The highly-anticipated Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has finally been released and has given fans a taste of the MCU’s vast multiverse. In the midst of all the madness, it is easy to forget where the multiverse began. The Season 1 finale of Loki showed the infinite branches of reality cracking open after the death of Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains.
Loki created far more than the multiverse, though, as it also introduced the Time Variance Authority to the mythos. The season finale threw a wrench in viewers’ ability to predict Season 2 because Tom Hiddleston’s Loki found himself in a very different TVA at the end. Anything seems to be possible. Recently, actress Sasha Lane told Collider that her character Hunter C-20 could possibly return in Loki Season 2, even though Hunter C-20 appeared to meet her end in the first season.
I remember telling the producer, because they’re like, ‘Oh, we’ll see,’ and I was like, ’If I happen to make it back, can I just be hiding behind a little rock somewhere? Just squatted behind a rock just like, ‘Hey! Missed you guys. It’s been a while.’ I’m desperately hoping to be hiding behind a rock somewhere because you don’t know where I went! You don’t know. So, to me, I’m not dead, so I’m just trying to project it out there that there’s a rock that I’m sitting behind just, ‘Is anybody gonna stop by soon?’
Sasha Lane
While bringing characters back from the dead has always been an option in these stories, there are plenty of other avenues for Hunter C-20 to return. For example, Owen Wilson’s Mobius did not know who Loki was at the end of the season finale, implying that he could be a different Variant of the Mobius we met initially. So, with all the complications of the multiverse, there is no reason a Hunter C-20 Variant could not exist. Still, it could be the case that the character never died in the first place, as Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer’s actions were shady enough that there is room for interpretation as to what exactly happened to the TVA hunter.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not only the biggest movie franchise of its time but the biggest movie franchise of all time. Even if it might have peaked for some when Avengers: Endgame hit theaters in 2019, there’s little reason to think that its cultural impact in 2022 hasn’t surpassed that. With Disney+ now available, the number of projects being released each year has more than doubled, and Marvel Studios doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon with more than two dozen projects set for release in the next few years alone. But all good things must come to an end and this means that the MCU as we know it should eventually do the same, although on its own terms so as to become something more.
New Avengers #1 (2013)
New Avengers #1 (2013)
It certainly does not come down to a lack of demand, but that should not be the only metric Marvel Studios should take into account when making franchise-wide decisions. Identifying issues that might be hurting a massive franchise that has passed its 14th anniversary is extremely important, especially if Marvel has its sights set not only on the next few years but, more significantly, on the next couple of decades.
Storyline Issues
The stories being told are the core of the MCU and issues that prevent them from being as good as can be should be addressed as a top priority. These can be due to several things, but most end up being a consequence of the same core issue: the shared universe.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Due to the intricacy of having so many stories being told through different IPs that either need to come together or stay apart in a way that feels justifiable, it’s perhaps fair to say that both movies and TV shows have had to compromise when it comes to the stories they set out to tell. A character that would have been perfect for a certain situation might not be available due to having a scheduled appearance somewhere else. Or maybe it is felt that its introduction deserves a bigger stage. While choices being made always aim at a better overall franchise, they end up not helping each individual project to be as good as it could be. This problem is only getting bigger and more noticeable as the years go by with the number of storylines, characters, and major events being introduced, especially since earlier storylines didn’t take into account the now real possibility of using a number of previously unavailable characters. While it still seems manageable at the moment, Marvel Studios should now be looking into how to stop while they’re ahead, in order not to hurt the entire brand in a way that might put their past achievements on the line.
Accessibility Issues
Going back to 2019, as Avengers: Endgame was set to premiere, both new and old fans were often gearing up for a complete MCU rewatch as the culmination of 11 years of storytelling was soon approaching. At the time, it only took watching 21 movies, something that while being no small feat, pales in comparison to what is needed to accomplish the same thing today.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
As of now, the post-pandemic MCU has not only added 5 new feature films (soon to be 6), but also 6 new TV shows (soon to be 7), something that likely isn’t helping with how new fans approach the franchise as a whole since it is becoming increasingly difficult to go back and experience it in its entirety. This will probably lead to casual fans choosing select projects to watch while feeling daunted by the magnitude of the rest of the franchise, meaning they’ll probably be missing out on the connective tissue between IPs that makes the MCU so special. So, in a way, and considering the previous point regarding storylines, they might be experiencing lackluster stories without the bonus of the shared universe experience. Die-hard fans will have another vision, as living through the interconnectivity between the projects might somewhat help to hide the imperfections needed to get there. But since Marvel Studios should be focused on bringing in new fans, while of course still appeasing old ones, the fact that the MCU has become too big for newcomers should be a cause for concern. A nice jumping-on point would do the trick, since new fans haven’t gotten that yet, not even after Avengers: Endgame.
