Why Reed Richards Can’t Lead the Avengers in Doomsday

With the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, fans are already eager about Avengers: Doomsday, and there have also been speculations about Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) leading the Avengers team in the upcoming movie. Though Reed has led the team in comics before, there are certain things that make this unlikely in the MCU.

Why Reed Richards can’t be the new Avengers leader in Doomsday

Reed Richards in the MCU is an amazingly layered character. He is different from the versions that appeared before. But as already seen in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, he doesn’t really seem to be leader material. He is not even the leader, per se, of the Fantastic Four. Rather, he is the brains behind the group that functions like a family. Each of the members steps up at different times.

Reed is also quite pessimistic and is unable to do the leader-like things in the movie. One big instance was when giving a statement about Galactus, he says something that makes the world panic. So, as per his established character, he seems hardly fit to replace Iron Man or Captain America as the leader of the Avengers.

Though there were rumors of Richards leading the team after Fantastic Four director Matt Shakman made a statement indicating this, Pascal debunked the idea in a recent interview with Associated Press. “It isn’t necessarily something that my character’s future entails,” he said.

Meanwhile, industry scooper @MyTimeToShineH said on X (formerly Twitter) that “Sam and Yelena are the ones leading the team(s).” This makes sense as they have both been established in the MCU as leaders in previous movies.

However, other reports claim that Thor may be the one taking over this role. Thor is the best possible character to shoulder this responsibility. He is one of the original Avengers and perhaps one of the strongest in the MCU. He has also matured enough to take over this role now.