In Defence Of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness
2. It Wasn't Just Fan Service
After Spider-Man: No Way Home did the impossible and brought back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as Spidey for the first time in 14 and 7 years respectively, it seemed that the Multiverse of Madness could do absolutely anything it wanted to.
This was certainly exploited to a degree, with the likes of Reed Richards (played by John Krasinski no less) and Charles Xavier making their cameo appearances, however outside of the Illuminati there was little fan service to be found.
With the theory of the multiverse being put into practice Marvel Studios could have literally gone to any number of different universes and brought in any number of heroes from previous franchises for no other reason than for fan service.
There is nothing inherently wrong with fan service if it is done in moderation. Limiting this to just the Illuminati and making the Multiverse of Madness an actual story, rather than two hours of guessing which old Marvel actor will be showing up next, most definitely worked in its favour.