Now Multiverses Are Mainstream, Marvel & DC Need to Decide What's Next
With Marvel and DC movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the upcoming The Flash receiving praise and fostering anticipation in movie-goers and critics alike, not to mention the runaway success of Everything Everywhere All at Once, it would be hard to deny that the concept of the multiverse has gone mainstream. Like any sci-fi concept, the multiverse began as real-life speculative science, was interpreted by creators of 'disposable' media, and has finally permeated culture enough that film companies will offer up blockbuster budgets for an idea formerly seen as inaccessible.
In terms of trying out ambitious sci-fi ideas, comics are more able to experiment that films, and Marvel and DC fans have decades of experience with navigating multiple realities filled with variations on their favorite characters. Likely the most famous example is DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths event, but on any comic stand today, there are still plenty of publications in which a hero is tumbling between dimensions, whether in the pages of Hulk or Suicide Squad. There are a huge number of stories to be told with the idea of the multiverse, but no idea can exist in the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist forever, and eventually the multiverse will have had its day in the spotlight. Marvel and DC need to get out ahead of that process and continue offering readers ideas that mainstream cinema isn't yet ready to engage with.
Related: Avengers' Disappointing Multiverse Proves Why the Spider-Verse Is Unique
That's not to say that Marvel and DC need to invent the next big idea, but that in making up the mainstream of comics, they're uniquely placed to build up the multiverse's conceptual successor, giving it
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