Promotional material for Marvel’s upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday hints at a possible explanation for why three members of the Fantastic Four are absent when Destino encounters Franklin Richards. The theory links a baseball field sequence to the final scene of I Fantastici 4 – Gli inizi, though Marvel has not confirmed that the two moments happen at the same time.
The Baseball Field Sequence and the Missing Family Members
The promotional footage, produced as part of a collaboration with Major League Baseball, features Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm in a sports stadium setting. The three characters take part in the event and receive celebration on the field. Sue Storm does not appear alongside them in the specific sequence cited by the theory. This particular arrangement drew attention because Reed, Ben, and Johnny are also missing from the encounter between Destino and Franklin Richards.
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The hypothesis suggests that the three heroes remain at the stadium while Sue stays behind with her son at the Baxter Building. Such an explanation would provide narrative context for the arrival of the character played by Robert Downey Jr. The connection is plausible on a story level, but it hinges on an unproven assumption: that the two scenes occur simultaneously. Promotional material frequently combines disparate footage or uses specially created imagery. Without explicit confirmation, the baseball scene does not provide a definitive answer to the narrative mystery.
The Final Scene in I Fantastici 4 – Gli inizi
The additional scene attached to I Fantastici 4 – Gli inizi jumps forward four years from the primary events of the film. Sue leaves briefly to retrieve a book and returns to find Destino standing beside Franklin. The film cuts away before revealing the purpose of the visit or its immediate aftermath. The absence of the other family members leaves a significant narrative gap, but it does not establish that they were attacked, eliminated, or purposefully lured away.
The baseball theory offers an alternative explanation that avoids assuming an off-screen confrontation. At the same time, the four-year time jump requires careful interpretation. The interval indicates how much time has passed, but it does not guarantee that the intervening years were uneventful. The film selects a specific moment to reveal, leaving the period between the main story and the scene largely unchronicled.
Unclear Intentions of Destino
One line of the theory proposes that Destino initially presents himself as someone to collaborate with against the threat of incursions. Under this reading, the visit to Franklin serves a different function than an immediate attack. A subsequent betrayal would make the eventual conflict with Reed and Sue far more personal. However, this remains an interpretation rather than an official plot description.
The mere presence of the character near the child does not clarify his ultimate objectives. Promotional images showing friction between Destino, Reed Richards, and Thor highlight upcoming confrontations without establishing their chronological order. The exact mechanism that transitions the characters from an initial meeting to a full-scale conflict remains one of the central questions.
The Centrality of the Rivalry with Reed Richards
In the comics, the rivalry between Destino and Reed Richards forms the core of their respective character arcs. Bringing the antagonist into the MCU through a team-up film like Avengers: Doomsday does not erase that foundational rivalry; instead, it provides a broader context for its development. The theory treats the visit to Franklin as the groundwork for a conflict that operates on both a familial and a universal scale.
Establishing whether Reed plays a decisive role in Avengers: Secret Wars remains speculative rather than factual based on available scenes. The baseball field footage offers a potential explanation for where three members of the family are stationed while Destino visits the Baxter Building. For now, the connection functions as a visual reading of promotional material, with the final verdict resting on how Avengers: Doomsday establishes its internal timeline.
