What they should’ve done: Multiverse of Madness

Press photo © Disney

So here’s what they should’ve done [so many spoilers]

Obviously there is zero reason to think I can write a better ending to a movie than the Marvel writers, but that’s not going to stop me.

I spent all of Multiverse of Madness waiting for the other shoe to drop: the twist that tells me that the conflict we think we’re facing is not the real conflict. It did not happen. Wanda Maximoff is the Scarlet Witch - the villain of the piece - from ten minutes in to the very end. This is despite the fact that the movie constantly telegraphs that it should have been somebody else.

The movie as written gives us Wanda as a bereaved mother, willing to destroy worlds to be with her children. (This must be confusing for fans who did not watch the WandaVision show, since the last time they say Wanda she was dating a robot and had no children.) At least it’s a motive.

But it’s not a very convincing motive. We get zero introspection the first time Wanda just straight-up murders somebody (sorry, nameless sorcerers!), and every character she meets tells her that chaos and destruction will not endear her to her kids. She comes around to that point of view about two hours after the rest of us, and that’s that. Epiphanies and happy endings all around.

But what if that’s not what happened? The biggest plot point of the movie happens before the movie begins: Wanda’s corruption by the Tome of Vile Darkness Darkhold. Apparently she picked it up off the the set of WandaVision? I am not buying it.

We’ve established that the Darkhold lets a magic-user dreamwalk: control a version of themselves in another universe. What I expected to see was that an alternate universe Wanda was calling the shots. This other Wanda would have succumbed to the Darkhold (like our Wanda did NOT do in WandaVision), and was using it to wreck havoc. You could have a nearly identical movie, but the epiphany would be Wanda pushing out the dreamwalker, and using her powers to try to make things right.

(That would also have given us a cool foreshadow when Professor X enters her mind, perhaps finding not one, but two Wandas trapped in their stone cell.)

But there is a better villain. Who do we know for a fact has used the Darkhold in at least three universes? Who has already destroyed two realities with incursions, and murdered countless duplicates? Obviously, the answer is Dr. Strange.

Now THAT would be a reveal. Dr. Strange in the destroyed incursion universe has the Darkhold. Is it impossible to believe that he could use it to dreamwalk, not only into himself, but also into Wanda? He might even have a motive. If he was the villain in his world, then it would have been Wanda trying to stop him - trying to keep him from his lost Christine. He could be blaming her for his loss, and happily using her alternate as an instrument of his vengeances. In our universe he finds the perfect tool: she’s mourning her lost children, a weakness he can exploit.

Dramatically, this is way better. Our Dr. Strange isn’t fighting a widow in mourning from a moral high ground. Instead, he’s fighting the worst version of himself. The lesson he’s trying to teach Wanda turns out to be the lesson he himself has failed to learn so many other times. And the fact that he picks up the Darkhold himself would be vastly more meaningful.

I would watch that movie. It would make Strange’s role as protector of the universe much more meaningful, and it would make Wanda a real counterweight to his power. It would create a meaningful distinction between witchcraft and sorcery, two magical powers in each universe that guard against each other. And it would give us a chance to see Wanda and “White Vision” together in the future.

Here endeth the rant.