I Vote For Rebooting The Marvel Cinematic Universe

I'm going to complain about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and in doing so, I might let out a spoiler or two. Don’t worry. I’ll notify you when we get to the spoiler part.

The central Marvel Cinematic Universe has become such an unwieldy mess. Between the alternate universes, time travel, interdimensional cameos, and side-stories like “The Runaways,” I don’t know how anyone could be expected to follow Dr. Strange ITMOM without a Ph.D. in the MCU.

FIRST SPOILER: It wouldn’t make any difference. Even if you made a study out of every frame of the MCU, none of this would make any sense.  For instance…

(SPOILER ALERTS! THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH CONTAINS MULTIPLE “SPOILERS” FOR DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS)

(SERIOUSLY. GO NO FURTHER IF YOU’RE GOING TO GET BUTT-HURT OVER SOME MINOR DSITMOM SPOILERS!)

So, there’s a Doctor Strange and a Thanos in almost every universe? Why isn’t there a Vision in ANY of them? Wouldn’t THAT be the universe Wanda Maximoff is trying so desperately to get to?

Enter your number to get our free mobile app

…So, do Wanda’s kids (who she made up using magic) exist in other universes? Did she magick them into existence too? Or did Vision survive Infinity War to somehow sire two human/android hybrid twins? Or did Wanda hook up with some other rando after Vision's death in those other universes? Is Vision a dead-beat dad in the majority of Marvel universes?

…What about the ten seasons I spent watching Marvel: Agents of Shield? Nobody outside of that show got superpowers from the Terrigen Mist? When Agents of Shield time-traveled to the future, back to the present, back to the past, and then back to the end again…why didn’t Owen Wilson and the Time Variance Authority intervene?

I’d be fine if Marvel decided to hit the hard RESET button and start again with new actors playing Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Steve Rogers, etc.  And don’t act like it won’t happen. It definitely will. It’s just a matter of time. Considering they’ve got at least 20 more MCU projects on the slate (5 of them still to come in 2022 alone), I think the actual timeline will be in about another decade.

Unless they take my advice and reboot the whole thing now.

Here’s how I see the MCU reset happening, either ten years from now or sooner:

(INTERIOR)

A young man, maybe 30, is watching home movies on a futuristic screen. He sips his bourbon on the rocks while watching a young boy and his father working on a robotics project. A woman’s voice calls from the other room…

“Howard! Tony! You boys wash up for dinner! Your “Ultraman” or whatever you call it can wait ‘til tomorrow.”

The boy says, “C’mon, dad! Mom’s making lasagna…it’s my favorite!”

The dad replies, “You go ahead, Tony. I just need to calibrate the Vision settings on Ultron, and then I’ll shut him down for the night.”

“OK…love you, dad.”

"Love you too, Tony.”

EXIT the boy.

The father turns around and is revealed to be Howard Stark, world-famous billionaire-philanthropist-genius. He is about sixty years old and is played by Robert Downey, Jr.

BOOM! There you go, Marvel. Please use this as inspiration to hit that button. Do it before the other members of the Fantastic Four get unceremoniously spaghettified.