Avengers: Endgame Encore Hides Hulk Two Miles Beneath Washington, Then Doctor Doom Comes to Collect Him

Avengers: Endgame Encore adds several new pieces of footage designed to bridge the seven-year-old Avengers movie with Avengers: Doomsday, but one of the most striking scenes takes place far beneath a real military installation in Washington, D.C. Bruce Banner is being held approximately two miles underground at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. At least, that is where Marvel's fictional version of the base puts him. The scene appears during the credits of Endgame Encore and follows Banner after the events of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Bruce is once again in human form after experiencing his first major Hulk incident in years, and instead of returning to ordinary life, he has effectively imprisoned himself. He records a video log from inside a heavily secured underground facility. Banner explains that he has isolated himself because he does not trust what could happen if the Hulk emerges again. The choice of location makes the message clear before anything supernatural even happens. Marvel has placed one of the strongest beings on Earth beneath roughly two miles of rock and inside a military complex that is supposed to be impossible to escape. The real Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling sits along the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., only a few miles from many of the most recognizable government buildings in the United States. It is an active military installation that supports numerous Department of Defense organizations and is also home to the headquarters of the Defense Intelligence Agency. There is no evidence that the real base contains anything resembling Marvel's two-mile-deep Hulk prison. That underground complex is a fictional addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The real installation does, however, make an unusually fitting setting because it is already associated with intelligence operations, military security, and highly restricted facilities. Marvel has also used Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling before. The location appeared in Captain America: Brave New World as the facility where Isaiah Bradley was held. Its return creates the impression that, within the MCU, the base has become one of the government's primary locations for dealing with extremely sensitive enhanced-person cases. Banner's situation is different. He appears to have willingly placed himself there, or at least accepted the confinement, because he believes the Hulk has once again become dangerous. During the video recording, Bruce begins discussing his work on an experimental method of suppressing gamma radiation. It is a classic Banner response to losing control. Rather than simply accepting the Hulk as part of himself, he goes back to science and attempts to find another way to contain what is inside him. Then the bunker begins malfunctioning. The lights flicker. His equipment starts behaving strangely. The camera recording Banner experiences interference. Something has entered a place that was deliberately chosen because virtually nobody should be capable of getting inside. Bruce realizes he is no longer alone. He asks who is there. A voice answers him. It belongs to Doctor Doom. The line is short, but it completely changes the scene: Doom tells Banner that he has come to collect him. Bruce begins transforming into the Hulk as the confrontation starts. The camera falls, preventing the audience from getting a clean view of everything that follows. When the room becomes visible again, mysterious green symbols can be seen glowing across the floor. Banner and Doom are gone. The importance of the scene is not simply that Hulk is returning for Avengers: Doomsday. Marvel is demonstrating something about Doctor Doom before the next Avengers movie even begins. Banner has deliberately placed himself two miles underground inside a secure military facility specifically because he considers it capable of containing the Hulk. Conventional entry into such a location should be extraordinarily difficult. Doom does not appear concerned by any of it. He simply arrives. The bunker therefore becomes a measuring stick for Doom's power. Marvel establishes the supposed security of the location and then immediately shows Doom bypassing it. Neither the depth of the facility nor the security of a major military installation appears capable of keeping him away from Banner. The green symbols left behind also suggest that Doom is not relying exclusively on conventional technology. That distinction matters for the character. Victor von Doom has traditionally been dangerous because he operates at the intersection of science and sorcery. He can construct technology rivaling the greatest minds in Marvel while also using magic. The mysterious markings in Banner's cell appear to emphasize that the MCU's Doom may possess the same combination. There is another important question: why does Doom want the Hulk? He does not arrive announcing that he intends to kill Banner. He says he has come to collect him. That wording strongly suggests that Banner is useful to whatever Doom is planning. Hulk is one of the physically strongest characters in the MCU, and Banner remains one of its most brilliant scientists. Either half of the character could be valuable. Doom may want Hulk's strength, Banner's knowledge of gamma radiation, or something connected to the growing multiversal crisis being established elsewhere in the new Endgame Encore footage. Marvel deliberately leaves the answer unresolved. The scene also changes Banner's position heading into Doomsday. Instead of simply receiving another call from the Avengers when the next crisis begins, he has been taken before the team can even assemble. That makes his disappearance part of the crisis itself. The setting is especially interesting because Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling is not a fictional place Marvel invented for the story. The actual installation occupies roughly 900 acres in Washington and was created in its current form when Bolling Air Force Base and Naval Support Facility Anacostia were consolidated in 2010. It sits just south of central Washington along the Potomac. Marvel's imaginary bunker, however, would extend far beyond anything publicly known about the installation. Two miles underground means approximately 10,560 feet beneath the surface. For comparison, many of the world's deepest mines descend only a few miles below ground. Constructing a secure facility at that depth beneath Washington would be an enormous engineering project involving ventilation, elevators, cooling, power, emergency systems, groundwater management, and the removal of vast quantities of excavated material. There is no public indication that anything remotely like that exists beneath Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. In the MCU, that exaggeration is precisely the point. Banner has not been placed in an ordinary jail cell. The government has effectively buried the Hulk beneath Washington. And it still is not deep enough. Doctor Doom reaches him anyway. That makes the brief scene one of the clearest previews yet of the threat waiting in Avengers: Doomsday. Before Doom has even faced the Avengers as a team, Marvel has shown him penetrating an allegedly impenetrable facility, confronting Hulk alone, and disappearing with one of Earth's most powerful heroes. For anyone driving past the real Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling today, there is obviously no Hulk sitting two miles underneath it. But within the MCU, the ground beneath this very real Washington military base has just become the site where Doctor Doom made one of his first major moves against the Avengers.