Posted in: Avengers, Comic Spoilers, Comics, Marvel Comics, Movies | Tagged: avengers: doomsday, citizen v, iron man

How Citizen V Marvel Spoilers Might Tie In With Avengers: Doomsday

How Citizen V Iron Man Marvel Spoilers might tie in with Avengers: Doomsday... you have been warned

Citizen V is a legacy codename in Marvel Comics, originally used by a Golden Age WWII hero and later by multiple people. There was a lot of V around at the time. The identity is most famous today because Baron Zemo stole it to lead the Thunderbolts.

British lieutenant John Watkins first appeared in Daring Mystery Comics #8 in 1942, created by Ben Thompson. Officially reported killed at Dunkirk, he was sent undercover into Nazi-occupied Europe. He organised civilian resistance fighters into the V-Battalion, left "V" signs as a symbol of hope, fought Baron Zemo, and worked with Captain America. He had a relationship with French resistance agent Paulette Brazee, the She-Wolf, and Baron Zemo strangled him to death in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising. Since then, a number have taken the role:

• Paulette Brazee became the second Citizen V after the war and hunted Nazis. She was smuggled to England while pregnant with Watkins's son.
• John "JJ" Watkins Jr. later took the role. He died when his own son was young.
• John Watkins III, the grandson, was raised for the role. He spent years in a coma, and Baron Zemo's consciousness was later transferred into his body. After Zemo was expelled, Watkins III resumed the identity.

• Baron Zemo adopted the Citizen V identity in 1997 to pose as a heroic leader of the Thunderbolts and claimed to be Watkins's grandson. The ruse was eventually exposed. Later, after a supposed death, Zemo's mind occupied Watkins III's body, and he again impersonated Citizen V.
• Dallas Riordan, a former NYPD officer and New York mayoral liaison to the Thunderbolts, was recruited by the Battalion, posing as a man, clashed with Zemo and the Thunderbolts and later became Vantage after merging with Atlas's ionic energy.
• Roberto da Costa, or Sunspot, used the alias while leading the U.S. Avengers after buying and reforming A.I.M. into American Intelligence Mechanics.
• Valentina Allegra de Fontaine became a recent Citizen V in Thunderbolts: Doomstrike during Doctor Doom's One World Under Doom era.

And now Citizen V has returned in the current Iron Man series by Joshua Williamson and Carmen Carnero, as a new, mysterious figure wearing the classic masked swashbuckler costume, as well as seen in an Avengers jacket…

…watching Tony Stark and treating him as a threat. He helps Stark in a fight, then leaves after calling himself "a warning" and saying his group is watching Tony, sending encoded warnings to other heroes that Tony Stark is dangerous and needs to be watched.

In this week's preview, he is identified as male, but not Baron Zemo. even as in this week's Iron Man #9, he teams up with Iron Man against Whiplash.

• Iron Man #9 by Joshua Williamson, Carmen Carnero
  WHO IS WHIPLASH? Whiplash is one of Tony Stark's greatest enemies, but why does he hate Tony so much? As the mysterious Citizen V and Iron Man must work together to stop Whiplash's dangerous plans to destroy everything Tony has built, we take a rough trip down memory lane to learn the true history of WHIPLASH! Also, Madame Masque and Adam Ware use Whiplash's distraction to make a move on the rest of A.I.M. that will change the secret organization forever!
• Iron Man #10 by Joshua Williamson, Carmen Carnero
  CITIZEN V: UNMASKED! The new Citizen V has been stalking Tony Stark. Is he friend of foe? Can Citizen V protect Iron Man from Whiplash's final attack? And why has he taken on Baron Zemo's old Thunderbolts name? Finally, this issue: Learn all his secrets and history with Iron Man! $4.99 October 14th 2026
• Iron Man #11 by Joshua Williamson, Juann Cabal
  FANTASTIC VS. INVINCIBLE! TONY STARK is being monitored by the people closest to him…and that includes Marvel's First Family: THE FANTASTIC FOUR! Reed and Sue Richards have kept their distance, but it's finally time for them to face down the Armored Avenger! What has IRON MAN been up to? And how will it lead him into becoming the INCARCERATED IRON MAN?! $4.99 November 4th 2026

Next month's Iron Man #10 promises the full reveal, solicited as Citizen V: Unmasked!, but it looks like it's coming early this Wednesday. Time for this then…

As well as the revelation that this ties in with the other big possible MCU spoiler I ran at the weekend, and how it might suggest a certain someone may also be returning to the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie. And with these final pages from this week's Iron Man #9, this does seem well timed…

Happy Hogan, originally a supporting Iron Man character, was created by Stan Lee, Robert Bernstein, and Don Heck for Tales of Suspense #45 in 1963. He was a former boxer from Brooklyn, nicknamed for his reluctance to smile, and he got a job with Tony Stark after saving his life by pulling him from a wrecked experimental race car.

Happy Hogan was among the first to learn Tony Stark's secret identity as Iron Man. He was married to Pepper Potts for a time and died after the Civil War storyline in 2007. He was injured by the villain Spymaster, left in a vegetative state, and later, Tony Stark terminated his life at Pepper's request.

The next year, in 2008, Happy Hogan returned – but only in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was played in Iron Man by Iron Man's director, Jon Favreau, who played him in the rest of the films, as well as in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine, now head of security for Stark Industries.

But he stayed dead in the comics for twenty years. But I hear that ahead of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday film, which we can now suggest might see Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan coming face to face with Doctor Doom wearing Tony Stark's face, Happy Hogan will return to the comic books as well, and it turns out as Citizen V, he's been in them all through 2026…

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