The Marvel Cinematic Multiverse And how it Works
Ok, first off we all know what a multiverse is, if this is your first introduction to the term go read the wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse, that link covers of course every use of the term but in normal usage it is a variation of the many worlds theory of quantum mechanics that is in play when the term multiverse is in use. We will get back to this later on.
In the common understanding what is supposed by the multiverse is that any decision or possible change in reality causes a branching of reality, so that if you had a chance to have the genetic predisposition to being a redhead but weren’t in some other universe you are, or if you decided to have oatmeal for breakfast this morning some other reality exists in which you decided to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
At the time of this writing there have been four narratives in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which heavily employ multiversal aspects, those being the TV show Loki, the SpiderMan movie Into the SpiderVerse, the SpiderMan movie No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
We are going to deal with the last first as it establishes a model for this fictional multiverse which will be used henceforth, namely that, no matter what technobabble is pedaled by Bruce Banner this multiverse does not run by the rules of quantum mechanics alone but is more complicated.
Now, since we are on the multiversal internet I must qualify some statements first, or spawn an infinite number of sleepless commentators intent on correcting me.
The reasons for things being as they are in the movie are of course not because the multiverse is more complicated than quantum mechanics would lead us to suppose, but because these movies are written to maintain an overarching narrative where each movie, if successful, helps to advertise for coming entrants into the franchise, while also maintaining nostalgic callbacks to previously loved in-universe moments and characters, and holding references to comic book narratives that will be of interest to a solid fanbase that can be counted on to provide a built-in audience for the movie.
All of these interlocking narratives are used to drive purchases of past media, but also newer media, but, Deadpool aside, the MCM does not operate with characters knowing they are in films and the reasons for why things happen in-universe are not because the writers, directors, and market research all agreed it would be a pretty lucrative thing if we did it this way. The reasons for why things happen in universe must make sense in the universe, even as we stand outside and know the real reasons.
All that said, any narrative requires a coherent in-universe explanation for how things work, and that explanation is of course built up in our minds by interacting with the narrative — as we interact with the narrative we construct a model of how the universe the narrative exists in actually works.
So, how does a ‘normal’ multiverse work? Well, in a normal multiverse individuals variations across the multiverse are defined by differences in events — for example the same individual across universes might have different names, occupations, hair styles, mannerisms, injuries etc. while still being recognizably the same individual. This is the ‘normal’ multiverse encountered in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and also Comic Books.
We see some of that in the MCM with Dr. Strange
Here we see 4 different versions of the same guy, his life just happened to take different paths.
Another example would be if M.J, the girl Peter Parker (Spider-Man) is in love with, was perhaps born a redhead in one Universe and a blond in another.
That is to say, two versions of the same person
But instead the current version of MJ is a completely different person who just happens to have the same initials, evidently because people named Peter Parker who are also the Superhero Spiderman needs to have an MJ.
But what about the Peter Parkers in the film?
So as is obvious here, these are not different versions of the same Peter Parker, these are different white guys who all have the name Peter Parker but are significantly different ages, and these different people all named Peter Parker happened to get bitten by radioactive spiders and thereby receive the powers of Spiderman.
Now of course they are not the same Peter Parker as a side effect of the fact that their movies were made in different decades, but because of this external factor internally in the MCM it seems the important thing is that a young man will be given the name Peter Parker and because of this (and probably because of living somewhere in NYC) he will somehow gain the ‘powers of a spider’ and become Spideman!
WAITAMINIT! What about
She comes from a universe in which a slight change happened and she got the spider powers and her best friend Peter Parker died in her arms, killed by the Green Goblin.
So here we can see that we are also operating under the ‘normal’ Multiverse rules. But maybe now we should take a side step — to read a bit about what a ‘normal’ Multiverse is.
For this we will liberally quote from Wikipedia, specifically this part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Max_Tegmark's_four_levels:
Level I: An extension of our universe
A prediction of cosmic inflation is the existence of an infinite ergodic universe, which, being infinite, must contain Hubble volumes realizing all initial conditions.
Accordingly, an infinite universe will contain an infinite number of Hubble volumes, there will eventually be Hubble volumes with similar, and even identical, configurations. Given infinite space, there would, in fact, be an infinite number of Hubble volumes identical to ours in the universe
Level II: Universes with different physical constants
This is pretty much only interesting in the context of the MCM because it explains this
Level III: Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
This is one of the roots of our ‘normal’ multiverse understanding — the idea that small changes in what happens leads to changes in the Universe.
In brief, one aspect of quantum mechanics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations, each with a different probability. According to the MWI, each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe, with some or many of the interpretation’s proponents suggesting that these universes are as real as ours. Suppose a six-sided die is thrown and that the result of the throw corresponds to quantum mechanics observable results. All six possible ways the dice can fall correspond to six different universes. In the case of the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, both outcomes would be “real” in at least one “world”.
Tegmark argues that a Level III multiverse does not contain more possibilities in the Hubble volume than a Level I or Level II multiverse. In effect, all the different “worlds” created by “splits” in a Level III multiverse with the same physical constants can be found in some Hubble volume in a Level I multiverse. Tegmark writes that, “The only difference between Level I and Level III is where your doppelgängers reside. In Level I they live elsewhere in good old three-dimensional space. In Level III they live on another quantum branch in infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.”
