Avengers: Endgame Encore Ending Explained: All 4 New Scenes & What They Mean for Doomsday
Fair warning: this is a full spoiler breakdown of every new scene in Avengers: Endgame Encore and what it sets up for Avengers: Doomsday. Haven’t seen the re-release yet? Bookmark this, go see it, come back. For how the Hulk ended up in that bunker in the first place, read my Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained.
Avengers: Endgame Encore adds four new scenes to the 2019 film. Loki interrupts Steve and Peggy’s dance in an extended ending. Then, in the credits scenes, Doctor Doom takes Bruce Banner out of a hidden bunker, the TVA watches universes collide, and the multiverse collapse, and Doom hammers out his mask. The Russo brothers say they added these scenes to bridge Endgame and Doomsday, which opens December 18, 2026. They will not appear in Doomsday itself.
If you walked out of the theater wondering how these four scenes fit together, here is the complete Avengers: Endgame Encore ending explained from Doom’s bunker raid to that final hammer strike.
Where each scene plays
| Scene | Where it plays | What it sets up |
|---|---|---|
| Loki at Steve and Peggy’s door | Extended ending, before the credits | The TVA’s interest in Steve’s timeline |
| Doom takes Bruce Banner | Credits scene | Doom recruiting before Doomsday starts |
| The TVA sees the multiverse collapse | Credits scene | Why different universes collide |
| Doom forges his mask | Credits scene | The Tony Stark and Doom mirror |
What Happens in the Loki Scene?
Our Avengers: Endgame Encore ending explained breakdown starts with the scene that changes Steve Rogers’ original ending. Endgame originally ends with Steve staying in the past to dance with Peggy Carter. The Encore cut adds a tag to that ending. A knock interrupts the dance; Peggy answers while Steve stays out of sight, and Loki is at the door in his TVA clothes from the Loki series. Peggy asks whether she can help him. He says no, but he can help them, and he clearly knows Steve is there.
The Russos have been direct about what this moment is. At a Q&A after a New York screening, Anthony Russo said the film plays one beat past where Steve’s story ended with Peggy, and that “that’s where Doomsday is born,” as Murphy’s Multiverse reported. He also said the team saw the original as the perfect ending for Steve, per their Empire interview. Joe Russo added that they recreated the scene with the same lighting, lenses, and set, as ComicBookMovie reports.
Which Loki Is This?
Officially, nobody has said. Coverage describes him as seemingly the TVA version, and Anthony Russo has teased that Doomsday brings a new incarnation of the character. The Doomsday trailer also shows Loki handing someone a TVA card, and fans have had a field day with the 12-digit ID on it (414-620701-401220). One popular decode reads it as a case file: 414 for Loki, 620701 for Doom’s comic debut in Fantastic Four #5 from July 1962, and 401220 for December 20, 1940, the day Captain America Comics #1 hit newsstands. Is that the intended reading? The math is wild enough that I want it to be true, but it’s fan decoding, not confirmation, and fans disagree on the details.
If the card is meant for Steve and the wedding ring on the hand holding it points that way, my theory is that the visit concerns the unstable branch Steve created by staying with Peggy. Marvel has confirmed that both Peggy and Loki return in Doomsday, announced at its San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel in July, per Yahoo Entertainment.
Does Steve Cause the Multiverse Crisis?
The scene does not confirm that. It ends before Loki explains anything, and while Russo says Doomsday begins here, he did not say Steve, Peggy or Loki causes the crisis. Loki showing up is not the same as blame.
That said, widely circulated plot leaks from earlier this year originating with scooper MyTimeToShineHello and covered by ComicBookMovie claim Loki shows up to warn Steve that the TVA is coming to prune his branched timeline because Steve was never supposed to stay or start a family there. According to those same leaks, Loki relocates Steve, Peggy, and their son to Earth-828, the Fantastic Four’s home universe, where they can hide because they never existed there, and leaves Steve a card he can use to make contact again. If that card is the one from the Doomsday trailer, the leak and the footage fit together neatly.
And here’s the uncomfortable part: the leaks claim Steve’s presence on Earth-828 is itself the anomaly that puts that universe on an incursion collision course. If that leak is accurate, Steve didn’t cause the entire multiverse collapse, but his presence may have lit one of the fuses.
