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3 hours ago
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in a somewhat peculiar spot at the moment. Faced with a nagging sense of superhero fatigue and the dawning horror that audiences might actually be yearning for something new, supremo Kevin Feige’s response has been to – yep – bring back Robert Downey Jr, the guy who kicked this whole thing off in the first place (but whose character Iron Man was killed off in Avengers: Endgame with all the finality of a Viking funeral.)
RDJ will ostensibly be playing Doctor Doom in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, but there’s every chance this particular take on the Latverian tyrant ends up being a multiversal variant of Tony Stark, a version of Kang who decided that being a dictator in green armour was a better gig than getting repeatedly recast, or perhaps a resurrected Loki variant who just wanted an excuse to wear an even more dramatic cape. Either way, the actor’s return to the multiverse is only exciting in the way that re-releasing Endgame in cinemas again would be. It’s certainly not the kind of casting that hints at a changing of the guard, or the potential for Marvel to be reaching out to a new generation of filmgoers.
All of which brings us to Sadie Sink, she of the almost impossibly popular (but usually excellent) Stranger Things TV show, who was announced this week as the latest cast member for the film that will eventually become Spider-Man: No Way Home’s sequel. Who will she play, and why are Marvel not telling us? Perhaps because even they haven’t decided yet and are waiting to see which way the Reddit wind blows before hastily rewriting the script. But it’s more likely because the studio knows the internet will do a pretty good job of coming up with a thousand different theories that will help to fuel the hype for six months, ahead of the inevitable announcement that Sink is in fact cameoing as “Alternate Universe Gwen Stacy #5” in an end-credits trailer.
The most enticing prospect being talked up is that Sink might take on the mantle of Jean Grey in an episode that sees the X-Men formally introduced into the MCU, perhaps by some kind of multiversal door left slightly ajar by the events of Deadpool & Wolverine. This makes a certain sort of sense: if No Way Home cleverly transformed a grey, corporate deal between Disney and Sony (who own the movie rights to Spider-Man) into a splendid chance to introduce old Spideys Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield into the main Marvel universe, why shouldn’t the sequel function as a mutant rescue mission, yanking Professor X and his team out of the collapsing Fox timeline?
How this ties in with the finale of No Way Home, which left Peter Parker trapped in a world where nobody knows who he is (thanks to Doctor Strange’s spell), is anybody’s guess. There have been suggestions that Grey, with her formidable telepathic powers, might be the perfect person to see straight through all that sorcerous amnesia fog. And yes, this would give her a reason to enter the narrative. But it would also make absolutely no sense if this version of the superhero is from another universe – unless, of course, Marvel is now fully embracing the idea that “multiverse” is just shorthand for Doctor Strange got bored and started breaking reality again.
Sink has the intensity to pull off Jean’s brooding cosmic turmoil while still feeling like a fresh-faced newcomer to the superhero scene. And crucially, she’s young enough, at 22, to slot into a long-term plan. With the Fantastic Four having been rebooted as 30 to 40-somethings in their MCU iteration, it might make sense for Feige and his team to reconfigure the X-Men as closer to the age of Spider-Man, who is still supposed to be a teenager despite the fact that 28-year-old Tom Holland will most likely be 30 by the time this one ends up in cinemas. We have already seen a younger X-Men team, of course, in the later Fox movies, and that didn’t really end well. But as long as Marvel don’t try to remake the Dark Phoenix saga for the third time, there’s unlikely to be a fan backlash. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has already made his way to the MCU, and Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen have had so many last hurrahs as Professor X and Magneto in the Fox movies that bringing them back now would feel like wheeling out the final boss long after the game developers have already shut down the servers. Going for an entirely new cast, rather than mining the Fox films for content, simply makes sense.
There have also been suggestions that Sink could be playing another red-headed mutant, Firestar, or perhaps even the Spider-Man stalwart Black Cat, while there’s also the possibility that she’s down to play Peter Parker’s traditional love interest Mary Jane Watson. This would be downright weird given Zendaya plays a different “MJ” in the Marvel Spider-Man films (though, y’know ... multiverse).
Regardless of who Sink is playing, the important thing here is that this feels new. The Stranger Things actor’s casting is a sign that Marvel is considering fresh faces instead of just bringing back its biggest hitters as multiversal variants of characters who have died more times than Kenny from South Park. And frankly, it’s about time. The MCU has spent the last few years like a theme park that only runs the same three rides, ignoring the fact that half the guests might actually be queueing for something different. Maybe, just maybe, Sink is the first step towards them finally opening a new attraction instead of repainting the old ones and calling them multiverse variants.
