Before you get mad about Doctor Strange spoilers being in this thumbnail and title,
it’s been out for a month, movie sites are reporting on it, stars are joking about it,
I feel like the acceptable window for these kinds of spoilers is here now.
The biggest and pretty much only cameo scene from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
featured a long running staple of Marvel Comics, the group known as the Illuminati. And while the
film version did differ in some ways from the comic version, it led to a pretty cool
part of the film, with fun references and a fun action scene that ended in the brutal deaths of
nearly all the group’s members. However seeing the film for a second time did get me thinking,
what’s next for these characters? At first that may seem like a silly question, since you know,
they all died, but remember this part of the film takes place in an alternate universe,
and these characters are linked to the larger MCU and some are tied to future film and TV
properties already in the works. So today I wanna ask the question, what’s next for the Illuminati
in the MCU? First we’ll talk about the group as a whole, and then go through each individual member.
On the Illuminati as a whole, I don’t think we’ll be seeing them in the MCU again, or if we do
it won’t be for a while. Obviously this group is dead, but the general concept of it I think worked
really well for this alternate weird version of the MCU where character’s motivations and stories
don’t really matter and they could bring in other characters, if you tried to do this sort of thing
in the 616 MCU, Iron Man’s dead, Namor hasn’t been introduced yet, Black Bolt is this boring
guy living in Hawaii, new versions of Professor X and Reed Richards haven’t been introduced,
and Doctor Strange well he’s busy doing whatever he’s doing now and after his experiences in
Multiverse of Madness I don’t think he’d join another Illuminati. So is it impossible we’ll
see the concept revisited, maybe with a totally different set of characters, no, but I think it's
unlikely for a while. It was worked really well into this movie’s specific multiverse alternate
reality story where it was more possible than in a universe with a more intricate continuity.
Alright now for what’s next for the group’s members individually, I’ll go in order of
least future potential to most future potential, starting with Maria Rambeau’s Captain Marvel. Also
I’m not gonna talk about Doctor Strange or Mordo, cuz Doctor Strange will obviously be back as the
MCU version we know, and Mordo, who knows, might pop up again, it was kind of weird they brought
him in known as like Stephen’s famous nemesis even though we’ve only ever had a post credits tease,
but whatever he might pop up again in a future Doctor Strange film he might not,
I don’t really know. Anyway Maria Rambeau’s Captain Marvel, not a bad inclusion at all,
but I think that may have just been a fun What If style cameo in this movie that won’t come
into play again. In the MCU Maria’s story is in the past, she was part of Carol’s 90s story,
and she is now dead. Is there a possibility of bringing her in for The Marvels, maybe,
since that will have lots of different Captain Marvels teaming up including her daughter so that
could be something they want to do, but a) I don’t expect that movie to really deal with multiverse
stuff all that much, and b) they don’t want to overuse the multiverse concept and just bring
people back willy nilly from the dead via the multiverse cuz they can, so I’d say we probably
won’t see Maria Rambeau Captain Marvel, possibly in What If but in live action, I doubt it.
Then there’s Black Bolt, who they finally did give a comic accurate costume and somehow showed
off his powers in a better way in 5 minutes of screentime than that show did in 8 whole episodes,
but I think we’ve also seen the last of him, at least for a while and at least this version
with this actor. I think it was a fun nod to that show, since the Illuminati has Black Bolt
in it in the comics they thought why not keep continuity and bring that guy back,
it’s a fun reference for those in the know, and then immediately kill him in a super
brutal way. I think in terms of making a stand alone Inhumans thing Marvel is going to wait a
while longer to make sure that we all have the taste of that show out of our collective mouths,
and once they do that I do think they’ll completely recast it, and I don’t think we’ll be
getting any more references to that initial show from here on out, so yeah, a funny cool cameo,
but I’d say that's the last of Anson Mount’s Black Bolt, who by the way if that show hadn't
been terrible I don’t think was a bad pick for the role, he was one of the better parts of it.
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Then we come to Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, which I have to assume is the last time we see him
on film. I would’ve bet a lot of money that Logan was the last time we’d seen him, but it's nice
to know that still our final memories of Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier regardless would be him
dying in a sad or brutal way. Anyway, this does bring in the question, how will the X-Men enter
the MCU, which it has been confirmed they will. Well I don’t think this is an indicator that we’ll
be getting either of the Fox casts coming over, possibly a Hugh Jackman Wolverine cameo somewhere
with all these multiverse things but if that was gonna happen I think it would have in this one.
