According to Deadline, Michael Waldron—who served as head writer for season 1 of the Disney Plus series Loki and wrote the script for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness—has been tapped to write Avengers 6: Secret Wars, which will premiere on November 8, 2025 and conclude Marvel’s Multiverse Saga. What does this new development mean for Secret Wars—and the rest of the Multiverse Saga? Here are some theories!
All about the Multiverse Saga
Marvel’s Multiverse Saga comprises Phases 4, 5, and 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The multiverse itself was born in the season finale of Loki Season 1, in which Loki variant Sylvie (Sophia di Martino) kills He Who Remains, the leader of the Time Variance Authority, and allows the Sacred Timeline to branch into infinite parallel realities. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness explores the multiverse further by introducing the concept of multiversal travel and the universe-destroying collisions called incursions.
Even before Secret Wars was officially announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, fans suspected that it was in the works. In the original Secret Wars comics (both in 1984 and the 2015 remake), universes collide to form a patchwork planet called Battleworld, and with both the multiverse and incursions having been established in the MCU, it seemed like only a matter of time before Secret Wars made its big-screen debut.
Secret Wars will be preceded by Avengers 5: The Kang Dynasty, written by Jeff Loveness and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Kang (Jonathan Majors) made his first appearance in Loki as He Who Remains, and he’ll appear again in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, coming out February 17, 2023.
Theory 1: Secret Wars will be weirder, and maybe even funnier, than Infinity War and Endgame
Marvel movies vary a lot in tone, with some of them more serious than others, but Waldron’s mark on the MCU has been decidedly funnier than many other projects. From the Kafka-esque antics at the TVA to Multiverse of Madness’s campy tone (admittedly aided by director Sam Raimi), Waldron’s writing style is offbeat and often absurdist. The fact that Marvel has tapped him to write Secret Wars could mean that’s the style they’re seeking for the Multiverse Saga’s conclusion.
Infinity War and Endgame dealt with the genocide of half the universe, so the tone of those two films was suitably dark. One would think The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars would be even darker, with entire universes being obliterated, but it looks like Marvel may be looking to keep its sagas from getting too repetitive by giving Secret Wars a weirder—and maybe even funnier—tone than its previous team-up films. After all, Marvel has already hired comedic writing duo Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer to write the script for Fantastic Four.
That change in tone isn’t as weird a choice as it might seem on the surface. After all, the first Secret Wars story arc in the ’80s was a thinly-veiled gimmick to sell action figures. Here’s hoping Waldron can leverage the weirdness of the multiverse while keeping the high stakes that made Infinity War and Endgame so engrossing.
Theory 2: Loki, Doctor Strange, and Scott Lang will feature prominently in Secret Wars
It’s no coincidence that Marvel has hired one of the writers most familiar with how the multiverse works—and the characters who are embroiled in it—to write the climax of its story.
Thanks to his time at the TVA, Loki knows the mechanics of how the multiverse works and what triggers the formation of a new reality. He also knows how Kang’s multiversal war is likely to play out, thanks to He Who Remains’s monologue in the season finale. The Loki season 2 trailer, which was shown to attendees at Disney’s 2022 D23 Expo, hints that Loki will be working to stop that war from occurring. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange has seen the multiverse for himself and learned about the danger of incursions. That puts Loki and Strange in prime positions to be the MCU’s resident multiverse experts, and giving Waldron the reins makes it very likely that they’ll serve that very purpose in Secret Wars.
And what about Scott Lang, who will have to fight one of Kang’s malevolent variants in Quantumania? Quantumania’s script was penned by Jeff Loveness, who’s also writing The Kang Dynasty, so we’re likely to see a throughline there, too. With The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars coming out only 6 months apart, their stories will most likely be tightly connected.
Theory 3: Waldron can make up for Wanda Maximoff’s rushed character arc in Multiverse of Madness
This is admittedly a controversial take, but many fans were angry at Wanda Maximoff’s abrupt turn toward villainy in Multiverse of Madness, along with what looked like her death at the end of the movie. Even Elizabeth Olsen was surprised at the radical new direction for Wanda, which didn’t feel earned after her nuanced character development in WandaVision. If Wanda comes back in Secret Wars, then Waldron, who is certainly aware of how fans feel about what happened, has a chance to make things right—but we’ll have to wait until 2025 to find out.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
Published: Oct 5, 2022 12:05 pm