I’ll be honest, this is the scene I find hardest to judge. Steve’s ending worked precisely because it felt closed, and now his timeline matters enough for the TVA to show up at his door.
Why Does Doctor Doom Take Bruce Banner?
The mid-credits scene is set after Spider-Man: Brand New Day, after a Hulk incident Banner describes as his first in about a decade. He has locked himself in an underground bunker, working on a gamma-suppressing serum so nobody else gets hurt, and he is filming a video update on his research, the way Tony Stark used to. He says nothing gets in or out. Then Doom’s voice cuts in, and the Hulk comes out. When the footage returns, Banner and Doom are gone, and a green glow lights up symbols on the floor.
Why Does Doom Want Banner?
It has not been confirmed. Joe Russo said Doom’s interest may extend beyond Banner and that Banner is certainly involved in the story built around Doom. He declined to confirm or deny Banner’s appearance in Doomsday, while Anthony added that some actors in the film have not been announced. ComicBookMovie’s write-up covers the full exchange.
Here’s a pattern I can’t unsee. In the credits scene of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Doom reaches for Franklin Richards. Now he takes Banner from a bunker designed to keep everyone out. My bet: Doom is building a roster. The leaks support the basic shape of that theory, if not necessarily the reason. The same scooper has claimed that Doom is collecting people connected to the Time Stone, the TVA, or the time heist, with Banner supposedly first on the list. Meanwhile, the leaked plot claims Doom and Reed Richards build massive cannons on the surviving Earths, supposedly to separate colliding universes.
So why Banner? My theory, and it is only a theory, is that it’s not about the Hulk’s muscle. If you’re building multiversal machines, you want the mind behind gamma-suppression research. Banner’s work is one of the MCU’s clearest examples of technology designed to control an uncontrollable energy source. That makes his scientific expertise potentially far more valuable to Doom than his strength.
How Does Banner’s Research Connect to Brand New Day?
In Brand New Day, Peter adapts technology from Banner’s Hulk-suppression research to build himself an inhibitor chip, then builds a stronger version to neutralize Jean Grey, and the schematics end up loose in the world. In Encore, Banner is again working on suppressing the Hulk.
We know the same area of research shows up in both films. We do not know that Doom took Banner because of it. That is my theory, not a confirmed plot point. But two films now put suppression technology in the story, and Doom’s decision to take the Hulk himself is hard to read without it.
What Does the TVA Scene Reveal?
According to Variety, the scene takes place inside the TVA with Mobius, Casey, Ouroboros, and Miss Minutes. Miss Minutes reminds the staff that their job is to keep universes separate, and then they notice two Earths about to collide in an incursion. The two worlds begin firing on each other. Then it escalates to two incursions, twenty, a hundred, thousands by the end, and it becomes clear the entire multiverse is collapsing. Early reports, collected by Yahoo Entertainment from a leaked Korean screening, say one of the colliding worlds is the Fox X-Men universe, and describe a picture of Loki on the TVA wall and the timelines arranged like a tree, which fits Loki holding the multiverse together as the God of Stories.
What Is an Incursion?
An incursion is when two universes collide, usually destroying one or both of them. The MCU introduced the idea in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where an incursion is described as a collision between universes with a huge loss of life. Encore shows it on a far bigger scale than one collision.
Why Is the TVA Scene So Important?
Joe Russo called it the most profound thing to ever happen to the MCU, the perceived end of times, with the TVA built to prevent exactly this collapse. He said it is critical to Doomsday’s storytelling. Anthony described it as the unifying principle behind the collision of the X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four universes.
That lines up with the official Doomsday synopsis on Marvel.com, which says heroes from three distinct universes are set on a deadly collision course. The synopsis does not name the universes, but ABC News reads them as the main MCU, the Fantastic Four’s world, and the X-Men’s. This scene is the mechanism behind that collision.
What Does Doom’s Mask Scene Mean?
The post-credits scene shows Doom hammering out his mask. The original Endgame has no end-credits scene, only a hammering sound as a tribute to Tony Stark building his first suit in Iron Man. Encore reuses that sound, and Robert Downey Jr. now plays Doom, so a heroic tribute becomes the sound of a villain being made. Joe Russo said the scene was planned all along, that there is symmetry at play, and that it examines good and evil.
Of the four new scenes, this is the one that got me. Cheap trick, maybe. It works.
