I’ve really been looking forward to Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Not so much because I’m pumped for the massive finale of the latest MCU saga, but mostly because I’ve been looking forward to the Multiverse Saga finally coming to an end so the Marvel Cinematic Universe can move on to something more interesting.
I haven’t been a fan of the Multiverse Saga since we learned that the period following Avengers: Endgame would be the Multiverse Saga. I just thought it was a bad choice of direction for the MCU. But then, I saw Fantastic Four: First Steps, and now I’m much more interested in the Marvel Multiverse. I just wish Marvel hadn’t waited so long to make it.
The Multiverse Saga Has Failed To Interest Me
On paper, it’s easy to see why the Multiverse has been popular in comic books for decades. What’s better than your favorite superhero? How about five of your favorite superheroes, each one slightly different? The problem is that the Multiverse has rarely been home to interesting stories. Rather, it’s been a way to explain away continuity issues, and those massive crossover events are ultimately designed to simplify storytelling that has become too unwieldy.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t broken, and thus didn’t require fixing. While the MCU was massive compared to other movie franchises, it was still relatively small compared to the comic books that inspired it. The story wasn’t actually that hard to follow.
With the recent news that Avengers: Secret Wars will act as some sort of reboot of the MCU, including potentially bringing back dead characters as well as recasting them, it feels like the entire Multiverse Saga may have existed simply to achieve that goal, which is frustrating, as the fact that time actually flows in the MCU in something that resembles reality, unlike the comics, has been one of the most interesting things about it.
It’s not that I dislike most of the Multiverse saga films. I think the best of them are truly great, and the worst of them are simply forgettable. However, none of them made me feel like the Multiverse Saga was a thing that needed to exist until The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps Is The Multiverse Done Right
For all the talk of the continuity and connections of the MCU, the fact is that most of the movies in the franchise actually stand alone just fine. That said, The Fantastic Four: First Steps told a story that stood on its own in a way no Marvel movie had since Iron Man. It was entirely self-contained as it took place from start to finish in a separate universe.
The movie acknowledges the existence of the Multiverse, and we know from the post-credits scene of Thunderbolts* that the Fantastic Four will come to the MCU eventually, but none of that was important to the movie that’s currently in theaters, and it’s glorious.
The particular details of Fantastic Four and its retro-future aesthetic are absolutely “my jam,” as it were, and so I loved those elements specifically, but what I really loved was the idea of taking a superhero movie and giving us an entire story set in one of those universes. It works with new characters easily, but I wouldn’t hate to see a Captain America movie done this way.
Why Did Marvel Do This So Late?
If this had been the Multiverse Saga from the beginning, a series of movies that were only connected by the Multiverse and were otherwise stand-alone, I would have been much more interested. We could have seen different worlds, different heroes. The potential creativity would have been limitless. Then you could have a crossover event that brings those characters from different worlds together to fight a bad guy, and it could have been excellent.
If superhero fatigue is a real thing, this could have been a way to prevent it by keeping things fresh and not simply continuing to follow the same stories. Putting the Fantastic Four in an alternate universe was likely the easiest way to explain their existence in the MCU without doing major retocons in the main universe, but as soon as they stumbled on the idea, Marvel should have realized what they had.
And yet, one assumes that, once the Multiverse Saga is over, the Multiverse will cease to be an active concern. First Steps may be the only movie of its kind we will ever see. The Multiverse may not even technically exist in the MCU after Doomsday and Secret Wars. If that happens, then this door into new and interesting ideas will be closed. Honestly, I think now I hate the Multiverse Saga even more for what it could have been.
Could Avengers: Secret Wars Give Us More Movies Like Fantastic Four?
But maybe it could still be that? The final part of the MCU that has thus far been announced is Avengers: Secret Wars, currently set to hit theaters in December of 2027. The film is set to be the end of the Multiverse Saga as far as we know, but recently, Kevin Feige and others have referred to the film more as a beginning than an end.
A couple of years ago, my colleague Eric Eisenberg suggested that Secret Wars shouldn't be simply a film in the MCU but rather an entire phase, as the comic story that inspired the name opens the door to a host of potential multiverse stories that could each have a place in the MCU.
Depending on exactly how the events of Avengers: Secret Wars play out, we could still get exactly that. If whatever multiversal cataclysm is likely to be at the center of Doomday and/or Secret Wars isn't resolved by the end of the latter film, the possibility certainly exists that we could get an entire phase of Marvel movies, each one set in its own universe, perhaps with versions of characters that are first introduced in those movies.
Even if the Multiverse ceases to be a focus after Secret Wars, as long as the concept of the Multiverse survives, the door will always be open to a movie set on a different Earth. If there's an idea for a story set elsewhere, I certainly hope we can still see it.
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