Doctor Doom has not even fully appeared on screen yet, and he has already done something no other Marvel villain has managed to do. A single piece of official text from an upcoming Marvel Studios book has officially placed Robert Downey Jr.’s Victor von Doom above Thanos and Galactus in the MCU power hierarchy. The reveal is not a fan theory or a rumour. It comes directly from a licensed Marvel publication, and it has completely rewritten how dangerous the next Avengers villain is supposed to be.
The book, titled From Endgame to Doomsday: A Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary: Avengers, Allies, and Foes, is a canon-adjacent guide releasing alongside the film. A passage from the book leaked online in early November 2026, and it describes the threat facing the heroes in blunt terms. The passage says the heroes must “stand together to confront a force far greater than even Thanos or Galactus”. That line is a direct, official comparison. Marvel is not hinting anymore. The studio is stating, in print, that Doctor Doom outclasses the two villains who defined the previous two phases of the MCU.
The Book Passage That Changes the Power Scale
The leaked text focuses on Shuri (the new Black Panther) and Ben Grimm (The Thing). It explains that both characters are pushed into roles they never expected, and they must face something bigger than anything the Avengers have previously survived.
“Neither Shuri nor Ben Grimm ever expected to become their planet’s defenders… Now they must stand together to confront a force far greater than even Thanos or Galactus.”
Thanos wiped out half of all life with the snap of his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War. Galactus threatened to consume entire worlds in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The book positions both of them as secondary threats compared to Doom. The comparison is not vague. It is placed directly in the character description, which means Marvel wants readers and viewers to understand Doom’s threat level before the film even releases.
Why the Thanos Comparison Cuts So Deep
Thanos was the villain who broke the Avengers. He killed Loki in front of Thor, he forced the heroes to lose in Infinity War, and his victory was only undone through time travel and Tony Stark’s death in Endgame. For seven years, Thanos has been the benchmark for MCU villainy.
The visual dictionary passage strips that benchmark away. It does not say Doom is equal to Thanos. It says Doom is greater. The phrasing leaves no room for interpretation.
Thor’s own dialogue in the Avengers: Doomsday trailer reinforces the same idea. Thor says he has fought warriors far stronger than the assembled heroes, and they died. He adds that they died facing threats that scared him “far less than this one”. Thor is the character who beheaded Thanos. If Thor is openly afraid of Doom, the film is telling the audience that Doom operates on a different level entirely.
The Galactus Factor: Doom Has Already Beaten Cosmic Power in the Comics
Galactus is not a street-level villain. He is a cosmic entity who consumes planets to survive. The Fantastic Four: First Steps showed how much sacrifice it took just to push Galactus away from Earth. Sue Storm drained her own life force to move him toward a portal, and Reed Richards had to outthink him rather than overpower him.
In Marvel Comics, Doctor Doom has done something far more direct. During the original Secret Wars storyline in 1984, Doom built a device that allowed him to steal the Power Cosmic from Galactus. He then used that stolen power to confront the Beyonder, a being with reality-altering abilities, and he took the Beyonder’s power as well. Doom did not just fight Galactus. He drained him.
A later storyline, Marvel Two-In-One by Chip Zdarsky and Valerio Schiti, went even further. It showed a version of Doctor Doom who had stolen Galactus’s role entirely, becoming the Devourer of Worlds himself. The MCU has not confirmed that the film will adapt this exact plot. But the visual dictionary’s comparison to Galactus is not random. Doom has a long comic history of treating cosmic-level power as something he can take, not something he has to fear.
The Secret Wars Panel Marvel Is Openly Referencing
The brutal humiliation of Thanos is not limited to a text description. Marvel has already recreated the most famous Doctor Doom-versus-Thanos moment in promotional material. A light show at a Disney Marketing Expo in Shanghai displayed the moment from Secret Wars (2015) #8 where Doom kills Thanos in a single strike.
In that comic scene, Thanos mocks Doom as a “weak god” and a “pretender.” Thanos boasts that he does not need the Infinity Gauntlet to defeat Doom. Doom responds by punching through Thanos’s chest, grabbing his spine, and ripping his skeleton out of his body. The image is one of the most gruesome villain deaths in Marvel Comics history. Doom holds Thanos’s skull and spine in his hands afterward.
The Shanghai light show used that exact image. Fans who saw photos from the event immediately connected it to Avengers: Doomsday. Marvel has not confirmed that the film will show the spine-ripping moment on screen. But the studio chose to feature that specific comic panel in official promotional material, which is a deliberate signal about how the film views the Thanos-Doom relationship.
Doom Stopping Stormbreaker Proves the Point Without Any Ambiguity
The clearest evidence of Doom’s superiority comes from the Avengers: Doomsday trailer itself. The footage shows Thor charging at Doctor Doom with Stormbreaker, the same axe that was buried in Thanos’s chest in Infinity War.
Doom stops the axe with two fingers. A fully powered Thor, who has already learned from his mistake of not going for the head, swings with everything he has. Doom does not move. A green flash of magic appears around the axe, and the weapon freezes in mid-air.