Is Doctor Doom a Tony Stark Variant?
The scene does not confirm that, and no source says so. One man built armor to protect people, and the other builds a mask to rule them, with the same actor at the center of both. My own read, for what it’s worth, is that this is a deliberate mirror, not a secret identity reveal.
What Does the Avengers: Endgame Encore Ending Set Up for Doomsday?
The four scenes widen like a lens: Steve and Peggy, then Doom taking Banner, then worlds collapsing, then Doom himself. Together they suggest Steve’s timeline matters again, Doom is already acting before the crisis peaks, the multiverse is in collapse, and Doom is the figure connecting all of it. Anthony Russo also said there are clues in things said during Endgame that pay off in Doomsday. The story is set to continue in Avengers: Secret Wars, currently dated December 17, 2027, according to tbreak.
Do You Need to Watch Encore Before Doomsday?
The Russos have called it the one truly required viewing before Doomsday, per SlashFilm. Anthony Russo says Doomsday starts from that Loki scene. I wouldn’t skip it.
Unanswered Questions
- Which Loki is this? My bet: the Russos’ new-incarnation line means Doomsday does not simply hand back the Loki we already know.
- Why does Doom want Banner? My bet: he is building a roster, and Franklin Richards plus Banner points that way.
- Is Banner’s research the reason? My bet: it is part of it, but nothing confirms that.
- Do Steve and Peggy cause the collapse? My bet: their timeline is part of the answer, not the whole answer.
- Is Doom a Tony Stark variant? My bet: no, and the mask scene is a mirror on purpose.
Avengers: Endgame Encore ending explained faq
How many new scenes does Avengers: Endgame Encore add?
Four, totalling about four minutes of footage. Loki interrupts Steve and Peggy in an extended ending, and three credits scenes show Doctor Doom taking Bruce Banner, the TVA watching universes collide, and Doom forging his mask.
Are the Endgame Encore scenes in Avengers: Doomsday?
No. The Russo brothers say they were added to bridge the two films and will not appear in Doomsday itself.
Why does Doctor Doom take Bruce Banner in Endgame Encore?
The film does not explicitly reveal Doom’s plan, showing only that he tells Banner, “I’m here to collect you.” Joe Russo has teased that Banner is involved in Doom’s story, while popular fan theories suggest that Doom is building a roster of the multiverse’s greatest engineers to help him manipulate the collapsing timelines.
Which Loki appears in Endgame Encore?
It is not officially named on screen; he wears TVA clothing, and Anthony Russo has teased a “new incarnation” of the character. My theory is that this Loki is directly connected to the version seen in the Doomsday trailer, where he hands over a TVA access card with the ID 414-620701-401220. The number has been interpreted as containing references to Captain America’s comic debut, Doctor Doom’s debut, and the moment Loki arrived on Earth in The Avengers. If that interpretation is intentional, it could be another clue connecting Loki’s intervention with Doom and Steve Rogers’ timeline.
Does Steve Rogers cause the multiverse crisis in Endgame Encore?
The scene does not confirm that Steve or Peggy triggered the collapse, though Anthony Russo stated this beat is “where Doomsday is born.” My theory is that Steve’s branched timeline is a major catalyst. If Loki intervenes to hide Steve and Peggy in an alternate reality like Earth-828, that temporal displacement could be the exact spark that puts these universes on a direct collision course.
Does the mask scene make Doctor Doom a Tony Stark variant?
No. While the scene reuses the iconic metallic hammering sound associated with Tony Stark forging the Mark I suit in 2008, no official source links the two characters as variants. My read is that this is a deliberate cinematic mirror showing the birth of Marvel’s greatest villain using the same audio motif associated with the birth of its greatest hero.
What is an incursion in the MCU?
An incursion occurs when the dimensional boundary between two universes breaks down, causing them to collide and wipe out one or both realities. The concept was first introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Do I need to watch Endgame Encore before Avengers: Doomsday?
The Russos have labeled it the single required piece of viewing before Doomsday, noting that the scene at Steve and Peggy’s house is the exact beat where the new film begins. That said, I personally don’t think you’ll be completely lost if you skip it Marvel can always catch casual viewers up with a line of dialogue or a recap. Still, watching these four minutes gives you firsthand context for why the multiverse starts crashing down.
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