Is the multiverse lazy writing? The way it’s being done now, yes.

Remember when a multiverse seemed like the most exciting thing superhero movies could do? But now, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe is knee-deep in it, and where the actor who played the deceased Tony Stark is returning to play a version of Doctor Doom, it’s not feeling all that great.

The house is similarly divided now that Hugh Jackman’s Logan, a beloved character we laid to rest after an emotional farewell on screen just like Stark’s, has returned to us, claws and all, in Deadpool & Wolverine. Marvel is tinkering with all the ways it could exploit the multiverse to bring back dead legends, reintroduce failed franchises, and give in to fancasts. Add to that the possibilities that Secret Invasion brings with it—where a bunch of the Earth’s mightiest have been replaced by Skrulls—and you suddenly realize that all bets are off.

In some ways, this opens up so many different avenues for storytelling. It’s an excellent way to bring diversity and inclusivity in to the mainstream narrative, where it belongs, instead of remaining an afterthought (although we’re not getting a Romani Doctor Doom just yet). The multiverse is also for second chances. It made sense to pick characters that we’re not quite done with from their respective timelines, and give them another chance at it in a different timeline, a different comic book movie. Many fans were excited when they realized the events of Deadpool & Wolverine could mean we might finally get a Gambit movie with Channing Tatum, a film that was stuck in developmental hell for years before being canceled.

And Marvel isn’t exactly going rogue with this; if anything, this is what their source material has been doing for decades now. Comic books have been playing in this multiverse sandbox successfully for years, amassing a rich interwoven multiverse with so many possibilities. And it was only a matter of time for comic book movies to follow suit. 

However, the concerns about the over-reliance on multiverse storytelling are not unfounded, either. Many have argued that introducing time travel or a multiverse in your storytelling is lazy writing or an easy fix for when writers write themselves into a corner. It allows a writer to go back on the rules of engagement established for the world they’ve created, and chalk it up to this much-abused plot device.

“Oh, we killed off this particular character who would’ve been great in this situation? Let’s just go back in time to get them!”

“Do we need this MacGuffin now that no longer exists in this world? How about we poach it from another timeline?”

The multiverse—the way it is being done right now—feels like a bad bargain. If introducing it meant that it was strengthening an already well-written narrative or branching into an unexplored territory, an argument could be made for it. But now, the multiverse template is being used as a copout or an easy solution, a way to wink at the audiences and bring back actors with strong box office pull who no longer belong in the timeline as cameos to jazz up an otherwise weak script. Instead of recasting Jonathan Majors’ Kang and going ahead with the character as a villain, the decision to bring back Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom does cast doubts on the intent behind the decision. Was it to draw a poetic parallel of the universe’s savior becoming the universe’s doom? Or was it simply due to a lack of confidence in its future phases?

You could claim superhero fatigue as the need for such crutches, but the truth is even fans can see through the lack of effort in etching out a real story with high stakes and genuine emotional arcs for their beloved superheroes. When shuttling between the multiverses becomes as easy and low-stakes as commuting on local transport, and lets you reverse any death, bring back any person or thing that shouldn’t have existed in the timeline to solve your problem, and erase all the emotional impact that the events so far have had on the characters and the audiences, do the stakes even matter anymore? How do we invest in anything knowing that, at any minute, the rules could be thrown out the window?

Another major problem with the way Marvel’s tackling the multiverse is how convoluted it’s making the whole journey. Already, watching an MCU movie comes with a fair amount of homework, one that we used to enjoy doing up until Phase 3, when it was easy and fun. There were a bunch of MCU movies you had to watch to make sure you knew where we were at in the new movie that came out. There were Easter eggs and callbacks, but it was all still manageable.

Now, however, you have to always keep track of what’s happening in the Marvel series (not all of which are engaging enough), what could happen (What If?), along with the increasing number of movies. And then, there are the concepts that Marvel has introduced across its TV series and new films that you have to understand. So far, we’ve got nexus events, nexus beings, canon events, anchor beings, and absolute point! It’s already so exhausting, and we haven’t even begun yet!

Marvel doesn’t need to look far for some great examples of good, cohesive, and efficient multiverse storytelling. It’s not like the MCU has done it all wrong—WandaVision, Loki, and Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness got plenty right, especially with the emotional stakes. Everything that the Spider-Verse movies have done has touched the right chord with its audience, and there’s no fatigue around seeing more of this animated franchise despite there already being enough Spider-Man movies.

Since Marvel is also bringing back the Russo brothers to direct its new films, they would do well to take the example of great emotional storytelling and world-building in multiverse storylines from the Russos’ own production, Everything Everywhere All at Once. The film’s main draw was strong writing with the multiverse only a plot device. It was the rich emotional arcs for its lead and supporting characters that upped the stakes, while the multiverse was let loose to be imaginative and absolutely bonkers but not the centerpiece of its storytelling. It is a great study in what the endgame of a a multiverse storyline should be able to accomplish if written well, and if Marvel doesn’t stake all its hopes on it.

With the announcement of Spider-Man 4, more fans are wondering if Marvel’s streak of mounting films with lazy writing and hoping the multiverse novelty attracts fan interest will continue.

In a nutshell, the MCU can go ahead and use the multiverse as the starting point for a myriad of stories it wants to tell. It’s built into the comic book movie source code, and it makes sense to go down this road. But the multiverse can’t be a copout, a crutch that the studio uses to build confidence in a product that has nothing much going for it in the first place, or a sort of easy explanation to tide over any loopholes in logic or a good story.