The end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s second saga is in sight. After the Infinity Saga ran for 11 years between Iron Man in 2008 and Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2019, the Multiverse Saga will stretch from WandaVision in 2021 to Avengers: Secret Wars in 2027 – a much shorter time span, but one that incorporates TV shows in addition to theatrical releases.
Compared to the Infinity Saga, success hasn’t come quite as easily for the MCU’s multiverse. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and The Marvels each landed to an underwhelming response, while the likes of Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World couldn’t hit the box office heights that became common during the Infinity Saga.
What comes next is anyone’s guess, but the “Mutant Saga” remains a popular assumption. For the third era to truly flourish, however, Avengers: Secret Wars must repeat a key strength that made the Infinity Saga great.
Avengers: Secret Wars Needs To Take The Multiverse Out Of Play
One of the cleverest things Marvel did with the Infinity Saga was end it definitively. In Avengers: Endgame, we saw multiple variations of Infinity Stones being used by various different characters for a number of different purposes. It was, unashamedly, an Infinity-fest.
Since Avengers: Endgame, the Infinity Stones have been largely forgotten. They’ll get a mention now and again or feature in a flashback, but the MCU has been surprisingly resolute about leaving the Infinity Stones in the past. No more alternate stones, no recreated stones, no more characters getting powers from the stones, etc. When Loki showed TVA staff using Infinity Stones as paperweights, the message was clear: Thanos’ collect ’em all gems are no longer relevant.
The MCU typically struggles to move past former glories. Robert Downey Jr. exited as Tony Stark, but will return as Doctor Doom, and you can bet Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers won’t be far behind. Thor went one solo movie too far, and I’ve lost count of how many times the MCU has returned to the Battle of New York. They couldn’t even let Hugh Jackman stop playing Wolverine. The fact that Marvel has resisted any urge to reintroduce the Infinity Stones, therefore, really means something.
Avengers: Secret Wars must provide the same clean break after the multiverse. Whatever transpires in the sixth Avengers outing, the finale should close Earth-616 (or Earth-199999) off from every other parallel universe. From that point on, the Mutant Saga – or whatever the third chapter ends up being – needs to refrain from opening the multiverse door ever again, just as the Multiverse Saga has refrained from digging up the Infinity Stones.
Why The MCU’s Future Depends On Ending The Multiverse
The multiverse offers awesome storytelling potential, and without it, we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy instant classics like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Deadpool and Wolverine, and Loki. There’s no denying the MCU has produced some of its best material courtesy of the multiverse mechanic. At the same time, it also produced a lot of nonsense.
Incursions, Sacred Timelines, anchor beings, the Watcher, Kang – the complexity of creating a multiverse eroded the cohesion Marvel thrived upon during the Infinity Saga. Different iterations of the same concepts butted heads, adding more contradiction and confusion to an already dense premise.
The multiverse has also led to a decrease in stakes. When a character dies, it’s only one version of them biting the dust. The ease with which Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness sliced through the Illuminati members remains the most egregious example, while Deadpool and Wolverine got away with similar by virtue of being a comedy. But when characters die in the MCU now, it feels like they’re only one interdimensional jump away from coming back. As we head into Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, that phenomenon will likely get worse.
The MCU’s mistake was thinking the multiverse should underpin an entire saga. The endless possibilities it offers are only really suited for certain characters and situations, like bringing all three Spider-Man actors together or letting Deadpool run wild. Marvel perhaps should have saved its multiverse for special occasions rather than making it an all-encompassing beast.
That situation can’t continue into the next saga. Audiences can’t watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s new Wolverine fight Sentinels and think “it’s okay if he dies, Henry Cavill will replace him!” Just as the Infinite Stones went from yesterday’s treasures to today’s paperweights, the multiverse needs to become a distant memory after Avengers: Secret Wars.
