‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ gives fan service the middle finger in the best way possible

Warning: This article contains massive spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness gives Marvel fans everything we thought we wanted and then blows it up — and snaps its neck, spaghettifies it, slices it in half, and smushes it.

And you know what? It rules.

Thanks to director Sam Raimi, Multiverse of Madness is easily Marvel’s grossest, goriest, goopiest ride yet. Nowhere is that clearer than in a sequence where Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), brutally kills the members of a hero organization known as the Illuminati. The violence is extreme, especially for a Marvel movie, but we feel its impact tenfold due to who makes up the Illuminati.

We’ve got Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a sorcerer and enemy of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Reed Richards (John Krasinski), head of the Fantastic Four; Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), leader of the X-Men; supersoldier Captain Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell); the incredibly powerful Captain Marvel, aka Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch); and Black Bolt (Anson Mount), the King of the Inhumans. They’re all toast not long after meeting them (with the exception of Mordo, whose fate is unclear). Their deaths are extremely shocking given just how excited fans were to see many of these heroes enter the MCU.

Doctor Strange gives us Reed Richards, Professor X, and more — with a dark twist

When Disney acquired Fox in 2019, fans realized that the Fantastic Four and the X-Men could finally enter the MCU. Thus began the fan-casting, which overwhelmingly included Krasinski to play Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards. When it came to the X-Men, questions arose over who, if anyone, would reprise their roles in the MCU. And if they did, what better place to do so than in a film with “Multiverse of Madness” in the title?

Speculation reached a fever pitch when Marvel began releasing trailers for the new Doctor Strange. Snatches of Stewart’s voice suggested a Professor X cameo, and a flash of a distinctive shield hinted that we’d be seeing Captain Carter in live-action after her introduction in What If…?.

Does Marvel really introduce a pantheon of fan service only to rip it to shreds moments later? They sure do, and it’s a brilliant choice.

Well, we got what we asked for. Between the Krasinski and Stewart reveals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness gives us all the fan service we could have wanted. And yet the movie goes further — giving us Captain Carter and Maria Rambeau’s Captain Marvel, and even an Inhumans cameo in Black Bolt. The applause and whispers of excitement in my theater, and (I’m assuming) theaters everywhere, was the sound of fans’ wishes finally being fulfilled.

Those sounds quickly turned into gasps of horror and shocked laughter as Wanda began her killing spree. Does Marvel really introduce this pantheon of fan service only to rip it to shreds moments later? They sure do, and it’s a brilliant choice. It keeps in line with Raimi’s gonzo tone — Wanda comes to resemble a monster straight out of a horror film throughout the fight — and it’s a nice change of pace from the fan service we’d gotten in recent Marvel films such as Spider-Man: No Way Home.

MCU fan service in Doctor Strange vs. in Spider-Man: No Way Home

It’s rampage time, Wanda.
Credit: Marvel Studios 2022

Coming on the heels of the triple Spidey team-up in No Way Home, the unveiling of the Illuminati simply can’t compare. It feels like more of the same, but without the decades of build-up. The reveals, while exciting, border on goofy overload because the movie is practically shouting at you, “Look, look, look who it is!” In the back of your mind, you know that this isn’t going to last.

When the carnage arrives, it feels inevitable. Correct, even. Having Wanda absolutely destroy an entire squad of powerful heroes is the perfect way to demonstrate just how strong she is. Not only that, but she turns their superpowers against them in a violent yet satisfying twist. Thanks to her, Black Bolt blows his own head up with his lethal voice; the super-stretchy Reed becomes an elastic pile of man spaghetti; Peggy is chopped in half by her shield; and Maria is crushed by a statue struck by her own and Wanda’s power. Wanda even snaps Professor X’s neck when he’s in his element — within someone’s mind. She singlehandedly Uno-reverse-cards the Illuminati, pulling the rug out from under every fan’s feet in the process.

Because of this, Multiverse of Madness is the antithesis of No Way Home. In No Way Home‘s case, we were all expecting the appearance of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire. We got it, along with so much more. We experienced their heartwarming brotherhood and celebrated their victory together. Here, we were expecting these Illuminati cameos, but nothing could have prepared us for the sheer level of mayhem and gore that would follow — or the surprise and delight that came from watching it unfold.

Sometimes it’s good to kill your heroes

The level of violence in Wanda’s rampage is a refreshing shift from Marvel’s fairly sanitized approach to bloodshed. This is a franchise whose most explicit violence ranges from Thanos’s low-lit decapitation to Loki’s neck being snapped. Nothing can compare to watching someone’s skull explode from the inside, or a men being reduced to spaghetti.

Throughout this sequence, it barely feels like you’re watching an MCU movie. If anything, it’s reminiscent of the opening beach massacre in The Suicide Squad, which introduces a team of antiheroes only to immediately dispose of them in gory, R-rated fashion. Like that beach fight, the Wanda-Illuminati face-off is pulpy and deranged and impossible to look away from. In short, it’s exactly what the MCU needs after becoming increasingly homogenous.

The Wanda-Illuminati face-off is pulpy and deranged and impossible to look away from. In short, it’s exactly what the MCU needs after becoming increasingly homogenous.

And for anyone who’s unhappy about watching the Illuminati die after waiting so long for MCU versions of the Fantastic Four or X-Men, don’t worry. The multiverse is Marvel’s cheat code. Illuminati members from Earth-838 may be dead, but their counterparts on Earth-616 may still be alive. Although, as the different Captain Marvels have shown us, they may not necessarily be in the same form the next time we see them.

While this sequence may not have many lasting consequences in the wider MCU (more permanent stakes would be nice, though), it still provides us with some of the most insane, off-the-wall moments in MCU history. Multiverse of Madness gives fans the fan service we think we want, before subverting it with something awesome, brutal, and unexpected that we never realized we needed. Turns out taking risks and leaning into them hard works wonders. Who knew?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now in theaters.