By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
You can make many Marvel fans instantly cringe with just one word: multiverse. The multiverse was intended to add some flavor and spice to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it soon became a storytelling crutch that emphasized fun cameos over actual storytelling. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is the biggest offender in this regard. Many fans want Marvel to abandon this storytelling crutch altogether, but I’ve got a different recommendation, true believers: instead of focusing on endless multiversal cameos into the main universe, Kevin Feige and his team should give us entire films set within other universes.
Make Mine Multiverse
In other words, my suggestion for Marvel’s multiverse moving forward is that we should have a “Variant” of the What If…? television series applied to feature films. Like the comics it is named after, that show presents how wildly different a familiar universe would be if something different had happened to change the timeline. However, I don’t believe that the MCU should be limited to just “what if?” cartoon tales and should instead take a page out of Sony’s book by creating the live-action equivalent of the Spider-Verse films.
To keep things simple, Marvel could simply look to its own publication history for ideas on what multiverses would make for awesome feature films. The low-hanging fruit would be to adapt the original Ultimates line of comics which presented different and updated versions of iconic heroes as a way of luring in new readers who might otherwise be intimidated by decades of comics lore.
A movie or even an entire series of movies set in this universe would provide the perfect excuse to bring back dead MCU heroes like Iron Man while recasting as needed…after all, it was these comics that originally gave us a Black Nick Fury (modeled after Samuel L. Jackson, no less). Plus, like the original comics, such movies could take whatever the fans and writers loved about the old universe while giving everything a much-needed bit of modernization.
So Many Marvel Multiverse Options
But the Marvel comics have given us other multiverses that could make for great feature films, including Earth-65, the original home of a Spider-Woman (Gwen Stacy) who squares off against an evil version of Matt Murdock. Sure, making a live-action Spider-Gwen film would mean Marvel would need to collaborate with Sony again, but both studios could use a win. At this point, Marvel hasn’t made anything good lately other than Deadpool & Wolverine, and Sony’s only major superhero hits have been the Venom and Spider-Verse films. Frankly, a live-action movie focusing on Spider-Gwen (a known quantity to fans) could be a much-needed hit for both studios.
As a longtime Marvel comics nerd, there are other multiverses I think need the big screen treatment, including the one with Squadron Supreme (they’re like the Justice League but cool). Plus, while we need to get proper MCU X-Men before we can get multiversal mutant cinema, the Age of Apocalypse and Powers of X comics represent, respectively, old and new takes on multidimensional mutant storytelling. Heck, if Marvel can get over its moratorium on solo Hulk movies (where’s our live-action Planet Hulk movie, you cowards?!?), a Future Imperfect film would be, well…perfect.
In addition to giving Marvel fans great new films to enjoy, this approach would keep the MCU endlessly fresh. New actors could be cast for old roles even as current actors could act against type as wild versions of familiar characters. Disney’s writers would have carte blanche to adapt the best of the multiverse comics or just create something new completely from scratch. What I’m saying is that it’s time for a very special What If…? adventure: what if Marvel stopped worrying about preserving its own Sacred Timeline and could just tell the kinds of cool, standalone stories that won so many fans over in the first place?
The ball’s in your court, Marvel. And if you need a creative consultant to give you this really obvious advice on the regular, my rates are quite reasonable. Especially compared to Plan A, which is continuously bringing truck loads of cash to Robert Downey Jr. whenever you’re worried your franchise is failing.
