Endgame Encore made the 2015 Fantastic Four official MCU canon, then destroyed its universe in seconds

Right, if you thought Marvel was running out of ways to squeeze a bit more life (and money) out of Avengers: Endgame, think again. The Encore release – comfortably double-dipping at cinemas – doesn't just tack on a few deleted scenes. No, no: Marvel's given it a full-on MCU multiverse tune-up. In case you fancy spoilers, they’ve crammed in four new scenes, each doing its bit to build up to Avengers: Doomsday before that lands this December. The main story’s basically untouched, but they’ve fiddled a little with Captain America’s ending, thrown in a Hulk epilogue following his cameo in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and slipped in an Iron Man/Doom mask tease for eagle-eyed fans. But the real bedlam breaks out in the post-credits sequence, and that’s what everyone’s talking about.

Avengers: Endgame Encore dropped in June 2026 as a lead-up to Avengers: Doomsday.

The TVA Scene: Multiversal Damage Report

The new post-credits bit isn’t just fan-service. The TVA (that’s the multiverse police from Loki in case you’ve managed to avoid Disney+ somehow) pops up with a catastrophic update: entire universes – some we’ve never seen officially folded into the MCU before – are being snuffed out, one after the other. A proper cull, this. A few of these Earths are well-known to Marvel obsessives, others appear to be newly invented or so obscure you’d need a dedicated wiki editor just to spot them. This scene establishes which alternate Marvel realities are getting the axe before Doomsday arrives – and, not so quietly, confirms they’re all equally canon now. Sort of. Here’s who bites the dust:

• Earth-400083: That’s essentially the 2003 Hulk film. You know, Eric Bana as Hulk, Ang Lee directing, split-screen edits flying everywhere. Retroactively declared official, then summarily obliterated. Fans reckon it’s a respectful nod, but Marvel makes clear there won’t be a sequel where Bana faces off with the MCU crew any time soon.
• Earth-15886: It’s the infamous 2015 Fantastic Four reboot. Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell – the cast you’d expect to elevate any script, except it all went wrong. The universe here is wrecked in seconds, which is probably more mercy than the film got at the box office – that was $167 million on a $120 million budget. Rotten Tomatoes: critics 9%, audiences 18%, pure carnage.
• Earth-82111: The animated world from Marvel’s What If…? (2021–2024), specifically Captain Carter’s timeline. The Endgame Encore confirms that universe gets wiped, though fans are convinced Captain Carter’s ‘energy’ is still drifting about for potential future cameos. The series never got less than 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, so at least it died with a bit of dignity.
• Earth-10005: The Fox X-Men continuity. Every single mainline team-up (including all the Deadpool and Wolverine side projects) gets the chop, though their actual demise is given a dramatic lead-in: missiles, multiversal incursions, the lot. The X-Men survivors are scrambling to survive – some, like Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and Ian McKellen’s Magneto, will reappear in Doomsday, which is absolutely wild when you think about it.

Read more: Fans had a wild theory about Captain America in the Doomsday trailer. Endgame: Encore's new ending backs it up

Then you’ve got three more universes – Earth-1127, Earth-8558, and Earth-7355 – that are just marked as destroyed with no real backstory onscreen. Dogged fans have noticed Earth-1127’s number almost matches an alternate version from the comics, where the Defenders accidentally vaporised their own universe with doomsday-grade tech. Whether Marvel’s actually signalling anything there, or just having fun, remains up for debate. The other two Earths? Pure filler, barring later surprises in Doomsday.

Wider Implications for the MCU

Let’s be clear: Marvel isn’t simply retconning old films for fun. The multiverse mess is a halfway clever way to tie up decades of loose ends – or at least pick which continuity they’ll bother to use going forwards. Just two years ago, the idea of Deadpool’s reality, the 2003 Hulk, and Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four all being official canon would’ve sounded like pure tinfoil-hat stuff. The 'anything goes' era of the MCU, though, means even the universally panned films (oh, 2015’s Fantastic Four, you never stood a chance) now get namechecked before they’re zapped.

What’s next? The Doomsday and Secret Wars films look set to wipe out most universes, prune the rest, and give the MCU a clean slate. At the same time, they’ve not ruled out bringing back anyone, as Deadpool & Wolverine proved. Are those doomed universes really gone forever? Well, if you see Eric Bana or Kate Mara suiting up in Avengers gear, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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