This forgotten TV show proves that Marvel fumbled in the multiverse

by Chris Snelgrove
| Published 29 seconds ago

Fans are always speculating where the MCU started to go off the rails, and I believe the Multiverse was the beginning of the end. Marvel went for a fun gimmick, but they effectively fumbled in their handling of the multiverse, something that becomes quite apparent when compared to other franchises.

A now-forgotten sci-fi show Sliders He practically wrote the book on how to deal with the multiverse, using the dimension-hopping premise to constantly explore and develop his characters. After watching just a few episodes of this classic show, even the most ardent Marvel fans will admit that Kevin Feige has gotten his take on the multiverse completely wrong.

The best sci-fi show you’ve ever watched

If you’ve never watched Slidershere’s the premise: A brilliant young man invents the ability to travel (or “slip”) into parallel dimensions, but he and his friends are effectively stranded in the multiverse. They cannot return directly to their home dimension and must wait for the slip vortex to open, hoping that the next journey will finally bring them home.

Each new dimension presents strange challenges that threaten to prevent them from entering the vortex. If they don’t slip out in time, they will be stuck in a parallel Earth with no way to return home.

While quality Sliders Granted it has declined over time, the first two seasons should be mandatory viewing Science fiction Fans. The show uses its premise to seriously explore these different dimensions and what happened (such as America losing the Revolutionary War) to make this reality so different from the one we know. Our characters are constantly encountering parallel versions of themselves, seeing first-hand what they might have been like if they had been born in another time and place.

Feige fumbles, fans stumble

What does all this do? Sliders The information is relevant marvel Multiverse Sense? Unlike Sliders, the MCU has never explored actual alternate universes in live-action; Instead, it focused more on using the multiverse concept to explore gimmicks like “what if Peggy Carter was Captain America” ​​or “what if Jim from The Office was actually Mister Fantastic?” These tricks can be fun sometimes, but they are never used to meaningfully grow our characters.

For example, what do almost all multiversal characters do? Spider-Man: No way home, dead pool & Wolverineand Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness In common? Simple: it’s new faces of familiar characters to fight. To be honest, this gave the writers an excuse to never develop any villains, instead throwing in modified versions of well-known movie characters like video game villains whose color palette was switched up to be fought by one-dimensional heroes.

This is especially true for dead pool & wolverineone of Marvel’s most successful films. We can’t really explore any fantastic multiverses, Sliders-style; Instead, we’re just presented with a strange wasteland of characters from the old Fox Marvel movies.

Journeys to other multiverses are mostly used for visual gags (like all those different versions of Wolverine). We spend so little time learning about Logan’s alternate universe that to this day, fans don’t know why the world hates him because he “allowed” the X-Men (the mutants the world hates and fears!) to die.

Marvel and the multiverse meh

That’s because, deep down, Marvel’s writers didn’t care about exploring new versions of the characters, and were focused on making a Wolverine that was just like the one we know, but with a dark, haunting backstory. They wanted a familiar face to be on screen again, like a book Spider-Man: No way home He wanted familiar enemies. All this morbid nostalgia effectively stagnated this cinematic universe as it was no longer building a future for itself, but was instead stripping away its creative legacy, one multiverse film at a time.

Marvel had an opportunity to do something Sliders He did so, allowing familiar characters to visit parallel worlds and learn something about themselves. For example, how brutal it would be if Spider-Man were stuck in Fox’s universe No going home Instead of Fox villains being stuck in the MCU? Peter Parker could have learned a lot about himself and all his roads less traveled, even when he got more screen time with… Tobey Maguire Spider-Man version.

What if…Marvel had good writing?

what if Doctor Strange He spent a long time in the parallel world of the Illuminati, learning more about why they were formed and what world events necessitated the formation of this secret cabal? This would effectively continue the themes Civil war And other Marvel films have considered the dangers of heroes having too much unilateral power, all while forcing Doctor Strange to consider whether he has a moral duty to prevent this group from forming in his own universe.

What if Deadpool spent a long time in an alternate Wolverine universe, learning more about the importance of being a hero in a world where his own heroes, the X-Men, are dead? This could have continued his story from the first two Deadpool films (about whether or not he would become a hero, as Colossus recommends) and even fleshed out his desire to be in the MCU’s world full of heroes.

Is it too late to save the MCU?

These are the types of stories Sliders It was given to us every week in the 90s on a shoestring budget, but Marvel can’t give us such fully developed stories in films that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. While some of these multiverse films have been successful (esp No going home and Deadpool Wolverine), they hurt Marvel in the long run by assuring fans that nothing really matters. Stories become meaningless when characters can only hit the reset button (like Spider-Man who makes everyone forget who he is), or come back from the dead (like Loki in End game), or only appear for two seconds and die senselessly (like all Illuminati).

This led to superhero fatigue that now threatens to destroy the entire comic book industry. Marvel could have simply copied a file Sliders formula, and the multiverse would have revitalized this franchise; Now, however, Disney It’s betting everything on the upcoming MCU reset, and the studio that refused to truly explore the multiverse is now turning the world’s most popular franchise into one big variant. But unless Marvel can start offering better writing than a low-budget, over-the-top show from the mid-’90s, it may be too late to save the world’s most popular series.

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