How it Should All End
So, considering all this, should Marvel Studios just call it a day and shut down? Of course not. As stated above the MCU as we know it should perhaps end, but only for a neo-MCU to rise from its ashes. And as all signs point to the overall storyline being told at the moment leading to a Secret Wars-inspired event, Marvel Studios might just have an ace up its sleeve when it comes to approaching its future beyond the aforementioned event. If they choose to, obviously.
Secret Wars #0 (2015)
Marvel Studios has been pretty loose when adapting comic events. Age of Ultron, Civil War, and Infinity War are all examples of that. So even if Secret Wars is coming, there is still much room for how it will end up getting translated into live-action. But if the ending somehow stays similar, it may solve just about every issue pointed out above faced by the MCU. At the end of the 2015 comic series, following the collapse of the multiverse and the creation of Battleworld, Earth is restored as Marvel’s Earth-Prime. While not making everything that came before meaningless—in fact, it was everything leading up until then that made this new Earth both a possibility and a reality—this allowed for stories to be retold from a fresh perspective, while also allowing for better integration of all storylines into a single, unified universe. And this is what the MCU will need by the end of its Secret Wars.
Why It Will Be for the Best
For several years, there wasn’t either the budget or the character rights to put the perfect MCU on screen from the start. And nowadays, it has become an issue how to integrate certain characters that should have been a part of it earlier on. Certain storylines were simply avoided due to those constraints while others, even though they worked, had to be adapted in a way that perhaps diminished their appeal and overall impact. Allowing the MCU to scale itself down only to follow that up with a steady-paced growing, aware, and capable franchise that is willing to use all its moving parts/characters/storylines in the best possible way, could only mean good things for this new incarnation of the MCU in the long run.
Secret Wars #9 (2016)
Several actors could keep playing the same characters, new ones would enter the frame, and even legacy characters would be able to return without making audiences feel cheated in the way they were invested in their previous iterations. It would just be a case of letting go in order to both cherish and appreciate the past but also accept that a brighter future might be ahead. No sacrifice made up until then would have been in vain and it would all still have started in a cave with a box of scraps.
With the conclusion of Moon Knight and the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Marvel Studios’ next project is officially the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel. Starring Imani Vellani as lead character Kamala Khan, the show is set to introduce to live-action one of the most beloved characters in more recent Marvel comics.
The image should get fans of Ms. Marvel comics excited for the series, as the costume itself is arguably one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most comics-accurate adaptations to date. Vellani has been praised by all of those working on the show, including Kevin Feige, for being the perfect casting choice for Kamala. While the debate on her power changes will never end, fans hopefully will find more comfort in their opinions once they actually have a chance to watch Ms. Marvel.
Ms. Marvel premieres June 8, 2022, exclusively on Disney+.
As Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness rounds out its first week in theaters, fans are finally able to share and compare their thoughts on Marvel Studios’ 28th feature film. In the buildup to the movie, Multiverse of Madness gained a reputation for being quite secretive. Many had theories that a wide variety of Marvel characters would cameo via the infinite possibilities of the multiverse—for the most part, they did not.
