Multiverse stories are currently dominating the media marketplace because they speak to the reflection, rumination, and regret we feel as we seek our better selves. A multiverse story boasts infinite narrative potential as it enables writers, actors, directors, producers, and other creators to present characters and conflicts in an infinite number of contexts. Creators who wander into the multiverse are empowered with the ability to craft any story their whims can muster as they are free of the usual narrative constraints a creator faces once the mortar of the world they’ve built has dried. The multiverse is, thusly, a powerful plot structure when telling stories that muse upon identity, self-determination, consequence of choice and, curiously, remorse.
With a simple flick of a pen, a writer can easily have Miles Morales – a humble, coming of age, Afro-Latino youth from Brooklyn – become Spider-Man in the Spider-Verse film franchise and thrust him into the multiverse to juxtapose him against innumerable alternate versions of himself as he decides how to fashion himself a hero. But despite having the ability to learn from any Spider-Man of his choosing, Miles spends most of his time reflecting upon his inadequacies.
An actress, such as Michelle Yeoh, has the entire multiverse at her disposal in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Her character, Evelyn, is able to acquire different skills of alternate versions of herself as she tells the story of a Chinese mother working to untangle the twisted emotional and cultural ties that bind her family. However, Yeoh, in lieu of channeling her character’s undefinable power, chooses to portray her character in a constant state of rumination over the state of her family.
Hell, a movie producer such as Kevin Feige can use the multiverse to parade an infinite number of alternate versions of already established intellectual property to sell an infinite number of toys as he does in the current crop of Marvel movies. But regardless of the circumstances, any character deployed into Marvel’s multiverse does so to quell a regret.
The multiverse is all-powerful from a creative standpoint, but I do wonder why it has become so popular in recent years. The multiverse is not a new concept and has its origins in actual, theoretical physics. Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rose postulated in 1930s that that atoms and photons can exist in multiple energy states simultaneously, dubbing this phenomena as “quantum superpositions.” This work was compounded upon by Erwin Schrödinger and Hugh Everett in the 1950s, who theorized that if quantum superpositions exist, so must the existence of multiple realities. Gardner Fox then used this concept, that had hence been brandished only by the greatest theoretical physicists of his time, to shut up comic book nerds who complained about continuity errors as he used the concept of a multiverse in 1961 to explain the presence of two separate heroes named “The Flash” in “The Flash of Two Worlds.” The concept of a multiverse has proliferated in the media ever since. So why has it exploded in popularity now? Because every multiverse story features the protagonist struggling to find peace in the face of infinite paths.
Our current socioeconomic climate is an unrelenting storm of constant information dispersed by means of constant technological and social connections that leaves us in a state of paralytic hyperawareness. We have never before had more access to knowledge and information, yet we do not have the means to efficiently and effectively process, verify, and analyze this data. We have never before had such powerful tools to make connections and build communities, yet we find ourselves more divided than ever by our differences. We have never had more access to the tools, education, and training that would allow us to be the captains of our own fates yet, we have never been more paralyzed by indecision. Thus, we find ourselves lost amidst a seemingly infinite amount of data by which we can make a seemingly infinite amount of decisions that can shape us into an infinite different versions of who we are. In other words, we are lost in a multiverse of ourselves.
The multiverse certainly promises the power of self-determination, however, the onus of choice can enslave us as we are constantly, consciously and subconsciously, compelled to “maximize” our decisions. The ubiquitous nature of information is invaluable when making life-altering decisions regarding career, financial, and family planning; however, we also cannot choose a restaurant before poring over reviews, lest we risk going to the second best burger joint in our area. Instagram bodybuilders and models march rank and file to tell you that if you don’t wake up at 4 am to lift weights, you’ll miss the chance to invest in fringe-market penny stocks. And most damagingly of all, social media influencers and other demagogues will then preach to you how to think, feel, and interact with the world around you, or else you won’t become your best self. Yes, this information-driven multiverse can make us strong if used correctly, but for so many, it forces us to internalize feelings of inadequacy and ushers us to dark depths of regret, remorse, and rumination for being unable to reach “our best self.”
