Can Robert Downey Jr. Make You Forget Iron Man?
The cheer comes before the character has done anything. Put Robert Downey Jr. in front of a Marvel audience and he brings years of affection into the room. Cast him as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, and that affection becomes a problem the film has volunteered to solve.
I understand the excitement. I also think Marvel has chosen a reassuringly familiar star at the very moment it should be making us hungry for an unfamiliar villain. To me, the casting betrays a lack of confidence in making us care about someone new.
The new synopsis, reported by GamesRadar on November 6, promises rival superhero teams confronting a threat together. It is a huge invitation. Yet the question I keep coming back to is smaller: when Doom speaks, will I be interested in him, or pleased to hear Downey again?
Marvel announced the casting at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024. Downey's own four-word response, recorded by Disney's D23, remains the neatest description of the challenge. The actor is returning in a different role. That does not establish that Doom is Tony Stark, and no theory about a secret identity is needed to find the decision questionable.
Let the villain earn the room
There is a strong defence of the casting: an actor should be allowed to act. A recognisable voice can become unsettling when it belongs to someone you cannot trust. Downey could use our warmth towards him against us. Refusing to consider that possibility would be a dreary way to watch a film.
But the film will have to earn that effect. Recognition cannot do all the work. I want Doom to have an authority that survives the novelty of who is playing him, to make a decision that fascinates me because it is his. If the pleasure is mostly spotting a familiar mannerism under a new costume, the villain will keep losing the scene to the actor's previous employment.
A less familiar performer would get to introduce Doom without every gesture inviting a comparison. Downey has to create a new character while the audience is already having a reunion. I would rather meet the villain without that distraction.
The performance I want to be wrong about
Go back to Iron Man before making up your mind. Watch how much of the pleasure comes from wanting to spend time with Tony Stark even when he makes that difficult. That attachment is an achievement. It is also exactly what Doom will have to contend with.
My objection is to Marvel making that attachment the starting point again. I want a new villain to expand what these films can feel like, rather than reassure me that my favourite actor is still around. I would have preferred someone whose arrival felt less like a welcome back.
Then give Avengers: Doomsday the chance to prove that preference wrong. Watch for the moment you stop comparing. If Downey can make Doom absorb your attention so completely that Tony Stark becomes irrelevant, the casting will have achieved something worth defending. Applause for his return cannot answer that question. The performance has to.
