You know, it really seemed like we were getting a whole lot of multiversal shenanigans when the MCU first began its multiverse saga. After all, it's in the name. It's about the freaking multiverse, right? And yet, it seems as though Marvel is quietly killing the multiverse, putting the damn thing out of its misery right in front of our eyes with stories like Deadpool and Wolverine, Loki, and the upcoming Secret Wars. Okay, maybe quietly isn't the best terminology for the biggest franchise on Earth, but you get the idea. The demise of the multiverse is near. But why is that exactly? Well, today I've got two explanations. So, let's dig into it.
Let's start with the obvious, and that's that the Multiverse Saga as a concept really hasn't taken off as much as I think Kevin Feige and his MC crew had thought it would. The reasons are legion at this point. The films tend to look and feel incredibly lackluster. The storylines are confusing and lack impact. The main villain was kicked to the curb mid-saga due to a real-life controversy with Jonathan Majors. And the overall spider's web of plot lines can be both confusing and frustrating to keep up with. There's also just too much content. From the theatrical releases to the Disney Plus shows, it's a lot. And for many casual fans, it's become a part-time job to keep up with them all. All of these are perfectly serviceable reasons why the multiverse saga has failed to take off and why Marvel has been less keen on exploring it.
Feige himself is well aware of these issues. Regarding the deluge of content, he explained in a conversation with the press back in 2025 that while Marvel produced around 50 hours of content between 2007 and 2019, the 6 years following Avengers Endgame saw them produce well over 100 hours worth in half the time. As he states in that long-ranging conversation, that's too much. He also explained that the post-Endgame MCU was very much in a state of experimentation and expansion, something that sounds like a pretty noble goal, but which hasn't really panned out for the studio.
Feige also confirmed a few more details such as the recasting of the X-Men for the upcoming post-Secret Wars film. And more intriguingly, he stated outright that while Endgame was unsurprisingly about endings, Secret Wars is a film about beginnings. Not to get too fast and furious up in here, but this leads me to what I feel is the real reason behind the upcoming end of the multiverse. Family. There's always room for family.
You see, the MCU has certainly been ramping up plenty of multiversal shenanigans that will eventually lead to Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars. That's readily apparent. You've got Wanda Division, the first seasons of Loki and What If, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in phase 4, Quantum Mania, season 2 of Loki, seasons two and three of What If, and Deadpool and Wolverine in phase 5, and Fantastic 4: First Steps in the current phase 6. Presumably, Spider-Man: Brand New Day will also touch on the multiverse since it sets Peter Parker and his journey as a direct result of messing with the multiverse back in No Way Home. Beyond that, of course, there's Doomsday and Secret Wars, which will round out the phase with the ultimate multiversal story.
Some folks, they might take the dip in multiversal projects as a sign that Marvel simply has started to move on from the concept itself, that the confusion within the casual fan base and general lack of interest in several major projects has turned the studio against its initial plans. However, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Sure, the Jonathan Major stuff definitely had an impact, no doubt there. But even that didn't change the overall trajectory for the series, at least not in a way that would have made a dent in the big ideas inherent in the multiverse saga.
When you break it down, yes, there's a lot of emphasis placed on the multiverse. However, you'll also notice that there's a recurring theme that keeps popping up in nearly every slice of Marvel content in this saga, and that again is family. More specifically, the passing of the torch to the next generation.
Wanda Division is about Wanda Maximoff literally creating her own dream family and thereby, as we later see in Agatha all along, manifesting her own children into living, breathing human beings. Falcon and the Winter Soldier is about two heroes learning to move on from the shadow of Captain America with Falcon in particular learning to become the new Cap and thereby eventually leading a new generation of heroes. Properties like Shang-Chi, Eternals, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Echo, and Ironheart focused on a few of these new heroes and barely, if at all, touched on the multiverse. Meanwhile, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor: Love and Thunder, Wakanda Forever, Quantumania, and The Marvels placed an emphasis on family and the newer generation in various forms.
Love and Thunder gave Thor a stepdaughter. Hawkeye brought Clint together with his new protege, Kate Bishop. Wakanda Forever gave us a new Black Panther due to a real-life tragedy, but also introduced Riri Williams and T'Challa's own son. You get the idea. Nearly every entry in the MCU's current saga deals with these familial themes. Shang-Chi is about a father and son reuniting, while Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, in addition to properly introducing Adam Warlock, yet another new hero, dealt with the breaking apart of Star-Lord's own found family and even ended with him reuniting with his grandfather. Also, it straight-up ends with a new team of Guardians. So, there's that.
Point being, you'd be hard-pressed to find an entry in the Multiverse Saga that doesn't contend with these themes of family and generational evolution. Of course, this does beg the question, where exactly is Marvel going with this? Well, we saw at the end of Fantastic 4: First Steps that Dr. Doom is after Franklin Richards and presumably kidnaps him. There's something important about this new member of Marvel's first family. If you've read the comics, then you're probably going, "Yeah, no kidding." After all, the kiddo has the power to create entire universes, which obviously fits into the narrative that's being built.
But it's this continuation of those aforementioned family themes going into Doomsday that strike me as being super important. It's my belief that they will continue to focus on pushing the next generation of heroes, presumably with the end of Secret Wars, resetting the MCU, and giving the new world, as it were, to these heroes, as well as new additions like the X-Men. I'd even go so far as to say Dr. Doom resembling Tony Stark will play into these themes as he represents the past and must be defeated in order for the franchise to continue into the future. Oh, and back to Franklin Richards for a second. He's totally how Doom is creating Battle World, right? In the comics, it's thanks to powers stolen from the Beyonder. But since we haven't seen that character so far in the MCU, and Franklin is right there getting snatched up by Tony Doom, it seems like the obvious path for our big bad's grand plan, right?
Why isn't it possible? It's just not. Why? I'd be mistaken if I didn't mention anchor beings and incursions and how they fit into this little theory of mine. Deadpool and Wolverine introduced us to the anchor beings concept. Basically, a plot mechanic where an entire universe lives or dies based on the life of one person, i.e. the individual or family. This shrinks the infinite scale of the multiverse back down to a human level. Meanwhile, in Multiverse of Madness, we learned that incursions happen when people spend too much time in other universes. This feels like a pretty heavy-handed metaphor for not letting go of the past. After all, the multiverse saga is partially about characters essentially trying to multiverse their way out of grief. The lesson time and time again is that they must return to their own family and reality.
Anyway, the truth of the matter is that in the end, the multiverse saga wasn't really about the multiverse. Sure, we got several films and TV series dealing with it, and there's little doubt that the destruction of the multiverse will have a massive impact on the MCU going forward. Hell, it's all but confirmed that what we're getting is a reset of the franchise at the end of Avengers: Secret Wars. However, the multiverse is more of a sci-fi storytelling mechanic that's being used to explore themes of family, grief, and the transition to the next generation. While the multiverse saga has certainly been flawed, I do think that folks have put too much focus on the literal name of the damn thing, and less so on the content of the films and series themselves. This isn't about the multiverse, not really. It's about family and new beginnings. And once those themes have been properly explored, the multiverse is no longer necessary.
Now, next time on the truth about, I'll be taking a gander at another befuddling timeline. That's right, I'm traveling into the past to figure out what the heck is going on with that Terminator timeline. Until then, please let me know in the comments what you think about Marvel quietly killing the multiverse. As always, I've been and continue to be Michael Keane. Thank you for watching Screen Rant.