Understanding this, can you really blame someone for wishing they had a multiverse worth of alternate versions of themselves to turn to for reassurance and guidance? Miles can probably just ask Spider-Ham about restaurants to avoid the bad ones as he works through his imposter syndrome. Evelyn can just acquire strength and financial literacy from a creatine-addled finance bro variant of herself and buy happiness for her family. And if you lie awake at night alone and unable to process your anxieties, just go to a world where your problems don’t exist like characters do in the MCU. We love multiverse stories because they can counter the existential dread and shame imposed upon us as we parse through seemingly endless paths to “bettering” ourselves. Regardless of the characters and circumstances, they all feature characters overcoming their own self-hate to persevere in the face of infinite paths, options, and conflicts to become their best self. That’s why we can’t get enough of them.
Don’t believe me? Why has Loki been the only property to be the only Marvel television property to leave any sort of impression on the jaded and eroding superhero market? Loki sees Tom Hiddleston once again don the horns of the titular god of mischief who finds himself displaced in time from his intended fate. Loki becomes branded as a “time variant” and is coerced to hunt down other rogue variants of himself to avert obligatory plot catastrophe. Loki then begins a romp around many different realities and encounters innumerable variants of himself that force him to, quite literally, confront his own self-hate, to take responsibility for his self-destructive tendencies, and to admit that he’d rather be loved than to wear a crown. Sure, Alligator Loki deserves his own spin-off film series, but will we remember the show for the multiverse lore? Or will we remember how Loki found redemption, self-acceptance, and friends in the face of infinitude?
Rick and Morty courts a fanbase at war with itself by contorting the grand tapestry of the multiverse to tell fart jokes. Since its premiere in 2013, Rick Sanchez and his grandson Morty have traveled the multiverse causing calamity where they roam with nihilistic glee because, as Rick posits, how can love, hate, life, or death matter if they can be lost and found by random chance in the grand calculus of the multiverse?
This polarizes the fanbase as many find Rick’s nihilism comforting. His acceptance of the multiverse allows him to rise above the banalities of existence and the complicated emotional nuances that maintaining an outward social infrastructure implies. Rick’s demeanor and exploits are a battle cry for these fans who can often be seen brandishing a neck tattoo of Pickle Rick and refusing to hold gainful employment because they “don’t want to be in the system, man.” Meanwhile, there are just as many gainfully employed fans who consider Rick’s story to be a cautionary tale as despite his incalculable genius and skill, he is alone and unloved proving that even in the face of infinite worlds, infinite danger, and infinite versions of you and yours – everything and everyone still matter. Rick and Morty does not prompt debate amongst fans because of its avant garde scatalogical humor. Rick and Morty commands an audience because it asks the question: “If you can be anyone or anything, does anyone or anything really matter?”
Past Lives does not even feature a multiverse, but its fixation upon choices made and ruminations about paths not traveled has captivated audiences this awards season. It’s a relatively mundane story about star-crossed lovers who passed each other in the night that is elevated by the concept of “In-Yun”; a belief that we are pulled towards people based upon the decisions we’ve made in our prior lives which, in turn, determines the people we love, the families we choose, and the people we become.
Thus is the rationale of Nora Moon, who looks to the multitudes inside of herself to explain why she chose to move away from her Korean culture, to dedicate herself to her writing, and to live her ordinary life with her ordinary husband. Nora, of course, feels the pull of the other life she could have lived in the form of Hae Sung, her childhood sweetheart who is “very Korean” and who has never stopped yearning for her. She re-examines the choices she’s made using through the lens of “In-Yun” and chooses to sustain her status quo, but maintains that another version of herself likely lives a life with Hae Sung.
Nora does not travel alternate versions of the Upper East Side or Seoul but nonetheless, she ponders the possible different choices she could have made and mediates through alternate versions of herself to find self-affirmation to, surprisingly, rapturous acclaim. Past Lives is an independently produced movie and did not receive a wide release but has found itself a contender for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and entrenched itself into contemporary culture because its themes of choices, consequences, regrets, and the different identities they can predicate resonate within us like none other.
