Marvel Has Its Best-Selling Comic in Years Thanks to Robert Downey Jr.

Things get meta and full circle for Marvel with the ‘Ultimate Endgame’ event.

Things get meta and full circle for Marvel with the 'Ultimate Endgame' event.

Later this year, Robert Downey Jr. returns to the MCU as Doctor Doom for Avengers: Doomsday. But right now, he’s all over the comics or rather, his artwork is.

On New Year’s Eve, Marvel Comics released Ultimate Endgame #1, the first of a five part miniseries telling the final tale of its relaunched Ultimate Universe. To help sell the event, the publisher launched a True Believers Blind Bag program, where readers can buy a bagged up physical copy that could have one of the book’s variant covers or 500 hand drawn sketches by major Marvel artists like Pepe Larraz or Peach Momoko. Two of those artists are Downey and Kevin Feige. No, really, and Downey’s drawn four, two each for his former and future turns as Iron Man and Doctor Doom with signed and unsigned versions.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Downey’s drawings have led to Ultimate Endgame #1 potentially becoming Marvel’s top selling comic in years. At the time of writing, it’s unclear what that means, since there are no hard sales numbers like DC recently gave for its Absolute books, but it’s a notable milestone regardless.

It’s also a fun bit of fate: Endgame is being written by Deniz Camp, who also writes Ultimates, and for that book’s fourth issue which focused on that world’s Doom, evil Reed Richards (the Maker), and the lack of the Fantastic Four. In the lead up to that issue, he joked it’s the book to grab “if you want to understand Robert Downey Jr. as Doom.”

Marvel’s already looking to expand its blind bag program with the upcoming Daredevil relaunch in March. Meanwhile, Downey will take on Doom in Avengers: Doomsday on December 18, and Ultimate Endgame continues with its second issue on February 4.

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Beyond the clever marketing, the moment carries a deeper meaning for longtime fans. Downey is not just another celebrity cameo in the world of comics. For many readers, he is still the face of Iron Man, the character that helped define the modern Marvel era on screen. Seeing his name attached to a project that also features Doctor Doom creates a strange but exciting sense of history folding back on itself. It feels like Marvel is deliberately blurring the line between its movie legacy and its publishing future.

The blind bag concept also plays into the collector culture that has always surrounded comics. For some readers, the appeal is not only in the story but in the possibility of owning something rare. A hand drawn sketch by Downey or Feige is not just a novelty, it is a piece of Marvel history. Even for those who do not end up with a special insert, the chance element makes the purchase feel like an event rather than a routine weekly pickup. This kind of engagement shows how publishers are finding new ways to make physical comics feel special in a digital age.

At the same time, Ultimate Endgame is more than a sales experiment. It marks the conclusion of Marvel’s relaunched Ultimate Universe, a line that has tried to reimagine familiar heroes and ideas for a new generation. Ending that experiment with a story centered on Doom, identity, and legacy feels fitting. The fact that this finale connects, even symbolically, to Downey’s upcoming return in the films adds another layer of resonance. Fans who follow both the comics and the movies are being invited to see the story as one larger narrative, even if the two mediums remain separate.

Whether Ultimate Endgame truly becomes one of Marvel’s best selling issues in years or not, the conversation around it already proves its impact. It has sparked interest beyond the usual comic audience and reminded readers why Marvel’s universe can still surprise them. Sometimes it is not just about the characters on the page, but about who is holding the pen and what their presence represents in the long, winding story of the franchise.

Tags: Marvel Comics, Ultimate Endgame, Robert Downey Jr, Doctor Doom, Avengers Doomsday, Marvel Events, Comic Book News, Ultimate Universe, Kevin Feige, Superhero Culture