Even though we ended up getting three Peter Parkers, five villains hailing from two previous franchises, and a cameo from Netflix’s Matt Murdock, the buildup to Spider-Man: No Way Home saw dozens upon dozens of other familiar faces linked with a guest appearance in the multiversal Marvel epic.
The exact same has been true of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness so far, with a laundry list featuring almost anyone to have played a major role in any Marvel Comics adaptation dating back two decades having been rumored for Sam Raimi’s upcoming sequel.
As a result, separating the theoretical wheat from the hypothetical chaff is as close to impossible as it gets, matters that aren’t helped by the notoriously hyperbolic Rob Liefeld claiming that much of the disseminated information is right on the money, as he revealed to The Big Thing.
“Here’s the deal you all know, I want to know — have either of you been caught trying to sneak into a screening of Doctor Strange 2? …They are testing the sh*t out of this movie. The thing is, uh, they’re testing, it’s all getting out. We’re all hitting those hashtags and we’re like, ‘Oh crap! They’re showing this. People are seeing this.’ I think it’s safe to say some of the stuff, you just said that’s out there, it’s happening. It’s in, it’s been seen.
I kind of feel like… [the] result of each test that’s being reported in the press is ‘We need to put more cool sh*t in that movie … So you know, they need Doctor Strange to hit multiple home runs. So that’s why they’re testing the crap out of it. You know what I want to see? I want to see the break in case of emergency moves. You’ve got him behind glass, all the [Fox-Marvel] shit is there. Break all that glass, bring it all in. We want that. I love Tom Cruise. If he’s in it for 90 seconds, I’ll see it three times, OK? You want me to see it six times, you bring some of that [Fox-Marvel] stuff in … And actually, I know on some level, some of it is already there. I have just revoked every — every one of my [Marvel] passes just got revoked.”
Of course, we should point out that Liefeld has absolutely no involvement in either Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness or the MCU at large, so it’s best not to take his words at face value quite yet. Obviously, the former Sorcerer Supreme’s second solo outing will be packed with surprises, but if they all turn out to be legit, then the cast will number in the hundreds.