One rumor in particular follows Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff wherever she goes: mutants. Now that Disney owns the film rights to X-Men characters, fans are eager for mutants and their stories to debut in the MCU. Though not currently, throughout much of her comics history Wanda was a mutant and the daughter of famed villain and antihero Magneto. Coupled with the fact that Patrick Stewart’s Professor X made his appearance in the Doctor Strange sequel’s trailer, many thought or hoped this film would be where mutants are introduced in the MCU. Some fan theories even pointed to the House of M storyline as inspiration for Multiverse of Madness.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the sequel’s writer Michael Waldron explained how the film’s creators discussed House of M and other mutant-centric stories but ultimately did not feel that Multiverse of Madness was the place to introduce them. He stated:
Yeah, we talked about House of M, and there’s plenty of examples of Wanda doing bad things throughout the comics in an effort to get her kids back. But ultimately this story didn’t need mutants to be powerful, I guess was our feeling. And, you know, wherever that lies on the timeline for the MCU, it didn’t feel like this was the right place to introduce it — because then it suddenly would have just been about mutants. And this is really a story about Wanda and her grief and her descent into darkness in this movie.
Michael Waldron
While audiences have to wait longer to meet the MCU’s version of X-Men or related characters, an introduction to mutants in Multiverse of Madness surely would have either been rushed or taken over Doctor Strange’s second solo film. In any event, fans can keep speculating on the countless possible ways that these characters could be introduced by Marvel Studios in live-action.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing in theaters worldwide.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness delivered what’s probably the most talked-about second act in the history of the MCU. As Doctor Strange and America Chavez went on their crazy multiversal journey, they found themselves prisoners of a team of power players from Earth-838 known as the Illuminati.
Marvel Studios has been rumored to be looking into developing a project around the Illuminati, which were created by Brian Michael Bendis in 2005, and that may still happen, but the Strange sequel introduced fans to them and then proceeded to have them systematically slaughtered by the Scarlet Witch.
Multiverse of Madness is a very different movie from the one that Marvel Studios set out to make when it was announced that Scott Derrickson, who directed 2016’s Doctor Strange, was returning to helm the sequel. When Derrickson and Marvel Studios amicably parted way, Kevin Feige turned to Loki head writer Michael Waldron to begin work on a new script. Waldron was quickly joined by Sam Raimi and the two embarked on a creative journey that was full of COVID delays and some much-discussed reshoots and additional photography. With so much time for the film to grow and evolve, I was curious if the Illuminati were always a part of the pitch, or if they were added later on. Here’s what Waldron had to say:
That came in the very first draft when we started over from scratch, what became the movie, they were in the first draft of that. They weren’t even in the outline, I think as I said. It was just me sitting in my living room…me feeling bored by my own second act.
Michael Waldron
Waldron went on to explain how his time on Rick and Morty helped shape the second act, which he described as where the movie “gets drunk”:
In Rick and Morty, Mike McMahon created Star Trek: Lower Decks, Solar Opposites…he was the showrunner on the season I wrote for. He coined a term, the “duck bill”, where it’s like the story circle, Dan Harmon’s story circle, but around like 7 or 8 o’clock on that story circle, we always try to do a duck bill, where it’s like the story doesn’t just proceed linearly or in a regular curvature way, it actually duck bills out and it’s like the movie gets drunk and that’s what it felt like we needed at that point and somehow it stayed in there the whole way. It’s a testament to Kevin, who got behind the idea and thought it would be cool, and Sam and our DP John Matheson and our editors.
Michael Waldron
For Waldron and Raimi, the second act couldn’t just be a cameo fest where some of Marvel’s most powerful characters came together to wave at the camera. So the creative team went to work:
It is ultimately a guy standing opposite several stationary characters. It takes a master of the camera like Sam to make that visually dynamic. Sam was always like, “I know the audience is gonna be excited to see these people but it can’t just be boring exposition. We’ve gotta figure out a way to make it visually dynamic.” And so they pushed me and we all pushed each other to make sure the scene was there for a reason.
Michael Waldron
With so much time between the first draft and the last day of additional photography, it was reasonable to assume that the final team, composed of Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel, Mordo, and Charles Xavier, might not have been the original “dream team” pitched by Waldron. In fact, there were all kinds of wild rumors about who might be on the team with anyone from Balder to Magneto rumored at one time or another. When asked specifically about those two, Waldron gave a careful response, saying “There were lots of names discussed is all I’ll say.” Maybe those characters and more will show up down the road in another universe’s Illuminati.
