Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Circling back through the CinemaCon coverage from last months, Alasdair Stuart noticed we have the first official synopsis for Avengers: Doomsday and, unlike very neary all the previous promo stuff, it actually tells us things.

It reads:

‘In Avengers: Doomsday, beloved heroes from three distinct universes will be set on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.’

So that’s:

• The MCU where every movie and show since Iron Man has been set.
• The universe the Fantastic Four are from.
• And the one where things get interesting.

That third universe suggests that all the Fox movies, specifically the X-Men series, happened in the same universe. That also includes Daredevil, Elektra, Logan, the Deadpools and intriguingly the other two Fantastic Four movies. Lumping all of them into one spot is an interesting choice but one I could just about see making sense.

But, et tu Spidey?

That’s two Spider-Man universes unaccounted for. We know, from No Way Home, that both the Garfield and Maguire Spideys are still active and we know they’re from different universes. So where are they here?

There’ve been persistent rumours, for months now, that the Maguire Spidey is a very important part of the movie and further leaks suggesting that the opening of Doomsday is a collision between multiverses that climaxes with Wolverine and the Maguire Spider-Man fighting. That loosely tallies with what we see here and also implies that Spidey’s universe doesn’t make it.

That’s the interesting part of all of this, and by interesting I mean maddening. Aside from the glacial pace of the Multiverse Saga, its fundamental problem is that we’re going to see a lot of stuff we love steamrolled, killed or rebooted. If that’s in service of a good story then it’s something we can live with but given the horrifically vast cast of this film, it’s hard to have faith in it hitting coherent, emotional beats.

Nonetheless, this is happening and we’ll likely get a trailer based on something other than vibes shortly. Especially as the merchandise has started going public, including a Doom mini-fig with a very, very Iron Man-esque faceplate…