MCU: 10 Possible Uses Of The Multiverse In Phase 4 (And Beyond)
Is this how Venom enters the MCU?
With a handful of major characters now out of the picture, several new franchises (including Shang-Chi and The Eternals) set to debut in the coming years, and the Infinity Saga all wrapped up, we're now at the beginning of the MCU's next chapter, and it won't be long before we start to learn more about its next big overarching narrative.
Excitingly, the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home might have given us some clues in that area by introducing the multiverse. Assuming Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio isn't lying about his story, one of the snaps in Avengers: Endgame tore a hole in the fabric of reality, which has introduced alternate Earths into the MCU's continuity. Mysterio states that he is from Earth-833, while the main MCU timeline is Earth-616.
This development brings with it a ton of tantalising implications for the franchise's future, opening up a near-limitless chest of story possibilities. The MCU could use the multiverse in all sorts of exciting ways, and with Far From Home's release date inching closer by the day, we might see some of these uses being teased rather soon.
10. To Introduce The X-Men & The Fantastic Four
Ever since we learned that Disney intended to acquire Fox, the biggest question on everybody's lips has been how will the MCU introduce the latter studio's most famous properties, like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four?
Marvel Studios can now use those two sets of characters thanks to the Disney-Fox deal going through, but since neither property has already been seeded in the MCU in any way (under Fox's ownership, they couldn't be referenced in Disney's films), they'll have to be brought into the fold from scratch, and that could prove quite a tricky situation to manoeuvre.
After all, how do you explain the sudden emergence of millions of mutants, each with distinct and dangerous powers? Admittedly, the Fantastic Four would be much easier to introduce than the X-Men - their origin could be similar to the 2015 movie version where they're all unknown, powerless school kids, for example - but still, it would be quite jarring for so many mighty superheroes to just show up out of the blue.
Unless, of course, they've just been active in a different reality this whole time. While that might sound like a lazy way to do it, this would be a simple, quick, and perfectly acceptable explanation, and would also allow the MCU to skip over certain origin stories - like they did with Spider-Man - that most audiences will be familiar with.