With the once-secretive Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness finally in theaters, reactions have been somewhat mixed, but the film has been extremely successful at the box office. While much of the debate among fans has centered around certain groups’ expectations about rumored cameos that in reality never existed. Perhaps the second-most contentious point among fans prior to the film being released was its runtime. While the sequel clocked in at over two hours long, many felt that a longer runtime would be needed to adequately showcase the speculated story.
When director Sam Raimi stated that the first cut of the film was significantly longer, it added to some fans’ cries that Marvel was not allowing the beloved director’s vision to come to fruition. In an exclusive interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, the Doctor Strange sequel writer Michael Waldron revealed that Raimi was actually always pushing for a shorter runtime:
Sam [Raimi], to his credit, was always really pushing for a shorter runtime. And, you know, he felt that the movie needed to move because of just how it was structured. It’s a chase movie, it’s an adventure, [ ] it’s got some Jurassic Park DNA…and so in a movie like that, it just didn’t feel like we needed three hours of it.
Michael Waldron
Waldron perfectly articulates how and why Multiverse of Madness is so fast-paced. Rather than being shorter for the sake of it or because tons of pieces were cut, the film moves to pull off and complement its “chase movie” structure. The writer went on to describe how his lack of tolerance for boredom may have played a role as well:
My threshold for boredom is [ ] astronomically low, and so I just have a phobia of the movie becoming exhausting. And so yeah, once we’re off to the races in this one, we just wanted to get on the ride and go on the ride, and when it’s over, get out of there.
Michael Waldron
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing in theaters worldwide.
Marvel Studios is gearing up to bring one of the comics’ most beloved newer characters to the small screen in next month’s Ms. Marvel. The series is set to showcase Pakistani-American Kamala Khan as the titular character, who is played by actress Iman Vellani. The teenage hero takes on the mantle of Ms. Marvel, inspired by her adoration for Captain Marvel, after she discovers she has superpowers.
In the comics, Khan is an Inhuman who exhibits her embiggening and super-stretchy abilities after inadvertently being exposed to Terrigen Mist. Fans have been particularly divided about the fact that the character’s origin and power set are being drastically altered for her live-action adaptation. For one, the character is not Inhuman. But her new powers are cosmic-based, and she appears to be able to project energy rather than have any shapeshifting abilities. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and comics creators have endorsed the power changes, mostly citing Khan’s newfound potential to be more connected to Captain Marvel and Spectrum in the upcoming The Marvels movie. Now, star Vellani herself has weighed in on the changes in an interview with Empire. She stated:
I’m very possessive [of Kamala]…I think we stay true to what the comics brought. The themes have always been about identity and about marrying the 50 million things that make Kamala. For all I care she could shoot sausages out of her fingers, as long as she still goes on that self-discovery journey.
Iman Vellani
It is not particularly shocking that those involved in the series are wholeheartedly backing the changes. While major changes to comics characters always spark debate, many see Khan’s shape-shifting powers as integral to her character and journey as a teenage girl trying to find her own identity in a world where her background sets her apart from most of her peers and role models. Those working on Ms. Marvel are certainly trying to convince fans that the changes to Khan’s powers do not jeopardize that journey.
Fans still have almost a month to wait before they can truly have an informed opinion on the matter, as Ms. Marvel premieres June 8, 2022 on Disney+.
Even by Marvel Studios standards, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a film shrouded in secrecy up until its release. The promise of secrets and surprises mixed with the multiversal nature of the movie led to plenty of rumors and speculations ahead of the release. Now that audiences have had a chance to experience the Doctor Strange sequel, fans are getting plenty of information about the actual contents of the film as well as the process of bringing them to the screen.
Possibly above all else, fans are debating how the surprise appearances of certain characters, such as the Illuminati, compared to some of the widespread rumors of certain cameos being in Multiverse of Madness. In an exclusive interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, the film’s writer Michael Waldronspoke on the secrecy involved in making the film and the Illuminati.
But Waldron also spoke on rumors that certain characters from the comics would play major roles or supporting leads in the Doctor Strange sequel that ultimately did not. In particular, the writer discussed the characters of Clea and Jericho Drumm, also known as Brother Voodoo. As we know from the mid-credits scene, Charlize Theron did make a brief and teasing appearance as Clea, but whether or not she was ever meant to be a significant character is unclear. Waldron simply noted that “I think Clea has always been on the table.”
