One of the best scenes in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness also happened to be the most unexpected, with the Marvel Studios marketing team doing a phenomenal job of suckering us in with the promise of the Illuminati, only to pull the rug out from under everyone.
Audiences lost their minds when Chiwitel Ejiofor’s Mordor, John Krasinski’s Reed Richards, Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter, Lashana Lynch’s Captain Marvel, Anson Mount’s Black Bolt, and Patrick Stewart’s Professor X were revealed in all of their glory, only for Wanda Maximoff to show up on the scene and quite literally turn then into mincemeat.
It was a jaw-dropping exercise in subverting the expectations that come with fan service, and a solitary tweet ruminating on the future of the MCU has gained incredible traction online thanks to its throwaway use of Fantastic 3.
We’ve been inundated with jokes, memes, and everything besides focusing on Mr. Fantastic being turned into human spaghetti, and it’s the gift that just keeps on giving. Krasinski is widely expected to return in the directorless Fantastic Four reboot, and he’s even been touted as a potential candidate to step behind the camera himself, but it’ll be hard to erase the memories of the Scarlet Witch tearing the famed scientist and superhero to shreds from our collective memories.
On the plus side, at least we know we’ll be getting a titular quartet in Fantastic Four, even if the patriarch of Marvel’s First Family was dismembered in such spectacularly brutal fashion in Doctor Strange 2.
