Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Is Pure Fanfic

One scene in Marvel’s latest offering, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, will surely dominate the conversation about the movie for weeks. As WIRED pointed out last year, WandaVision kicked open the door to multiple realities in a way that meant not only could one Doctor Strange movie have multiple Doctor Stranges but also the Wanda from WandaVision could try to skip to a timeline where she joins children she never birthed in the main MCU timeline and also pass through one with a very prominent X-Man, who comes from a universe where Magneto is maybe her father. A lot of this, like Strange’s appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home, is the result of Disney now owning more of Marvel’s toys than it did two decades ago, having acquired Fox in 2019 and cutting a deal to have Sony’s Spidey movies align with the larger Marvel movie world. Add in a Danny Elfman score that moves delightfully close to Trent Reznor’s territory and it all feels like, well, watching a Marvel movie in another universe.