Marvel Reddit Poses a Multiverse Question That’s Been Bugging Me Since Phase 4

Marvel’s Multiverse Saga has given fans a lot to chew on. Are variants of the same person not genetically identical? What’s the difference between a universe and a dimension? Is it okay to kiss your alternate self? There’s one question that’s been nagging me, though—and thanks to Reddit, I now know I’m not alone.

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Reddit user VinagreDeModena posed this question on the Loki subreddit: “How do you think the afterlife fits in the multiverse?”

“I’m curious,” VinagreDeModena writes, “what are your theories about the afterlife(s) we have seen in the MCU (in Moonkinght, Thor L&T) and how they fit in the multiverse and/or the newly established Yggdrasil? I assume they are outside time, but the same “outside of time” as the TVA?”

This is an important question! Take Loki, for example. If he’s dead in the main Marvel timeline, but his variants are still alive, do they each get their own afterlife? I guess they’d have to, if they’ve all got widely different personalities.

And what about the afterlife itself? Is there just one Valhalla (which we saw in Thor: Love and Thunder) and Field of Reeds (from Moon Knight) that all the variants in the multiverse go to, or are there infinite Valhallas and Fields of Reeds? Personally, wherever I end up after I die, I wouldn’t want to spend eternity surrounded by countless variants of myself. I’d hope for infinite afterlives so that we can all give each other some space.

Other Reddit users weighed in on the metaphysics of their favorites superheroes’ eternal souls. BreezyisBeefy proposed an elegant solution similar to the Quantum Realm: “Each afterlife appears adjacent and separate than each other attached to their universe.” That sounds good! I’d be down for that. No running into a version of myself who had a wildly more fulfilling life than I did. Who needs that?

CT-1030 expressed concerns similar to mine. “Each universe has a different afterlife,” they write. “Or else we would see a bunch of variants in the same place.” Exactly!

Faolyn proposed an idea that I’ve idly played with, but haven’t told anyone about because I was afraid it was too weird. Each universe has its own afterlife, Faolyn writes, “Unless all souls get merged together into one mega-soul or something like that. Which strikes me as a very comic-book thing to do. :D” Someone else on the internet pondered the mega-soul theory! I feel so seen.

PapaSteveRocks brought in some comics canon to shed light on the situation. “Recent Avengers books had a council of Mephistos, which confirms a different hell for each universe,” they write. “That would imply a different heaven for each as well, but would require differentiation between ‘God’ and ‘the one above all.’ There is canonically only one above all, for all the multiverse.” There you have it—at least, in the comics universe.

Anyway, plot theories are fun, but you can always count on Reddit to dig into the really vital questions. Now that we’ve tossed around some afterlife possibilities, I can focus on other pressing concerns, like how to recreate the pizza balls from Doctor Strange 2.

(featured image: Disney+)