By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Marvel incited serious fan interest with news that Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to the MCU in Doomsday, but not as Tony Stark…instead, he will somehow be playing the Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom. Since then, it has been reported that Chris Evans and Haley Atwell will also be returning, and while most fans assume they will similarly be playing Variants, one enticing Marvel fan theory says otherwise. According to this theory from Reddit user WillemDaFriends, their portion of the film will take place in the alternate past that Steve Rogers traveled to in Endgame, and his temporal shenanigans created the alternate Earth setting of Fantastic Four.
The Theory
To understand the role of Chris Evans and Haley Atwell’s characters in this Marvel theory, you may need a primer on both the past and the future of this cinematic universe. In Endgame, Captain America used the Quantum Realm to travel throughout the past and return each Infinity Stone where it came from. But then he goes romantically rogue and stays in the past to enjoy a life with Peggy Carter…the life he essentially missed out on once he got frozen in ice only to wake up in the present day.
Now, the next part doesn’t involve Chris Evans directly, but instead this Marvel theory touches on a possible explanation for the setting of the upcoming Fantastic Four film. We don’t know that much about the first movie featuring Marvel’s first family, but we do know that it is a ‘60s period piece set in an alternate Earth. Presumably, some of the upcoming shenanigans in Doomsday will explain (perhaps with either a hard or soft reboot) how characters from half a century ago and a multiverse away end up in the present day (not to mention the dimension) of the Avengers and other MCU heroes.
There are any number of ways that the Fantastic Four’s multiverse could have been created. However, this Chris Evans Marvel theory holds that the Fantastic Four universe is an alternate reality that he accidentally created while traveling back in time to spend his life with Peggy Carter. This makes sense, really, since the Fantastic Four movie is set in a more retrofuturistic 1960s, the kind that Captain America may have created by providing advanced knowledge of the future.
In the world of Star Trek, Chris Evans’ character doing this would be a big no-no-, but we can only assume he’d be willing to change the future to save countless lives. How much suffering would the MCU be spared if someone could warn them about Hydra infiltrating SHIELD or about the arrival of Thanos? It’s easy to imagine Cap doing everything he can to save lives and incidentally creating a very different universe, both because of his direct actions and because various scientists would be able to study the super-soldier serum running through his veins.
Admittedly, this Chris Evans Marvel theory isn’t perfect…it doesn’t explain, for example, why an elderly Steve Rogers shows up at the end of Endgame when he is supposed to be stuck in a different dimension. Of course, we could be seeing some timey-wimey storytelling at work, and the events of Fantastic Four: First Steps and Avengers: Doomsday will possibly explain his appearance. Either way, we desperately want this theory to be true because it would mean getting to see the “real” Cap and Peggy in the upcoming movie rather than another meaningless multiversal Variant or disappointing fake-out.
