It’s simmering now.
By now, the buzz and the low hum surrounding Avengers: Doomsday is noticeable to the general populace. It’s louder for the faithful but we’ll get to them in a minute. Right now, at this moment, I want to focus on the average moviegoer. They know something is going on, they know it’s coming but they aren’t hyped yet. They’ve likely heard about trailers for another Marvel movie coming out but they haven’t pre-purchased tickets. They haven’t gotten the T-shirts out of storage and thought yet about the group they need to start coordinating with. They just know that RDJ is coming back as Doom. They’re still safely tucked in their beds at night, not worried about the implications of this sentence.
And then there are the faithful.
We never forgot the old ways. We kept the T-shirts in rotation, proudly wearing our faded shield or Mjolnir, waiting for the announcements we knew were coming. We pulled out the disused countdown with each announcement, overanalyzed every trailer and photo of Chris Evans’ arms and excitedly got the old gang together when the date trailer was released. When the RDJ announcement was made at the sacred grounds of Hall H, we were the ones screaming into the ethos about here we go again. The low hum that the average moviegoer hears is a loud shrill siren at a frequency we are automatically tuned to hear.
We trust in Lord Feige and the Russo sages that this is the plan and has been the plan all along. The Plan. That’s what the faithful have kept fervent watch for the entire time from the moment the end credits rolled on Endgame. The Plan has obviously taken some unexpected twists from that initial time but that is to be expected. No, we weren’t expecting the switch to Doom or the Russo’s return. Those were fever dreams that seemed out of the realm of possible. We believed we’d seen the last of Tom Hiddleston as Loki; no, for real, we thought the end of the series was really it for our favorite trickster god. But we should known better. We just didn’t want to have hope and then nothing ever came. But that spark was still there. And here we are now, salivating and waiting for the arrival of Doom.
The hype is at an all-time fever pitch for the faithful, and we are ready, willing and able to sound the call for the advent of Doom.
Lyndsey Beatty is editor-in-chief of Gaming Insurrection. She can be reached by email at lyndseyb@gaminginsurrection.com
