Avengers: Infinity War did not merely break the box office; it broke the audience’s sense of emotional safety. The 2018 Marvel spectacle stormed theaters with a record-shattering $640.5 million worldwide opening weekend, raced to $1 billion in 11 days, and ultimately amassed $2.57 billion globally. Then Thanos erased half the universe, leaving audiences gloriously stunned and Marvel fans emotionally frigid.

Robert Downey Jr. now looks back at Avengers: Infinity War and remembers those famously stunned, frigid faces, comparing himself to the “Martha Stewart of Marvel” with perfect Downey Jr. flair.

In his CBR conversation with Joe Russo, Robert Downey Jr. revisited the strange evening when Avengers: Infinity War turned a triumphant Marvel premiere into something resembling an emotional emergency. Since Downey Jr. was hosting the Los Angeles afterparty, he cheerfully appointed himself Marvel’s “Martha Stewart,” prepared to receive the guests. The guests, unfortunately, arrived looking spiritually evacuated.

"I'm like the Martha Stewart of Marvel," Robert Downey Jr. said, which sounds charming until one considers the clientele. The Avengers cast arrived one after another, apparently ghost white and desperately attempting to return to their bodies. Downey Jr. had prepared for post-premiere merriment; instead, he encountered the cinematic equivalent of a very elegant group therapy session.

As Downey Jr. explained to CBR, the peculiar horror came from watching a superhero movie actually refuse to rescue its heroes. Joe Russo was there to revisit the audacious choice, while Robert Downey Jr. remembered seeing an audience and cast confronted with something they had scarcely witnessed before. Avengers: Infinity War had not merely ended; it had emotionally locked the doors behind itself.

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Once Avengers: Infinity War sent Marvel’s heroes home with their capes metaphorically between their legs, the obvious question becomes whether Avengers: Doomsday, a movie that has already broken a pre-sales record, plans to repeat the heartbreak.

The Infinity War comparison is hard to escape when Avengers: Doomsday is heading straight into a multiversal catastrophe. Kevin Feige has confirmed that worlds will literally collide, while Marvel’s own explanation of the Avengers: Secret Wars blueprint involves incursions destroying realities and Doctor Doom salvaging what remains. Many theories also say that all the heroes will die by the end of Doomsday, only to be resurrected again in the Battleworld, which will act as the baseline plot of Secret Wars.

Still, Marvel has not officially announced a second round of superhero misery, permanent deaths, or a full-blown Battleworld ending for Doomsday. For now, those deliciously grim details belong firmly to speculation, making the real question whether Doomsday will pull an Infinity War and leave its heroes spectacularly out of luck. 

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Do you agree that Robert Downey Jr. is the Martha Stewart of Marvel? Let us know in the comments!