Doctor Strange 2’s mysterious multiverse council has sparked Illuminati theories

polygon.com:

Marvel fans are spinning up their speculation engines today, after hearing a voice that sounded so very much like Sir Patrick Stewart in Sunday night’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Super Bowl trailer.

The new Marvel movie will see Stephen Strange dragged before some kind of mysterious tribunal, and those in the comic book-know already think they know whose butts go in those seven chairs: the Illuminati.

But not that Illuminati. The Marvel one that involves everyone from Professor X to Iron Man.

The Illuminati were created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Steve McNiven in the pages of New Avengers, but they were most active during writer Jonathan Hickman’s tenure on the Avengers, which eventually culminated in Secret Wars, possibly the best regarded Marvel Comics crossover of all time.

In the Marvel Comics universe, the Illuminati is what its purported to be in the real world, but with a superhero spin: A covert cabal of the most powerful superheroes on Earth who assemble to assert their own wills on the planet’s problems. In the Marvel Universe context, “most powerful” doesn’t mean the physically strongest, but rather intellectual and political power.

Members of the Illuminati typically break down as Earth’s greatest minds (Mister Fantastic and Tony Stark) and superheroic leaders of nations (mutant figurehead Charles Xavier and actual sitting monarchs like Black Panther, Namor the Submariner, and Black Bolt of the Inhumans). Doctor Strange, as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, also usually gets a seat at the table, while other members have included Beast of the X-Men (after the Professor’s death), and Captain America (who was voted out and mind-wiped after he swore to expose their unethical choices).