Multiverse Saga Officially Announced by Marvel Studios at Comic-Con 2022
Marvel Studios wrapped up the Infinity Saga with the release of Avengers: Endgame, and now we know that Phase 4 is kicking off the Multiverse Saga which was just announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2022. During the Hall H presentation for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans learned that the groundwork is being laid for some multiversal mayhem that will likely require the assembly of Earth's newest superheroes who have debuted in their own movies and Disney+ series over the last few years. And after the events of Loki, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems like the floodgates are about to burst.
The latest Doctor Strange movie in particular established the threat that is now facing the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as we have seen with the reveal of Incursions with the potential to destroy multiple universes. The Illuminati had been working to prevent their planet's destruction, which is directly adapting the plot of Jonathan Hickman's Avengers, New Avengers, and Secret Wars comic books.
The occurrence of Incursions portended the death of two universes, as Earth was the focal point where these two sections of the multiverse would collide. As two parallel Earths would begin to crash into each other, both universes would die unless one of the Earths was destroyed. This forced the Illuminati to make hard decisions, as they would have to kill billions of people on one planet in order to save countless amounts of populations across both universes. They would also come up against various threats with their own machinations for the death of the multiverse, including the heroes of the parallel Earths who only wanted to save their own planet.
This all led to the Secret Wars event series, as the Incursions could not be stopped and the death of the Multiverse proved to be inevitable. Doctor Doom, however, had been working with the reality-altering Molecule Man to save slivers of various parallel dimensions, piecing them together at the end of existence as a patchwork planet called Battleworld. With the multiverse destroyed and every alternate universe disappeared into the ether, Doom ruled Battleworld as the last piece of existence in the entire Marvel continuity.
Doom was eventually opposed by a group of heroes who had survived the demise of the 616 Marvel universe, including Black Panther, Reed Richards, Captain Marvel, Spider-Mans Peter Parker and Miles Morales, and many others who united to restore the entire Multiverse back to the way it was.
If the Marvel Cinematic Universe is heading in this direction with the future of its cinematic and Disney+ offerings, there doesn't seem to be a limit to what fans can expect in the future of the franchise.