5 Things the MCU Will Change From Secret Wars (2015)
By Jimigrimm
Secret Wars is coming to the MCU.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters December 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars follows in December 2027. Robert Downey Jr. is back as Doctor Doom. The Russo Brothers are directing. The biggest cast in MCU history is assembled. This is the endgame of the endgame.
But if you’ve read Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars (2015), you already know the MCU can’t adapt it page for page. The comic is massive, built on nearly a decade of Fantastic Four and Avengers continuity that the MCU simply doesn’t have yet. Hickman spent years planting seeds across multiple titles before pulling them together into one of the most ambitious event comics Marvel has ever published.
The MCU is going to change things. And honestly? That’s fine. Because the changes they’re going to make might actually improve the story for the screen. Here’s what’s going to be different and why it works.
Doom Won't Take Reed Richards' Family
In the comic, one of the most devastating moments comes when Doctor Doom takes Reed Richards’ family as his own on Battleworld. Sue Storm becomes Doom’s wife. Franklin and Valeria call Doom their father. Reed is erased from his own family. It’s the ultimate power move from a man who spent his entire life in Reed’s shadow. When Doom finally becomes God, he doesn’t just beat Reed. He replaces him.
It’s one of the most gut-wrenching moments in Marvel Comics history. And the MCU almost certainly won’t do it.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn’t release until July 2025. That gives the audience one movie to get to know Reed, Sue, Franklin, and Valeria before Doomsday arrives. One movie isn’t enough to build the decades-long rivalry between Doom and Reed that makes this moment land. You need to feel that obsession, that jealousy, that twisted respect Doom has for Reed before stealing his family means anything.
The MCU will probably have Doom take something from the heroes, but it’ll be something the audience has spent 15 years investing in. The Avengers themselves. The Sacred Timeline. Earth-616’s place at the center of the multiverse. Those carry weight because we’ve been living in them since 2008. Doom stealing Reed’s family is devastating in the comics. In the MCU right now, it would feel rushed. Expect the pivot.
Battleworld Will Be Smaller and More Focused
Comic book Battleworld is enormous. It’s a patchwork planet stitched together from the ruins of dead universes, with dozens of distinct regions. The Marvel Zombies domain. The Age of Apocalypse domain. The Old Man Logan wasteland. Weirdworld. The Deadlands. Each region had its own rules, its own barons appointed by Doom, and its own version of Marvel history playing out. Hickman and the creative team used over 40 tie-in series to explore all of it.
The MCU doesn’t have that kind of narrative real estate. An Avengers movie runs two and a half to three hours. Even the longest MCU film ever can’t service 20 different Battleworld locations and still tell a coherent story. And honestly, it doesn’t need to.
Expect the MCU’s Battleworld to be focused. Three to five key locations built around characters the audience already knows. Maybe one domain is ruled by a variant Tony Stark. Maybe another is a wasteland controlled by a corrupted Wanda. Maybe there’s a Sakaar-style gladiator zone overseen by Hulk. The point is, every domain will have a familiar face and direct emotional stakes.
Fewer domains. Higher stakes. Every location matters. That’s how you translate a sprawling comic event into a movie that actually works.
The Beyonders Will Be Replaced by Something the MCU Already Built
In the comics, the Beyonders are cosmic entities existing outside the multiverse who are systematically destroying universes through incursions. Doom kills them, steals their power, and uses it to build Battleworld. They’re the ultimate threat behind the ultimate threat.
They’re also nearly impossible to explain in a movie without grinding the story to a halt.
The MCU already has a cleaner mechanism for why the multiverse is dying. He Who Remains created the Sacred Timeline. Sylvie killed him. The multiverse branched out of control. Loki is sitting at the center of it trying to hold everything together. That’s the setup, and it’s already in place.
Introducing the Beyonders on top of all of that would mean explaining who they are, why they matter, how they’re different from He Who Remains, and why Doom can kill them when no one else could. That’s too much new mythology for a story that’s supposed to be a culmination, not an introduction.
Instead, the multiverse will collapse on its own because there’s no one holding the structure together anymore. Doom doesn’t kill cosmic entities to gain power. He finds a way to harness the dying multiverse’s energy and reshape what’s left. Same result. Simpler path. And it keeps the focus on characters we already know instead of abstract beings introduced two movies before the finale.
Tony Stark's Role Will Be the Emotional Center of Everything
In Hickman’s Secret Wars, Tony Stark is barely a factor. He’s part of the group that survives the multiverse’s collapse, but the story belongs to Reed Richards and Doctor Doom. Tony helps. He’s smart. But it’s not his story.
The MCU version will flip that completely. And you already know why.
Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doctor Doom. Marvel didn’t bring back the biggest star in their franchise history for a supporting role. Whether RDJ is playing a variant Tony Stark who became Doom, or Victor Von Doom who happens to share Tony’s face, or something nobody has predicted yet, the connection between Tony Stark and Doctor Doom will be the emotional core of this story.
Think about what that means for the other characters. Peter Parker seeing the face of his mentor on the man trying to destroy everything. Pepper Potts confronting someone who looks exactly like the husband she lost. The Avengers fighting a villain who wears the face of the man who started it all.
The comic could keep Tony on the sidelines because Reed was the counterpoint to Doom. The MCU can’t do that because RDJ IS Doom now. That single casting decision fundamentally changes the entire story. And it might make it better, because instead of a philosophical battle between two geniuses most casual fans barely know, you get an emotional war between a fallen hero’s legacy and the villain wearing his face.
The Real Conflict Won't Be Heroes vs Doom. It'll Be Heroes vs Each Other Over What to Do About Doom.
In the comic, the endgame is clear. The heroes fight God Emperor Doom. Reed Richards confronts him. Doom admits Reed would have done a better job with godlike power. The heroes win. Reality gets rebuilt.
The MCU won’t make it that simple. Because it never does.
Civil War worked because it was Avengers against Avengers. Infinity War’s tension came from heroes being scattered and unable to unite. Endgame’s climax landed because everyone finally came together after failing apart. The MCU’s best moments don’t come from punching the villain. They come from the heroes disagreeing about how to handle the villain.
Now apply that to Secret Wars. Doom builds Battleworld. It’s terrible, but it’s stable. Billions of people are alive inside it. Do you destroy Doom’s world and gamble on rebuilding the multiverse from scratch, knowing trillions might die in the process? Or do you accept Doom’s rule because the alternative is extinction?
Captain America says tear it down. Doctor Strange says negotiate. Spider-Man says there has to be a way to save everyone. Wolverine says kill Doom and deal with the fallout. Wanda sees Battleworld as a chance to rewrite the trauma she’s been carrying since Westview.
That’s not just a superhero fight. That’s a moral crisis with no clean answer. And THAT is more interesting than “everyone teams up to punch the big bad.” The heroes won’t just fight Doom. They’ll fight each other over what Doom represents. And that’s where the real drama lives.
What Do You Think the MCU Will Change?
These are the changes I see coming based on what the comics built and what the MCU has in place. But Secret Wars is still over a year away, and Marvel has surprised us before.
What changes are you expecting? What do you WANT them to keep from the comics? And if you’ve read Hickman’s run, what’s the one moment you’re hoping makes it to the screen no matter what?
Drop it in the comments. This is the kind of conversation that’s going to get better the more people weigh in.
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