Tony Stark is Doctor Doom
Tony Stark was always Doctor Doom, there was no Tony Stark to begin with, or at least for a very long time.
In Endgame we see that Steve and Tony have to return to 1970 for both the tesseract and the PYM particles. This was the only way they could retrieve both the tesseract and make it back home.
During this scene Tony asks Steve if he trusts him. Steve says he does and they hold up their wrists.
"0-4-0-7-1-9-7-0"
This is the date that Tony gives Steve. He says that he's sure that the Tesseract and more PYM particles are there. At first this could be Tony saying we're going to April 4, 1970.
But there is a possibility that April could be wrong. We can hear in the accent of his AI's. J.A.R.V.I.S had an English accent and F.R.I.D.A.Y has an Irish accent. Both of his computers are programmed to be in a European accent. In Europe they use DD/MM/YYYY. Knowing his own computers he could have said the date using this. Meaning he meant to go to July 4, 1970.
One thing to further support it being July is Howard hands Tony some sauerkraut. This is a staple in America during the fourth of July.
Another is Tony's reaction to Howard saying that Maria is pregnant. With it being July, he would be confused as to why he reacted this way. In a deleted scene of Avengers (2012), we see Steve looking through the S.H.I.E.L.D. files. During this we see that Tony's birthday is May 29, 1970.
Tony’s reaction to the announcement that Howard and Maria are expecting is something that really says they may have travelled to July 4, 1970 instead of April 7, 1970.
So here’s the theory, we’ve seen variants. Some look alike and some don’t. We can see that Deadpool variants (like nicepool) have variants that look similar to what Deadpool looked like before he became Deadpool.
But then we have variants like Peter Parker, as we saw in No Way Home. Each variant looked different and not identical. For the most part they seem similar, like you see the similarities the brown hair, the nerdy quirks. They are similar but we as fans know this was due to the recasting throughout the years.
So if Victor Von Doom is a variant, he has Tony’s face, perhaps Tony was never Tony. We have seen variants but we’ve never seen a variant with the same face be another character. It wouldn’t make sense for Tony’s variant to be Victor Von Doom unless he himself was also Victor Von Doom.
Here’s the big what if!
Howard and Maria had their baby, sometime after July when Tony and Steve went back in time. There may have been complications either during birth or just after. But the baby doesn’t survive.
Losing a child, especially so young is hard on anyone. But what if it was too much for Maria. She couldn’t function afterwards. Howard could have arranged for a new baby to replace the child they lost. A baby to care for so that he doesn't lose his wife.
In order to keep this child a secret, they would have a better chance of it staying a secret if he went out of country for the adoption. Perhaps even Latveria.
But where's the proof?
There's no definitive proof. But there are some scenes that can support this.
In Iron Man 2, we see Nick Fury talking with Tony. During this talk we hear what Tony's thoughts about Howard is.
"He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me."
From this we can see that Howard and Tony had a strained relationship to say the least. Perhaps Tony felt this way because Howard was never able to build that bond with him. Howard knew that Tony was adopted. He knew biologically Tony wasn't his. Unlike Maria, Howard wasn't able to build that relationship with their son.
This left Tony with the lack of a father figure in his life. Howard was left without a child but Maria was close with Tony and that's all he wanted, his wife back. This is why Tony never felt loved or cared for by his father, because he never was.
But what about the video that Tony found?
It's no mistake that it's shown Howard was talking to Tony on the video. Tony hears that Howard is claiming the greatest creation is Tony. This is still true. If Tony was Victor Von Doom, and he was adopted after the Stark's son didn't make it. This is still Howard's greatest creation. Just not in the way that Tony thinks. Howard had created a son for his wife. It was never about Tony and It was never about getting a son. It's about being there for his wife. Not wanting to deal with his wife's grief.
Tony was never Tony. Anthony Edward Stark was always Victor Von Doom, he was just raised as Tony.















