Comic-Con exclusive poster for Avengers: Infinity War, for example, showed Thanos alongside his Black Order, and the main theatrical one placed him at the center but surrounded him with the MCU's heroes. The rest of the Infinity War character posters all spotlighted hero teams. When Endgame arrived, its one-sheets focused on the surviving Avengers, and the famous "Avenge the Fallen" series honored the fallen, so Thanos was obviously not included.
It is reasonable for Marvel to place this much emphasis on Doom rather than the other characters. It is his movie, after all. Fans have already developed a strong attachment to the Avengers and even the Fox X-Men, having lived with these characters for well over a decade. Doom, on the other hand, has not been lucky in live action, with his Fox-era film appearances poorly received.
Doomsday is his first film depiction in over a decade and his MCU debut, so it is imperative that Marvel properly market him to both audiences unfamiliar with the character and those whose memories are still imprinted with the Fox Fantastic Four version.
Placing Doom on intriguing posters that highlight his ominous presence is a great way to pique newcomers' curiosity about the character and convince them to buy a ticket before December 18. The strategy is clearly working, with Doomsday surpassing $50 million in domestic presales, over 70% of them for Disney's new Infinity Vision premium format.
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.
