What’s in Store for the MCU Multiverse After ‘Doctor Strange 2?’
Who's up for a trip to Battleworld?
The theme of Marvel’s Phase 4 is the multiverse, and the MCU has been setting up its new and expanded world for over a year now. We got our first glimpse of parallel realities at the end of WandaVision, and then saw the Sacred Timeline get destroyed in Loki. Realities started to bleed together in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and now, in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, we finally got a good look at how utterly wild the multiverse actually is. But now that we know there’s a paint universe out there, along with a universe where you can get pizza balls on any New York City street corner, what can we expect going forward? Here are our theories about where the MCU might go from here!
Secret Wars
Fans have been speculating for some time that the MCU is adapting Secret Wars, a crossover storyline in the original comics that focuses on the multiverse. (Technically it’s two separate storylines with the same name, but we’ll focus on the 2015 story for now.) Thanks to Doctor Strange’s multiversal romp, there’s more evidence than ever that Phase 4 (and possibly 5) is indeed a Secret Wars adaptation.
In 2015, Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers and New Avengers face the problem of incursions: disasters in which two realities crash into each other, destroying one or both universes in the process. The Illuminati, made up of Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Namor, Iron Man, Beast, and Mister Fantastic, find out that the incursions are being caused by a war between entities called the Ivory Kings and Rabum Alal. Eventually, the incursions destroy the multiverse, leaving the heroes stranded on a patchwork planet called Battleworld.
In Doctor Strange 2, we see our first incursion in the MCU. After Reed Richards explains the nature of incursions to Stephen—telling him that Earth 838’s Stephen was responsible for causing one, killing trillions—Stephen and Christine escape to an Earth that’s in the middle of an incursion. It’s an eerie landscape that’s in the process of disintegrating, with objects spinning in space as the gravity dissipates. It’s unsettling as hell.
In the mid-credit scene, the sorceress Clea visits Strange, accuses him of causing an incursion, and tells him he needs to help her stop it. Out in the multiverse, the incursions are happening, and if the MCU is indeed adapting Secret Wars, then Earth 616 will definitely be staring down an incursion at some point. It seems likely that this will be the next Snap-level event in the MCU.
In fact, incursions might be the means by which He Who Remains/Kang the Conquerer was able to destroy entire realities in the first multiversal war that he describes in Loki. Incursions don’t occur on their own. Yes, crossing realities can cause them, but it’s likely that someone out in the multiverse is causing incursions to further their own agenda, and all signs point to Kang.
There is an upcoming Disney+ series starring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury called Secret Invasion, based on the comic book series of the same title. Secret Invasion will also star Ben Mendelsohn, Don Cheadle, Colbie Smothers, Martin Freeman, and Olivia Colman. The show is set to be a “crossover event” and will surely touch upon the multiverse and elements we’ve seen in recent shows and movies, but to be clear Secret Invasion has a different focus than Secret Wars. The series appears to be largely concerned with alien Skrulls who have infiltrated Earth.
What Dreams May Come
Dreams, we learn in Doctor Strange 2, are alternate selves bleeding into each other across universes. (If that’s true, I feel bad for whatever alternate versions of me are unlucky enough to dream about my boring life.) Does this mean dreams will be bigger plot points going forward, as the multiversal saga continues to unfold? For instance, can Loki use dreams to locate Sylvie? Will Wanda—you know she’s not dead—continue to dream about her kids? Will dreams serve as plot points in other corners of the MCU? Or will Marvel promptly forget that this earth-shattering revelation about the fabric of reality was ever a thing?
Infinite Realities, Infinite Properties
Doctor Strange 2 introduced mutants, Inhumans, the Fantastic 4, the Illuminati, and a bunch of beloved characters only to kill them all off 20 minutes later. But that’s okay, because the multiverse is infinite and they can all just come back as variants! I hope Marvel doesn’t go too bonkers with this plot device, but thanks to America’s portals, Clea’s knife, the Quantum Realm, the TVA’s tempads, and most likely a whole host of other devices and powers, hopping across realities looks like it’ll be as easy as popping over to the bodega down the block. Of course, that reality-hopping causes incursions, so it looks like things are going to get pretty messy in the MCU.
The next Marvel movie coming up is Thor: Love and Thunder. Will the multiverse play a role in that film, or is the MCU doing a more gradual build-up over the next few phases? It’s hard to say when we only have a teaser to go on, but don’t be surprised if Thor 4 and the rest of the movies slated for 2022 and 2023 at least hint at the chaos gradually unfolding in other realities.
(image: Marvel, Empire Magazine)
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