So if you believe in the infinite universe explanation of level 1 there’s no difference, but as it happens I don’t believe in it. Why not? Well there are all sizes of infinity, some infinities are bigger than others. The infinity of Real numbers is bigger than the infinity of all positive numbers, and it should be noted that while the infinity of all positive numbers is infinite the number 3 only shows up in it once. There is no reason why an infinity needs multiple items of the same sort in it. This is not really a reason why Tegmark is wrong, he may be right but I just find it unconvincing. I guess the short answer it’s beyond my pay grade to determine if he’s right (except that I doubt theoretical physicists actually get paid that much)
Brian Greene’s nine types
In the Brian Greene list of multiversal types the one that correlates here is
Quantum
The quantum multiverse creates a new universe when a diversion in events occurs, as in the real-worlds variant of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
So in some cases of the Multiverse we see these are just variations of the quantum universes, in one universe Peter Parker got spider bit, the other one Gwen Stacy, but in some versions our explanation must not be that there was a slight variation in that universe and the Peter Parker we knew somehow turned out significantly older with a different Aunt, school, friends etc. even though these friends all shared the same nicknames across universes etc. (M.J, Flash), these completely different versions show us an infinite multiverse in process, that is to say you might have people named Peter Parker who are not the same person but who nonetheless end up SpiderMan because in Tegmark’s infinite multiverse we should expect that to happen.
Combine This with Tegmark’s Multiverse Version II and we end up with an infinite number of universe’s with different physical constraints, and inside of those universes you have different Spider People
Some of which
are weirder
than others.
So, there are some things that seem out of whack here.
Dr. Strange casts a spell that ends up drawing everyone to their particular Universe from other Universes that “knows that Peter Parker is SpiderMan” , however, only three SpiderMen named Peter Parker show up.. In Tegmark’s infinite Multiverse an infinite number of Peter Parker’s should show up. The easiest explanation is that Strange’s spell was not powerful enough, which I mean would be a funny scene for another film — “You did a spell to get every Peter Parker Spider-Man and you only got three! Hah, hah, hah, unreal. What a loser!”, but there is another explanation.
In the Illuminati Universe (which given the name you would expect us to have opinions and sure, we have had our cross dimensional fights with those jerks, but since the Treaty of Allegheny Squid an uneasy peace has prevailed) it was revealed that they (the Illuminati Universe) had a numbering scheme for categorizing universes in the Multiverse, which implies that they are not actually getting overwhelmed by the infinity. They have a limited number of universes that they have access to, probably in the low thousands.
You see, there is in fact not a single Multiverse. There is instead an infinity of Multiverses.
These Multiverses have all some common Universe creating event or force in them that works as a universe spawning engine. Think of a Multiverse as a big black bag, holding inside of it a lot of energy and one singular universe floating inside of all that energy. Inside of that single Universe something happens that allows the creation of new universes, depending on what that thing is you can have very great differences between the physical realities of the universes in that Multiverse, or you can end up with pretty much very similar universes.
For example in Loki the universe spawning engine is the development of Kang the Conqueror
He creates a lot of universes in his multiverse, but he does not create a Paint universe.
So in this particular Multiverse that our stories take place in, there might not be more than three available universes in which Peter Parker is Spider-man. Really it makes you realize the fragility of multiversal existence, that Peter Parkers are so rare and deserving of our protection.
In the Into to the Spiderverse movie we are shown two Peter Parkers, who quite clearly seem to be two different versions of this Peter Parker
But these versions do not show up in the Multiverse we see in No Way Home.
As it happens this is because they are in a different Multiverse, MCM 3, this Multiverse has a very loose connection to the Multiverse we see in Multiverse of Madness via the Paint Universe (sometimes referred to as the Puniverse — pronounced puny because being paint looks cool but it pretty much sucks), the connection of course is that the Universes in MCM 3 are all composed of graphical elements, that is to say they are cartoons, oil based, acrylic, or in a few cases chalk based. Thus the various MCM 3 variations we encountered did not actually have such a great difference in the physical laws of the Noir, Talking Animal, and basic NYC version of the universes, because each one of those universes operated under the physical laws needed to make cartoon based life.
If Dr. Strange had cast the Peter Parker summoning spell inside the Puniverse of MCM 6 (which is the MCM represented in Multiverse of Madness) then he may have been able to puncture the bag of his multiverse, puncture the bag of MCM 3 and draw in the still living Peter Parker of MCM 3. The amount of power this indicates our Master of the Mystic Arts possesses is somewhat frightening.
So, in conclusion, sure is a bunch of stuff to consider about how the actual Multiverse of Multiverses works, and the various MCMs in that Multiverse. By the way, ever notice if you say Multiverse enough it starts to lose all meaning? There are some universes in the Multiverse where it never loses meaning, but in our universe it loses meaning pretty quick, especially when the word Cinematic modifies it. Something for Marvel to think about going forward.
This Essay was written by Illuminati Ganga Agent 19 with some help from Agent 99.
