I love Robert Downey Jr. as much as the next, straight man.

His return to the MCU as Dr. Doom seems like the MCU is trying to kill itself with its favorite gun.

I couldn't help thinking of Gettysburg, which is one of my favorite movies from my childhood, and Gods and Generals, the pretty awful prequel. Stephen Lang played Pickett in the first film. He was recast as Stonewall Jackson in the second film. That was weird for me. Lang has never been the household name that RDJ is. I'm only talking about two films, one of which almost nobody saw. Even I didn't hear the name "Stephen Lang" and immediately think, "Oh, that's general Pickett."

There's a fundamental problem in continuity here.

This just screams as a multiverse crap that the MCU is gonna take on canon, that'll say that Doom is a bizzaro-version of a Tony Stark turned villian. The sad thing is that bullshit idea is the best case scenario that I can think of.

Otherwise, everybody is just gonna have to pretend that they don't recognize the guy.

This is one of the many problems of trying to turn cinema into television.