Mention the name of Mephisto to any Marvel Cinematic Universe fan that’s been closely following the ongoing events of Phase Four both onscreen and behind the scenes, and the chances are exceedingly high that you’ll be greeted with either an eye-roll, or a shrug of indifference.
Since before WandaVision even premiered, folks had been touting the comic book company’s version of the devil as the big bad-in-waiting, with countless theories making the rounds explaining how and why he’d make his presence felt in Westview. Of course, they all turned out to be wide of the mark.
It happened again prior to Loki, when a stained glass window and hints towards an evil presence in the marketing once again had the internet increasingly confident that Mephisto was coming this time, and we all know how that ended, too.
Then, the strange behavior exhibited by Doctor Strange in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailers led to the old “third time must be the charm belief”, only for the fandom to be left wanting. At this stage, plenty of MCU enthusiasts are starting to think that we’ll never see Mephisto in the flesh.
We didn’t even mention that the demonic entity was named repeatedly as a potential antagonist for the Master of the Mystic Arts to face in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, so we are now officially zero-for-four on the Mephisto scuttlebutt. Knowing how Kevin Feige keeps his ear to the ground, don’t count out even more red herrings or in-jokes to come in the future.
