The Multiverse Saga is quickly proving to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s greatest asset and most egregious problem. Especially after the lukewarm-at-best release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, everything after Avengers: Endgame has felt like one step forward and two steps back for the media giant.
And the fandom certainly hasn’t been quiet about it. It seems like every theoretical solution to Marvel’s problems has been shouted into one of the internet’s many corners, and that particular mill doesn’t look like it will slow down any time soon. And with this latest suggestion from the hivemind of r/marvelstudios, it’s all the more clear just how energetically the fandom likes to wield the power of hindsight.
The original poster suggested that Fantastic Four, perhaps the single most anticipated MCU project outside of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty or Avengers: Secret Wars, and also one of the latter most releases in the Multiverse Saga as a whole, should have kicked off Phase Four. They noted how Reed Richards, the leader of the Four, is a character capable of filling the void left by Tony Stark, whose absence has left a considerable lack of stability for the franchise. Thus, introducing Richards as early as possible could have restored the “anchor” character that the MCU seems to have been lacking up to now.
One responder echoed the sentiment, heavily agreeing with the relative lack of emotional depth in the Multiverse Saga, which Richards may or may not have been able to solve if Fantastic Four had shown up earlier in the slate.
Others even chalked up the 2025 release date we have now as the result of some legal issues with the Four, but not everyone was convinced.
Indeed, had things been different, we could have had Spider-Man and Mr. Fantastic fill the shoes of Captain America and Tony Stark.
Maybe some folks are a bit too eager to see what Marvel Studios does with a superhero team that hasn’t ever fared well on the big screen, but with the Multiverse Saga’s weaknesses becoming more and more apparent these days, we may genuinely be getting to a point where any alternative to the current trajectory is at least preferable as an experiment.
