The Endgame Encore post-credit scenes do considerably more than add a little promotional decoration to Marvel’s 2019 blockbuster. The cinema rerelease includes roughly three minutes of new footage that rewrites the film’s final moments, connects directly to Spider-Man: Brand-New Day and sets up Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday.

Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk and Downey Jr.’s new villain all feature in the additions. What looked like a routine rerelease has instead become homework for the next Avengers film. Marvel does enjoy assigning a syllabus.

What happens to Hulk after Spider-Man: Brand-New Day?

One added sequence takes place after the events of Spider-Man: Brand-New Day, which features Hulk fighting Peter Parker before authorities remove him from the scene.

The film reveals that Bruce Banner had been living without his green alter ego thanks to a device described as a “dampener.” Jean Grey breaks that restraint, releasing Hulk and apparently ending Banner’s period of relative calm.

In the new Endgame footage, Banner appears inside a military containment facility. He speaks to a camera about being detained, but the recording takes a turn when Doctor Doom arrives.

Downey Jr.’s voice says he is “here to collect” Hulk. The camera feed then cuts out, a roar can be heard and a mysterious sigil remains on the floor. Hulk, meanwhile, has vanished. Subtlety was not invited to the facility.

Marvel has not explained exactly what Doom does to him. One theory suggests the villain may be gathering or absorbing powers from major heroes to strengthen himself. Whatever the mechanism, the scene indicates that Ruffalo could appear in either Avengers: Doomsday or Avengers: Secret Wars, despite Marvel not previously announcing him as part of the cast.

How does Loki change the original Endgame ending?

The theatrical version of Avengers: Endgame ends with Steve Rogers returning to the past and sharing a quiet dance with Peggy Carter. It gives Chris Evans’ former Captain America the peaceful life he had missed while spending several decades saving everyone else.

Endgame Encore initially plays the scene as audiences remember it. This time, however, the credits do not immediately begin. Loki arrives at Steve and Peggy’s front door.

That appearance makes the Disney+ series Loki highly relevant to Doomsday. By the end of its second season, Loki has become the living anchor of the multiverse, holding its branching timelines together after discovering that their unchecked expansion would destroy everything.

His visit to Steve suggests he can still enter individual realities through Yggdrasil, the tree-like structure now connecting and sustaining those timelines. Viewers unfamiliar with the series may find this development slightly abrupt, in the same way that opening a textbook at chapter 14 can feel abrupt.

Trailers for Doomsday have already confirmed Evans’ return as Steve Rogers. In the footage, Doom speaks about the “stolen lives” certain characters have lived, apparently referring to Steve’s decision to travel into the past and remain with Peggy.

Fans have theorised that his choice may have caused incursions, the catastrophic collisions between universes that threaten the wider multiverse. Loki arriving at his home suggests Steve’s happy ending was never as isolated from cosmic consequences as it first appeared.

Why is Doctor Doom’s mask important?

Another addition shows a metal mask being forged in imagery deliberately reminiscent of Tony Stark building his first Iron Man armour. The sequence eventually reveals that Doctor Doom, not Stark, is creating the mask.

The parallel draws an unmistakable line between Downey Jr.’s two Marvel roles. Tony Stark died defeating Thanos in Endgame, while Downey Jr. is returning as Victor von Doom, the central threat in Doomsday.

Marvel has not yet explained whether Doom merely resembles Stark, is a multiversal variant or has some more complicated connection to him. Given the franchise’s current interest in alternate realities, several answers could technically be true at once, which is very efficient.

The forging sequence frames Doom as a dark reflection of Iron Man. Both men build identities behind metal masks, but Doom’s arrival is presented as the beginning of a much larger collapse rather than an improvised escape from captivity.

How do the TVA and X-Men enter the story?

The most consequential material returns to the Time Variance Authority, the organisation introduced in Loki. Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros and Owen Wilson’s Mobius monitor the multiverse as two realities begin colliding.

One is identified as Earth-10005, the universe associated with 20th Century Fox’s X-Men films. Patrick Stewart and several actors from the original series are confirmed to return in Doomsday, including James Marsden as Cyclops.

The sequence shows Earth-10005 and another universe “firing missiles” at each other. That conflict closely resembles Marvel’s Time Runs Out comic storyline, in which universes facing an incursion attempt to destroy one another before the collision wipes out both.

The situation then becomes considerably worse. Ouroboros reports that 3,000 universes are colliding and declares that “the multiverse is collapsing.” At that point, two worlds exchanging missiles starts to look almost restrained.

Early Doomsday trailers show the X-Men, including Channing Tatum’s Gambit, fighting the Avengers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The new TVA footage suggests the teams may not simply be confused heroes having a traditional introductory disagreement. The X-Men could be trying to destroy the MCU’s reality to preserve their own.

That would place the Avengers and Fox’s returning mutants on opposite sides of an existential choice, with Doom apparently collecting powerful figures while the structure of reality fails around them.

When are Endgame Encore and Doomsday released?

Avengers: Endgame Encore is now screening in selected cinemas. Its revised ending and additional scenes establish several major developments before the next Avengers film:

  • Doctor Doom removes Hulk from military containment.
  • Loki visits Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter in the past.
  • Doom forges a mask in a sequence echoing Iron Man.
  • The TVA detects thousands of universes colliding.
  • Earth-10005 places the returning Fox X-Men at the centre of the crisis.

Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled for release on 18 December 2026. The extra footage answers a few questions, creates several more and makes Loki season two look less like optional streaming material and more like required preparation.