The way to save the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse is already here

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

You can instantly make many Marvel fans cringe with one word: multiverse. The Multiverse was intended to add some flavor and spice to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it quickly became a storytelling crutch that emphasized fun cameos over actual storytelling. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is the biggest offender in this regard. Many fans wish Marvel would abandon this storytelling crutch altogether, but I have a different recommendation, true believers: instead of focusing on endless multiverse cameos in the main universe, Kevin Feige and his team should give us entire films set in other universes.

Create my own multiverse

In other words, my suggestion for the future of the Marvel multiverse is that we should have a “variant” of the What if…? television series applied to feature films. Like the comics it's named after, this show shows how a familiar universe would be wildly different if something different had happened to change the timeline. However, I do not believe that MCU should be limited to “what if?” » cartoon tales and should instead take a leaf from Sony's book by creating the live-action equivalent of the Spider-Verse films.

To keep things simple, Wonder might just look at its own release history for ideas on what multiverses would make for awesome feature films. The low-hanging fruit would be to adapt the original Ultimates line of comics, which featured different, updated versions of iconic heroes, to attract new readers who might otherwise be intimidated by decades of comic book history. comic strip.

A movie or even an entire series of movies set in this universe would provide the perfect excuse to bring back dead MCU heroes like Iron Man while recasting them as necessary… after all, it was these comics that initially gave us a Black Nick Fury (modeled after Samuel L. Jackson, no less). Plus, like the original comics, such films could take everything fans and writers loved about the old universe while giving everything some much-needed modernization.

So many Marvel multiverse options

But Marvel comics have given us other multiverses that could make for great feature films, including Earth-65, the original home of a Spider-Woman (Gwen Stacy) who faces off against an evil version of Matt Murdock. Of course, making a live-action Spider-Gwen movie would mean Marvel would have to collaborate with Sony again, but both studios could win. At this point, Marvel hasn't done anything good lately, other than Deadpool and Wolverineand Sony's only big superhero hits were the Venom and the Spider-Verse films. Frankly, a live-action movie focused on Spider-Gwen (a known quantity to fans) could be a well-deserved hit for both studios.

As a long-time Marvel comics nerd, I think there are other multiverses that need the big screen treatment, including the one with Squadron Supreme (they're like the Justice League but cool). Additionally, while we need to get the MCU X-Men right before we can get multiversal mutant cinema, the Age of Apocalypse and Powers of X comics represent old and new versions of multidimensional mutant storytelling, respectively. Hell, if Marvel can get over its moratorium on solo Hulk films (where are our live-action Planet Hulk film, you cowards?!?), a Future Imperfect film would be, well… perfect.

Aside from giving Marvel fans some great new films to enjoy, this approach would keep the MCU infinitely fresh. New actors could be cast in old roles, although current actors could act against the grain as wild versions of familiar characters. Disney's writers would have carte blanche to adapt the best of the multiverse comics or simply create something completely new from scratch. What I'm saying is it's time for a very special event What if…? Adventure: What if Marvel stopped worrying about preserving its own sacred timeline and could just tell the kind of cool, self-contained stories that won over so many fans in the first place?

The ball is in your court, Marvel. And if you need a creative consultant to give you that obvious advice on a regular basis, my rates are completely reasonable. Especially compared to Plan A, which continually brings Robert Downey Jr. tons of money every time you worry your franchise is failing.