When The Multiverse Gets Too Big You Blow It Up

There is a time honored solution for when audiences get exhausted and/or confused about variants and different dimensions.

It’s Multiverse Fatigue, Not Comic Book Fatigue

Are audiences into the idea of multiverses? The short answer is yes if it is Everything Everywhere All at Once or is anchored by Spider-Man. If you throw in a Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange you might get away with it. However, if it’s with a Flash or a Kang you are pretty much dead in the water.

Listen, I get it. I might be used to multiverses because I have been steeped in this stuff since the 80’s. Variants, sliders, universes designated by numbers like 616, Earths 1,2,3,4, and everything else are easy for me to track. I read the comics, watched the shows, and even read all the bios on the back of the trading cards. How is Cable, who is from the future, the son of Cyclops and the clone of Jean Grey? I know the answer and will spare you from it.

I’m unfazed because I’m a nerd. However, other people were into sports and what not. They just want to watch a movie, not do homework.

Which makes the decision of the Marvel Studios to do a whole multiverse saga a little…well, difficult. To say nothing of other issues that were covered in this article in Variety. There’s a lot in this article but what really surprised me is not the issues that Marvel is facing because things like a star in legal trouble, COVID-19 complications, and damage from the rush to streaming, are pretty par for the course. What is most notable is that from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame Marvel Studios avoided most problems faced by other studios.

The Secret War on Infinite Earths Solution

In both comic books and movies you are only one hit away from turning it all around. I’m not betting against Marvel Studios at all. I think this moment is going to lead to them reducing the quantity of what they are producing and increasing the quality.

There is even a time-honored way to do it - the universe reset. When the various iterations of the DC Comics characters got too complicated in came the Crisis on the Infinite Earths which reduced the amount of worlds down to one. When the Marvel Universe became stale they introduced the Ultimate Marvel Universe which was a new take on old characters. When that two universes became too complicated there was a major event called Secret Wars that blew them both up and rebuilt them.

When you do this you keep what was working and drop what was dragging you down. It helps with sales because legacy fans can keep on reading with excitement from things feeling fresh. Also, it allows new readers to jump in.

There was one thing in the Variety article that jumped out at me because it provides the perfect way for Marvel to do their reset sooner rather than later:

At the gathering in Palm Springs, executives discussed backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, like Dr. Doom. But making any shift would carry its own headaches: Majors was already a big presence in the MCU, including as the scene-stealing antagonist in February’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” And he has been positioned as the franchise’s next big thing in this season of “Loki” — particularly in the finale, which airs on Nov. 9 and sets up Kang as the titular star of a fifth “Avengers” film in 2026.  

(Hans Gruber voice) You asked for a Marvel miracle and I give you Doctor Doom.

Doom Can Save Them

Doctor Doom can easily be the major villain of the planned Secret Wars movie. Doctor Doom is the major nemesis of The Fantastic Four, but also, the Marvel Universe in general. Somehow the powers that be allowed Thanos to usurp him in the popular culture, but I digress.

Doctor Doom was the villain in the 2015 Secret Wars event I referenced before and he can be here as well.

Here’s my pitch:

We open in the universe from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness after Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic has been murdered. It’s post-funeral and Sue Storm aka Invisible Women (played by Kristen Bell here) is in mourning. Doctor Doom comes to visit her to pay his respects, you know in his own way since he hated Reed because he was so jealous of him. He demands to know who defeated Mr. Fantastic since he was never able to do it. Sue tells him about Scarlet Witch and the multiverse and all of that business. This is a refresher for the audience about how all this works.

It also sets up Doctor Doom’s motivation which is to harness the power of the multiverse himself because now that his arch enemy was vanquished and he needs a hobby.

From here we have Doctor Doom tracking down Kang (all of them) to defeat him and take his multiverse traveling means. He then goes about tracking down Scarlet Witch since she has reality-bending powers. This puts him on a collision course with the TVA and Loki. Loki seeks out the help of The Avengers to stop Doctor Doom. Doom defeats The Avengers and remakes reality so that he is at the center.

Loki and Doctor Strange escape the carnage and use a combination of science and magic to pull together a team of Avengers that features heroes from previous movies, all three Spider-Men, The Fantastic Four, and some of the X-Men.

In the third act The Avengers go into battle and defeat Doctor Doom. They reset reality in the process and instead of having all these different storylines and what not we have one simplified timeline.

From here Marvel can focus on The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Spider-Man, and a few key Avengers like Doctor Strange. We can do a movie or two a year with these big characters while using Disney+ to further “street level” characters like Daredevil and Moon Knight.

Doctor Doom would have to be played by a super charismatic actor as he would be the main focus on the movie. He would also be sticking around to torment the Fantastic Four. Also, in this film you introduce the new Fantastic Four and some of the new X-Men.

The Secret Wars movie would be able to help the MCU reset in a fun and thrilling way like Avengers: Endgame while also making the multiverse fun like Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Every universe reset brings in new sense of creative freedom. The Crisis on Infinite Earths led to John Bryne’s run on The Man of Steel. It made Superman feel fresh by simplifying his origin and became the foundation for a run on the character that lasted from 1986 to 2003.

Reseting universes has worked for comic books and I’m betting it will work here as well.