I think there was definitely a discussion of Jericho Drumm, but never anything that I worked on.
Michael Waldron
The speculation that Drumm would make his way to the MCU made—and still makes—plenty of sense. First appearing in Strange Tales #169, the Haitian-born Jericho Drumm left for America to become a psychologist. Upon returning home, he found his brother, Daniel, dying from a spell cast on him. Daniel made Jericho promise to study to become a Houngan, starting his path towards eventually replacing Stephen Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme. We already saw Daniel be killed in the original Doctor Strange as the keeper of the New York Sanctum at the time.
With the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness coming right on the heels of the finale of the Disney+ series Moon Knight, there has been a lot for Marvel fans to process over the last week. Still, information about the series has been pouring out after the relatively open-ended finale. In any Phase Four MCU project, though, there is one question always on audiences’ minds even if it is rarely answered—who survived the Blip?
Considering the MCU’s post-Avengers: Endgame content all takes place relatively recently after half the universe’s population was eliminated and then brought back, it always seems fairly relevant. For their part, Marvel Studios often keeps discussions about the details of the Blip to a minimum for plenty of practical reasons. However, Moon Knight head writer and executive producer Jeremy Slater recently told The Direct how Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector spent his time during the five-year period. As seemed reasonable, he first confirmed that Spector did indeed survive the Blip:
We definitely, in the writers room, we all collectively thought he survived the Blip, that he wasn’t blipped away. Because I don’t know how you—I think if he had been blipped and come back, it would be something that you would have to address. It’s something you would have to deal with, especially as a character who is trying to find his place in the world, and has a lot of questions about his past. To not touch on the Blip of it all, felt weird. So we all kind of collectively assumed that he was part of the 50% that survived.
Jeremy Slater
Different clues throughout the series pointed to that conclusion, but it was never directly mentioned. Perhaps more interesting, Slater went on to say that he believes Moon Knight was “busy” during that time in a similar way to Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye/Ronin. He stated:
But as to what was actually happening during that period, I mean, I think that they say in the show that Steven basically woke up about two years ago. That was the first time that they started living separate lives, and it was following the death of Marc’s mother. So that’s been the last two years, and we assume the three years before that was sort of Marc, just, there was probably, in the same way, that Hawkeye had his hands full as Ronin because the criminal underworld was running rampant during the Blip time, I assume Moon Knight was keeping very busy. But it was all being sort of done in the shadows, and he was sort of taking out a lot of threats that never surfaced or saw the light of day.
Jeremy Slater
While the character’s future in the MCU is still unclear, Slater’s description of Marc Spector’s vigilante-type past confirms that side of the superhero that we did not see in Moon Knight. It certainly helps explain the room full of the bodies of those Spector killed as the Fist of Khonshu, and it opens up plenty of space for telling stories about the character in the past or hints at how he may act in the future.
All episodes of Moon Knight are now streaming on Disney +.
It was exciting when we got our first look at the many members o the Illuminati throughout our time with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Yet, the film gave us one last surprise in the form of its post-credit sequence. After a surprisingly go-lucky Strange is wandering the streets, he is suddenly greeted by a mysterious person in the middle of the street. Eagle-eyed viewers instantly recognized the actress Charlize Theron. Comic fans also instantly realized that she is playing the Sorcerer Supreme of the Dark Dimension and Dormammu’s niece, Clea.
To celebrate joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the actress took to Twitter and shared a small BTS image of her showing off her Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness make-up. In the comics, her costume and design were heavily focused on the color purple and it was great seeing those elements remain in their translation into live-action. Sadly, she didn’t give us a full look at the costume she wore in the post-credit sequence, which seemingly took a lot of elements from across the character’s vast comic history.
It does seem like they are setting her up as a big part of the third entry of the Doctor Strange franchise, but we don’t have an official announcement on it even happening. They may even head out into the Dark Dimension in a different film altogether, but the fact she’s pretty much signed on is an exciting one either way. Her appearance was quite the treat for viewers, and hopefully will be the first of many appearances moving forward for the actress in the MCU.
Source: Twitter
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