After the Avengers' epic battles with Thanos in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War and 2019's Avengers: Endgame, the future of the franchises' villains is more up in the air than ever before. Even with the excitement building up for fans anticipating the debuts of villains like the Taskmaster in Black Widow and the true Mandarin (Tony Leung) in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, there are no rumors or rumblings as to who the entire team of Earth's Mightiest Heroes will fight in the next massive team-up movie.
The franchise should have some support in the near future once the new acquisitions from the Disney/Fox Studios merger make their way into the MCU. Classic Marvel Comics villains such as Magneto and Galactus will finally have the chance to put their skills to the test against the likes of Thor, the Hulk and others. While these new villains may still be a few years away in Marvel Studios' plans, a rumor has just broken potentially setting up one of the biggest villains the studio has ever tackled.
RUMOR
A new rumor from MCU Cosmic has detailed that Marvel Studios is planning to introduce a character named Lucia Von Bardas to the MCU. In the comics, she acts as a successor to the throne of Latviera after taking over from Victor Von Doom, even using the Doctor Doom name for a period of time.
WHAT THIS MEANS
Not only is this an exciting potential precursor to fans seeing one of the most iconic Marvel villains in history make his way into the MCU, it appears that Marvel CCO Kevin Feige and his team are intent on fleshing out Doctor Doom's character and history more than any iteration of the villain that has appeared on screen before. Von Doom has served as one of the most notable villains for the Fantastic Four, and he has also been one of the most difficult adversaries for all of the Avengers to deal with since his introduction in 1962.
The introduction of Lucia Von Bardas could serve as a soft introduction to Doctor Doom and his home country of Latveria similarly to how the movies built up Wakanda long before Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther first debuted in Captain America: Civil War. The level of detail that appears to be going into this, along with the introduction of a character with such a close association with Von Doom, shows how serious Marvel Studios is about properly introduction him as a fleshed out and fully realized character.
While the first on screen portrayal of Doctor Doom by Joseph Culp in 1994's The Fantastic Four was decent, the most recent versions of the character left fans with a sour taste in their mouths. Julian McMahon earned mixed reviews for his portrayal of the Von Doom industries CEO in both of Tim Story's Fantastic Four films in 2005 and '07, and Toby Kebbell's take on the character was even more vilified in 2015's critically maligned reboot. Fans are already imagining how epic Von Doom will be in the MCU, and it feels like great news that Marvel Studios is so focused on giving him the epic treatment that he deserves.
