The first commercial from yesterday’s Super Bowl featured our best look at the Doctor Strange sequel, Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness, and offered a glimpse of what the story will be for the titular hero when the film drops. The film was packed with plenty of goodness and cameos, but the biggest cameo of the film and maybe of the MCU was hidden in plain sight using the simple disguise of six words: “We should tell him the truth.” That’s right. That phrase was the biggest cameo of the entire trailer. How? Let’s go to school.
In the comics, following the Kree-Skrull War, Iron Man realized that Earth needed a team of people of various different races and origins to truly protect itself from threats across the galaxy. Think of like 9-11. After 9-11, one of the critical failings the 9-11 commission highlighted was that we had sufficient knowledge of these attacks to stop them. The problem was that each organization had a different piece of the puzzle and instead of sharing them with each other to see what would come out of it, jurisdictional dick-measuring contests meant that info stayed in-house and it led to a breakdown in national security communications. Iron Man saw the fallout of the Kree-Skrull War in the same vein. If all of these different leaders — Dr. Strange, Namor, Charles Xavier, Black Bolt, Reed Richards, and Iron Man — had been sharing their intel with one another, they could’ve prevented the attack.
The organization that came from all of this was the Illuminati, who agreed to keep their membership and existence a secret, of course, in keeping with the tradition of the word. Strong rumors have hinted that we would see the Illuminati in the MCU soon enough and our biggest evidence of that came via those six words. How? The voice behind those six words was none other than Professor Charles Xavier himself, Patrick Stewart. Go ahead. Go back and rewatch that scene over and over, listening closely. You’ll soon realize I’m right. But why would a good guy like Professor X be working with Baron Mordo, a not so good guy? Well, this is a film about the multiverse and if you saw Spider-Man: No Way Home, I won’t need to explain the concept of a variant to you.
So, perhaps Baron Mordo convinced that version of Professor X that he was the Sorcerer Supreme. Maybe that Professor X is inherently evil. Who knows what Marvel will have in store for us with this film, but one thing we absolutely know for certain is that Patrick Stewart featured in that trailer and it’s pretty clear that Professor X will be appearing in the Doctor Strange sequel. Marvel is finding new and fun ways to bring in old properties as their way of honoring the fans that loved these characters and the actors that gave them a voice. It’s a great way to breathe in new life to old characters and to surprise fans with a growing list of ever-unexpected cameos.
Marvel is essentially telling us that we never know what may turn up in one of their films. We could see Ben Affleck return as a cameo of Daredevil. We could see Thomas Jane come back as Frank Castle. We could even the mighty Hugh Jackman come out of retirement to don the claws one more time. Honestly, at this point I wouldn’t even be shocked to see a David Hasselhof variant of Nick Fury (look it up, youngsters). About the only thing that is probably off the plate is Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four characters (even some oldheads may need to look this one up) and the like.
I genuinely can’t wait to see what Marvel gives us next and you know @BSO will be there the whole way, providing you in-depth looks and interviews with those involved. If you want to ask the author of this article anything, give Josh a follow on Twitter: @FightOnTwist