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One thing that the Marvel fandom can’t get enough of is wild speculation. With nearly a year between now and the Avengers: Doomsday release date, the MCU fanbase is already rife with theories and speculation about what Marvel Studios has in store for them. The first set of teaser trailers is out now, and the Russo Brothers have, once again, told us to look for a deeper meaning in them. Many fans think they’ve discovered the meaning behind the mysterious timestamps in the Doomsday trailers, but we’re wondering, are we all looking a bit too hard? Is the answer right in front of us?

We recently reported on the Russo Brothers’ comments on their social media, urging fans that the recent trailers aren’t trailers at all. “They are stories. They are clues,” the Avengers: Doomsday directors posted. “Pay attention.” This, predictably, sent the fandom into overdrive trying to figure out exactly what this meant for the MCU. Some believe they found the meaning in a series of hidden time stamps, which pointed to specific scenes in Avengers: Endgame. The scenes that it seems to highlight are:

• The Ancient One telling Hulk that the Avengers risk opening up multiple timelines
• Hawkeye making the first successful test of the Avengers’ time machine
• Loki picking up the Tesseract and using it to evade capture, thus setting up the events of the Loki series
• The scene where Thor seemingly has a panic attack

This is all a fun theory, but it has some holes in it. All these scenes have to do with the Time Heist, suggesting that it is the genesis for Doctor Doom and Avengers: Doomsday. However, the scene with Rocket Raccoon asking Thor if he is crying is an outlier; it doesn’t really point to anything to do with the Time Heist (unless we consider the joke scene in Deadpool & Wolverine in which Thor holds a dying Deadpool while crying, but that feels like a stretch). The time stamp theory around the Avengers: Doomsday trailers doesn’t feel like it is what the Russo Brothers are referring to here.

Which got me thinking; if that is the most complicated meaning behind the Doomsday trailers, what is the simplest? Let’s look at the content of the trailers themselves: We have Steve Rogers in his new, seemingly normal life, with a wife and child and no new war to fight. We have Thor dedicating himself to being a father. We have the X-Men, including a shot of a distraught Cyclops blasting the sky. And, finally, we have the Wakandans and the Fantastic Four interacting, seemingly for the first time.

What do all these groups have in common? They have all messed around with time travel and the multiverse for their own gain. Steve Rogers returned the Infinity Stones and then stayed in the past at the end of Avengers: Endgame to get the happy ending that being frozen in ice denied him. Thor broke protocol during the Time Heist to retrieve Mjolnir and make peace with his mother’s death. The X-Men have a whole movie about the effects of time travel called X-Men: Days of Future Past, which creates two different versions of their universe. And, finally, the Fantastic Four are seen fleeing their dimension at the end of Thunderbolts*/New Avengers for unknown reasons (probably Doctor Doom-related, though).

I don’t disagree with what fans of the time stamp theory are saying, which is that the Time Heist is the origin of the MCU Multiverse and, thus, the origin of Doomsday. However, I do think they are reaching a little bit here. The most obvious answer is that the people who have caused the most damage to the MCU timeline are the ones who are most responsible for what is coming in Avengers: Doomsday. They've completed the Mess Around phase; the time has come to Find Out. Plus, lets not forget that the Russo Brothers aren't above flat-out lying to fans to hide details about their films.

Avengers: Doomsday will be released December 18.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters