According to Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about toofficially become a multiverse. Following the debut of the forthcomingDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,which is tentatively scheduled for a theatrical release in early spring, the MCU will continue to explore that movie’s themes.
As per Feige, what this means is that it plans to approach the basic concept in the “most direct way.” Speaking on the subject in a conversation with Rotten Tomatoes, Feige was typically vague, but what it means is that, as Marvel continues to move intoits strange post-Evans, post-Downey period, it may be approaching the age of the unified Marvel Cinematic Multiverse.
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This would track with the early reports that Jamie Foxx andAlfred Molina will appearin the thirdSpider-Manmovie later this year, playing the parts of Electro and Doctor Octopus from the two earlierSpider-Manfilm series. Much in the spirit of something likeDoom Eternal,then, the MCU (MCM?) may very well be entering a period where it feels comfortable drawing upon all of Marvel’s scattered continuities.
The multiverse is a recurring theme in the MCU’s source material. Back in 1977, Marvel released a monthly series calledWhat If?dedicated to exploring what might’ve happened if various landmark comic stories had ended in a different way. The comic, which also lends its name toa forthcoming animated series on Disney+, had a second volume in the ’90s that quickly became notorious for its high protagonist body count.
Since then, the concept of the multiverse has frequently shown up in the comics, as an excuse toresurrect dead characters or provide fresh villains. For example, in the currentGuardians of the Galaxycomic, two of its frontline characters—Phyla-Vell and her wife Heather—are the last survivors of a destroyed alternate timeline. Also, in the current volume ofX-Factor,Rachel Summers is a refugee from a dystopian future that’s since been prevented from coming to pass.
The most obvious inspiration here, however, may be the relatively recentSpider-Versecrossover, which in turn inspiredthe Oscar-winning animated filmInto the Spider-Verse.In it, every version of Spider-Man that has ever existed, from the self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking animatedUltimate Spider-Manto the square suit-wearing dope from the 1968 cartoon, teamed up to repel a threat from a universe-crossing band of supervillains called the Inheritors.
The Avengers have had a similar arc, 1998’sAvengers Forever, which pulled in characters from the Avengers' entire history to fight the time-traveler Kang the Conqueror. With the recent revelation that Jonathan Majors (The Last Black Man in San Francisco) is playing Kangin the thirdAnt-Manmovie, this may serve as additional evidence that the next stage of the MCU is going to turn into aDoctor Who-style trip through space and time.
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madnessis planned to hit theaters on March 25.
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