Is Anyone Else Sick of the Multiverse?

The concept of the multiverse -- or the infinite number of universes created by the Murphy's-Law notion that "if it can happen, it has or will" in an alternate reality -- has cropped up in pop culture yet again. It has, after all, been lurking behind the science facts and fictions of the postmodern era since the 1960s, and less developed concepts can even be traced back thousands of years in physics and philosophy. The obsession with the multiverse in the 2020s, however, is likely the strongest it's ever been.

The term "multiverse" was actually coined in 1895 but referred to natural moral meaning. The concept as we think of it today wasn't explicitly mentioned in fiction until "Flash of Two Worlds" (Flash Volume 1 #123) by DC Comics in 1961. Since then, the belief or the desire to believe in an infinite number of universes has loosely pervaded the sci-fi cultural consciousness as well as scientific study, given that there remains some theoretical credence to the multiverse in subjects like quantum mechanics and string theory.

Parallel universes, though, are uniquely tied to superhero fiction, which was mostly due to the fact that comic-book creators were using it to deal with rebooted, retconned, and redesigned characters. So in the crest of superhero enthusiasm, it is no surprise that the multiverse has resurfaced in fiction, more vital than ever.

Since 2018, when it's been done most notably in Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, the multiverse has rampaged its way through pop culture, though to its own detriment. Most depictions feel like lazy cash grabs and absolute chaos -- the latter of which some could argue best portrays a multiverse -- and ultimately fail to produce any coherent narrative function for the concept. It's not so much that it is overplayed at this point, it's that they refuse to represent it well.

I will correct myself and say that there were good ones, like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse (which I would argue did a much better job than its predecessor), but there were also a lot of bad ones -- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Loki, The Flash movie, HBOMax's Titans, and, for some reason, Star Wars' Ahsoka.

Modern media is so saturated with terrible renditions of an honestly compelling story idea that I've grown so tired of seeing it. When every single pop culture franchise tries to cash in on it, with no regard for narrative consistency, originality, or creative thought, a dull fatigue sets in.

So what is it, then, that makes for a good multiversal depiction?

Well, most seem to forget the higher-quality forerunners to the most recent attempts at portraying this sci-fi idea. The pluses of these past successes go largely ignored.

Take Jet Li's The One, for instance, which came out in 2001. The story focuses on a man traveling to alternate universes to kill other versions of himself, which makes him and the remaining variants stronger. His goal is to kill all of them in order to attain a god-like level of power. While the film itself was not well received by critics, I believe it has one of the greatest multiverse-based narratives because the antagonist comes from the multiverse itself and only threatens other versions of himself rather than the multiverse or all of existence as a whole. This is Marvel Studios' biggest problem right now with the villain Kang the Conquerer. This character transcends the multiverse itself in Loki and threatens Avengers from all universes. The issue here, though, is that it leaves no room for exploration of the universes that are purported to exist. This doesn't provide any worthy stakes that could complicate and personalize the antagonist or characterize other universes that may agree with the villain. It's no different from a cosmic threat that wishes to destroy the world. Marvel Studios is creating a simplistic, uncomplicated narrative because everyone is anti-annihilation.

Another good example is Donnie Darko, which explored the concept of a "Tangent Universe" 20 years before Spiderman: No Way Home. The reason this precursor film is so brilliant is because it introduces the multiverse without expressly doing so. The film hints at the fact that Donnie is supposed to die one night and that his survival threatens to dismantle the entire multiverse. The "villain," then, is destiny itself. The film technically remains in only two universes the entire time -- the original and the tangential -- allowing us as an audience to grow closer to the same characters that occupy both. Films like Spiderman: No Way Home attempts this by retconning film reboots as mere glimpses into alternate universes. This is simultaneously lazy and genius to me because while I think this film was half-successful in recreating how Donnie Darko interacted with the multiverse, such that we are already connected to the characters from their preceding solo movies, Marvel Studios avoided having to build that connection or exploration themselves. We still didn't get to traverse multiple universes or understand how they're affecting one another in real time. Instead, we're seeing cameos explained away with one word -- "multiverse."

With more multiversal cameo characters on the horizon, including but not limited to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds's Deadpool, and Fox's X-Men altogether, I'm hoping Marvel Studios takes the time to flesh out stories, characters, and the relationships between them. I'm hoping they take inspiration from Everything Everywhere All At Once and make us care about each character and their alternative selves. I'm hoping they don't repeat the mistakes of DC's The Flash and shoehorn in lazy references to other actors playing DC characters. I'm hoping that Marvel, or any filmmaker, can find it in themselves to care again...because it seems like the multiverse has a way of pulling people and stories apart rather than together.