Nostalgic Marvel fan art imagines the mid-00s MCU that might’ve been

This epic Marvel movie fan art imagines how things could have looked if the MCU was around in the early 2000s. 2008’s Iron Man rewrote the rulebook when it ended with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury setting up the assembling of the Avengers, as every previous Marvel franchise had been self-contained. In some alternate universe out there, however, the likes of Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four managed to paths in some epic cinematic event.

While we don’t have one of Doctor Strange’s portals to take us to that universe, this artwork gives us the next best thing by imagining how this “Avengers 2000s” team might’ve looked. As created by digital artist SPDRMNKYXXIII (you can view their original post here), the nostalgic piece captures all of the Marvel movie heroes of that decade battling each other on the streets of New York. Check it out via the tweet below:

There’s the original Fantastic Four lineup, consisting of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, 2003’s Hulk (Eric Bana), Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, Blade (Wesley Snipes), and even Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider.

Not all of the movies these characters hail from were amazing, sure, but having them unite on screen would’ve blown fans’ minds back in the day. It’s worth noting that Fox and Sony did have ideas to crossover some of these characters — Jackman was due to cameo in one of Maguire’s Spidey films, for instance – but sadly, these didn’t become a reality. It took until Kevin Feige headed up Marvel Studios for the comic book concept of a shared universe to be successfully adapted for the big screen. And the rest, of course, is history.

The cool thing is, though, that some Marvel 2000s characters, like Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, will be returning in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, entering theaters this May 6.