According to GamesRadar+, Robert Downey Jr. responded with characteristic flair when confronted with the news of his casting as Victor von Doom — a role that nobody saw coming and everybody is still processing.
From Iron Man to Iron Mask
If you told any Marvel fan five years ago that Tony Stark would return to the MCU wearing Doom's armor, they'd have laughed you out of the theater. And yet here we are. RDJ's return isn't a resurrection of the beloved billionaire genius — it's something far more audacious: a complete character reinvention that reframes what it even means to bring a legacy actor back to a franchise. Doctor Doom is one of Marvel's most iconic villains, a man who believes his iron will and superior intellect make him the only person fit to rule the world. Sound familiar? The casting is either deeply ironic or deeply intentional, and either way, it's a genius move.
This also throws open the door to some massive fancasting conversations. Who faces off against this Doom? The Fantastic Four are the obvious answer, but with the Avengers roster in flux and the multiverse still very much in play, the possibilities sprawl in every direction. This is exactly the kind of casting shake-up that makes the fancasting community go into overdrive.
What myCast Fans Were Predicting
Before Marvel dropped this bombshell, the myCast community had been busy building their own dream versions of a Doctor Doom project — and the results are genuinely fascinating to look at now through the lens of RDJ's confirmed casting.
Over on the Doctor Doom story, which has collected 12 votes across 8 roles, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau led the pack for the title role with 5 votes — a pick that makes a lot of sense on paper. The Game of Thrones veteran has the commanding physical presence and the regal menace that Doom demands on the page. That same story saw fans pair him with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as Reed Richards and Sue Storm respectively, each pulling 2 votes — a Fantastic Four dream team that the internet has been shipping since Krasinski's brief MCU cameo.
Meanwhile, the story tells a different tale, with earning the top spot as Victor von Doom with 2 votes. Post-Oppenheimer, post-Peaky Blinders, Murphy's stock as a prestige villain has never been higher, and honestly? It's not hard to see why fans went there. That same story also features some creative swings, including as Mordo and as Kaecilius — a Doctor Strange-adjacent lineup that suggests some fans were imagining Doom crashing the Sorcerer Supreme's corner of the MCU.