Doomsday & Secret Wars Concept Art Leak Addressed By Directors

“Dammit, HYDRA.” One of the first major instances of Kevin Feige having to deal with a significant security snafu happened when the trailer for “Avengers: Age of Ultron” famously leaked online much too early and resulted in the official Marvel Twitter account tweeting out that hilarious two-word response. Over 10 years later, the studio once again had to do some damage control on an unexpected breach of their usually airtight firewalls. Recently, Marvel artist Mushk Rizvi posted (and quickly deleted) several pieces of concept art that quickly made the rounds on social media, purporting to showcase major spoilers from both “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.” Unlike last time, however, it would seem that Marvel’s strategy is to deny that these have anything to do with the upcoming blockbusters at all.

That’s the tact that returning “Avengers” directors Joe and Anthony Russo are taking, at least. In a new profile over at The Hollywood Reporter to mark the release of their newest film, “The Electric State,” the brothers were inevitably asked about a whole range of topics. In between reminiscing about their start on television shows such as “Arrested Development” and “Community,” their life-changing hiring to take the wheel of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” and their general thoughts on the future of filmmaking, the outlet snuck in one quick question about that leaked batch of concept art. When asked whether fans should be worried about spoilers, Joe Russo responded quite definitively:

“No, because that artwork was not from ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ or ‘Secret Wars.'”

Still not convinced? Anthony Russo quickly chimed in and doubled down, saying, “Nothing spoiling in there. That’s not our concept art.” Surely that puts this whole saga to rest, right? Well, not exactly…

Marvel’s reliably eagle-eyed, anti-spoiler snipers may have taken a single night off, and now they’re stuck dealing with the fallout from concept art that apparently spoil quite a few surprises from both “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.” Among those notable reveals, fans quickly gravitated towards what seemed like a medieval setting with Doctor Doom himself on a throne dispensing justice on a certain member of the Fantastic Four, an image apparently showing the makeup of the new Young Avengers team, and even a glimpse at what certainly looks like a new Black Panther. (For more details, you can check out the images courtesy of Kotaku here.)

Now, despite the seemingly official source for all this concept art and the fact that Disney quickly put out copyright hits on any account spreading the pictures around on social media, we’re supposed to believe that these somehow have nothing to do with either blockbuster to begin with? Look, nobody was expecting the Russo Brothers to gleefully cop to spoiling the plot of both event movies, of course. But surely a boilerplate disclaimer that concept art (especially at such an early juncture) hardly ever resembles the final product anyway would be in the offing … right? Wrong! Instead, the two outright deny that they personally had anything to do with that concept art or that they even are about “Doomsday” or “Secret Wars” in the first place.

The former comment is fairly easy to explain, as Marvel typically commissions concept art early on in preproduction and likely did so without directly consulting the Russos on specific plot points. The latter, however, is a bit harder to swallow given the fact that the artwork includes various members of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom, and many more who could easily end up involved in either film — or both! For now, this is a they-said/we-say situation until we finally get to see a scrap of actual footage for ourselves. Don’t hold your breath on that front, though, as “Avengers: Doomsday” is currently scheduled to arrive on May 1, 2026, with “Avengers: Secret Wars” to follow a year later on May 7, 2027.