Compare that to Thanos. In Infinity War, Thanos had all six Infinity Stones and still could not stop Stormbreaker. The axe drove into his chest and left lasting damage. Thanos survived, but he was hurt. He told Thor that he should have gone for the head, and days later Thor decapitated him. Doom does not get hit at all. He does not need a gauntlet. He uses magic, and he does it without visible effort.
The trailer makes the power difference visual and immediate. Thanos was physically overwhelmed by Stormbreaker despite having the most powerful weapons in the universe. Doom treats the same attack as a minor inconvenience.
The Magic Advantage Thanos Never Had
The reason Doom can stop Stormbreaker is not that his armour is stronger than Thanos’s skin. It is because Doctor Doom is a sorcerer. His mother gave him a natural connection to magic, and he trained with figures like Morgana le Fay in the comics. The MCU has already shown that magic can affect Thor’s weapons in ways physical power cannot.
Thanos relied on the Infinity Gauntlet and the Infinity Stones. His power was borrowed from objects. When the stones were taken away or countered, Thanos was still formidable, but he was not unbeatable. Doom’s power comes from himself. He combines genius-level intellect, advanced technology, and sorcery. Robert Downey Jr. himself has said that Doom is stronger than Thanos for this exact reason. The actor pointed out that Thanos depends on the gauntlet, while Doom relies on his own mind and magical ability.
That distinction matters for the visual dictionary’s claim. Thanos at his peak needed external power. Doom does not. The book is comparing Doom to Thanos and Galactus and saying that Doom is greater, which implies that Doom’s own abilities, without any cosmic artefact, already exceed what those villains could do with their full arsenals.
What This Means for the Heroes Who Fought Thanos and Galactus
The visual dictionary does not just insult Thanos and Galactus. It quietly lists the heroes who have already survived those villains and suggests that their past experience will not be enough this time.
Thor watched Thanos kill Loki and Heimdall. He buried Stormbreaker in Thanos’s chest and later cut off his head. Loki was murdered by Thanos in the opening of Infinity War. Steve Rogers held Thanos’s gauntlet open with his bare hands and later wielded Mjolnir against him. Sue Storm died stopping Galactus, and Reed Richards refused Galactus’s deal and built the plan that saved Earth. Ben Grimm fought Galactus hand-to-hand in the streets of New York.
Every one of those heroes has a direct history with the two villains the book names. The passage says they are facing something greater than both of them combined. Marvel is using the heroes’ own trauma to raise the stakes. The people who beat Thanos and survived Galactus are now being told, in official print, that their previous victories do not prepare them for Doom.
The Battleworld Setup That Gives Doom God-Level Status
The visual dictionary comparison is not the only signal that Doom is operating above Thanos and Galactus. The Multiverse Saga is set to conclude with Avengers: Secret Wars, and the comic storyline that film is named after ends with Doom becoming God Emperor Doom.
In the 2015 Secret Wars comic, Doom steals the power of the Beyonders, a race of nearly omnipotent beings. He uses that power to stitch together the remnants of destroyed universes into a patchwork planet called Battleworld. He rules Battleworld as a god. Thanos is one of the villains who attacks Doom’s citadel during that story, and Doom kills him without hesitation.
Avengers: Doomsday is positioned as the film that sets up Secret Wars. The film does not need to show Doom stealing Beyonder power yet. It only needs to establish that Doom is already beyond Thanos and Galactus before that upgrade happens. The visual dictionary does exactly that. It tells the audience that even before any cosmic power theft, Doom is already the most dangerous threat the MCU has seen.
The Release Details and Box Office Reality
Avengers: Doomsday is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, the brothers who directed Infinity War and Endgame. The screenplay is written by Michael Waldron, Stephen McFeely, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers. The film has a runtime of 165 minutes.
The cast includes Robert Downey Jr. as Victor von Doom, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Paul Rudd, Letitia Wright, Simu Liu, Channing Tatum, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Hayley Atwell, and Kathryn Newton, among many others.
The film releases in US theatres on December 18, 2026. It opens a day or two earlier in several international markets, with South Korea scheduled for December 16, 2026. The film is skipping an IMAX release in some territories because it shares a release date with Dune: Part Three.
Advance ticket sales in North America have already crossed $50 million three months before release. Industry projections suggest a $300 million domestic opening weekend and a worldwide total above $1 billion. Presales are reportedly outselling Dune: Part Three by a ratio of between 3.2-to-1 and 4-to-1. Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Kevin Feige are confirmed to visit South Korea for promotional activities.
The Visual Dictionary Is the Final Piece of the Build-Up
The From Endgame to Doomsday visual dictionary is available for pre-order and catalogues every MCU event from Avengers: Endgame onward. It includes character profiles, locations, vehicles, weapons, and easter eggs. The Thanos and Galactus comparison is not a throwaway line buried in a random chapter. It is part of an official character description for Shuri and Ben Grimm, two heroes who are being positioned as frontline defenders against Doom.
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Marvel has spent months building Doom as a threat through trailers, promotional art, and casting announcements. The book adds a permanent, printed statement that removes any doubt. Doctor Doom is not the next Thanos. He is something beyond Thanos and Galactus, and the heroes who survived them are about to find out what that means.
Also Read: The Runes of Kof-Kol Could Be Doctor Doom’s Biggest Weakness in Avengers: Doomsday
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