One of the casts is too old now for a new franchise, not meant in an offensive way,
and the other was part of a franchise that kind of crashed and burned. So I think the
MCU is going to bring in a whole new fresh cast for it, and they could either have mutants be
activated by something in the MCU, along the lines of the Terrigen mist thing from Agents of SHIELD
if you remember that plot line, something triggers their emergence which would explain why we haven’t
seen or heard of them so far, or they’ve always been there and they’ve just been kind of discrete
on the sidelines which would be a little harder to pull off, like how would we have never heard
of this whole section of the MCU, or they come over via the multiverse from another
universe where there already were mutants. To be clear, not the Fox X-Men universe,
a whole other universe. Convoluted, maybe, but I’d guess one of those is how it’ll be done,
I’d say the third might be the most likely option. Then we come to Captain Carter, who is rumored to
actually have a future in the MCU, which doesn't really surprise me at all. Peggy Carter especially
earlier on in the MCU was one of the first supporting characters to really get a lot of
shine. She was a fan favorite from the first Captain America film, she showed up in Winter
Soldier, is referenced in Civil War and is a continuous part of Cap’s story including in Age
of Ultron up until Endgame, she appeared Agents of SHIELD, got her own one-shot, got her own 2
season TV show that was actually pretty damn solid, and now her character has kind of been
revamped for the MCU as this alternate version in Captain Carter, who was basically the poster woman
for the What If show and was presumably popular enough there to warrant a live action cameo. So
it totally makes sense to me that there are rumors of either a movie or a show in the works for her,
I’d guess a 6 episode Disney Plus show, something like that, but yeah I’d be down to see that.
Her What If episode was fun, obviously a fan favorite character and one of my favorite MCU
side characters, I guess you can’t even call her a side character anymore, main character really.
And seeing more of that character kicking ass like in What If but in live action,
sounds cool to me. Plus more Captain America shield throwing action, can’t ever get enough
of it. Will it maybe confuse audiences with also Sam Wilson’s Cap getting his own film,
I don’t know, but given the MCU now very openly is dealing with alternate universes I guess it should
be clear enough these are different universes. And then finally, John Krasinski’s Reed Richards
aka Mr. Fantastic. This one is the most intriguing to me, because I’m of two minds here. The
Fantastic Four has already been confirmed as an upcoming MCU film, and so a natural thought would
be they're going to cast John Krasinski again in that as Mr Fantastic, obviously in a different
universe than the Illuminati one, presumably the 616 MCU verse. But would they? I mean I think the
Krasinski cameo here may have just been because he was a longtime fan casting wish along with Emily
Blunt as Invisible Woman and there’s some pretty widely circulated fan art out there of it and I
think Marvel was making a fun reference to that. I thought we were gonna get more nods
to fan castings or castings that almost were like when it was rumored that Tom Cruise as Tony Stark
was gonna be in this. But I think it may have just been a fun little cameo for fans, also Krasinski
auditioned for Captain America, another layer to the reference. Also, it would be kind of weird if
this character’s first introduction to the MCU is him using his powers for, what, a split second,
and immediately getting dealt with in violent fashion by Wanda. I know Wanda’s super powerful
and that doesn't necessarily mean Mr. Fantastic sucks as a superhero, but I feel like mainstream
audiences might see John Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic as the protagonist of a new movie and
go, didn't that guy lose instantly the only other time I’ve seen him? So that might dampen some hype
around it, plus it might confuse audiences but with everything the MCU is doing now I don’t know
if I should be worried about mainstream audiences being confused because they do seem to just
go with it regardless. So what will happen here….I don’t know, but I’m gonna guess they're
going to recast and give us probably a little bit of a younger Fantastic Four cast, not that
Krasinski’s old by any means but if they want to start fresh and probably have these characters for
a long period of time they might wanna look at a younger cast of 4, and I think his appearance
in Doctor Strange may have just been a fun cameo. So those were my thoughts on what’s next for the
Illuminati and more so their respective members in the MCU. What do you think will happen here?
Let me know all your thoughts down below in the comments. While you’re at it, be sure to like
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