But for as powerful as these stories are for braving the multiverse, it was the DC Universe that taught them how to venture into these infinite worlds. DC Comics is responsible for popularizing the concept of the multiverse in media as they call upon it every 5-10 years to reboot their entire slate of comics and muse upon the ideals of heroism.
Crisis on Infinite Earths preached in 1986 that despite audiences demanding a shift from traditional, altruistic, swashbuckling heroes in favor of angsty, anti-heroes fixated on self-determination that a hero would always be someone who chose to help others, as The Flash and Supergirl sacrificed themselves to rage against the dying of the multiverse.
Infinite Crisis in 2005 taught us that heroes draw their strength from hope, not fear, as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman overcome the anxieties that separated them at the time to combat a depraved Superboy that sought to lay waste to the multiverse to impose his version of heroism.
And Final Crisis in 2008 saw Superman defeat Darkseid, after he had stripped the entire multiverse of its free will via the Anti-Life Equation, with a “miracle machine” that allowed him to literally wish away the calamity to show us that even in a multiversal apocalypse, a hero never stops believing.
DC is the architect of the multiverse archetype and they use the infinitude of their universes to celebrate heroism in its grandest form. Heroes rise and fall, battles are won and lost, and worlds die and are reborn, but our champions never shine brighter than when all seems dark. But of all these stories, its darkest one haunts me as I cannot forget the cackles of the Batman Who Laughs.
The Batman Who Laughs is a nightmarish variant of Bruce Wayne who succumbs to his basest instincts and succeeds in killing the DC Multiverse. He leads an invading army of evil Batman in 2017’s Dark Nights: Metal, assaults Gotham City in 2019 The Batman Who Laughs, and then acquires the powers of Doctor Manhattan to become “The Darkest Knight” in 2020’s Dark Nights: Death Metal as his machinations lead to the end of everything. But like any dread from the multiverse, The Batman Who Laughs is not feared for the destruction he reaps but for the questions he poses to our traditional version of Batman. This twisted Batman haunts our Bruce Wayne by corrupting his closest allies to show him how easily the friends he’s won can be lost, parades numerous Batman variants who achieved more than he ever could by giving up their moral codes, and, most damagingly, breaks his spirit by telling him that in the entire multiverse, he is the worst version of Batman and that all his struggles and sacrifices were given in vain.
Batman Who Laughs #2 by Scott Snyder and Jock
What would you do here? One of your variants from the multiverse has just accused you of being the worst version of yourself. You are told that out of all your variants in the multiverse, you are the least successful, the least memorable, the least happy, and that your life, your death, and the time between are but a passing breeze. How do you plea?
Would you reflect on your failures and the crowns you could have worn?
Would you ruminate about the time you wasted with your friends when you could have been building yourself?
Would you regret the people you chose or the people you loved?
I would share your thoughts and horror. I fear that I am the least accomplished version of myself and I would reflect on all the time I’ve lost. I fear that I am the most miserable version of myself and I would regret pushing away the people who loved me. I fear that I am the nightmare version of myself and I would ruminate, trying to ignore a self-fulfilling prophecy of mine. But as I would keep walking because, you know what makes me laugh? The moment in that panel above has haunted me since 2019 but I do not even remember how that Batman story ends. But, the story doesn’t really matter.
Multiverse stories are never about worlds living and dying, they’re about finding solace within ourselves as we become the people we are meant to be. The plot contrivances, the crises, the portals, and the reboots do not matter as much as the comfort they offer as we face ourselves while traversing the infinite avenues of self-determination our world offers. We cling to these stories not only because we feel Loki’s self-hatred, Rick’s nihilism, Nora’s yearning, and Batman’s despair as we also try to find our way in a world of infinite options, infinite opportunities, infinite possibilities, and infinite versions of ourselves but also because, these stories in the multiverse promise us that a good life can still be had. We look to the multiverse not to live another life, but to help us live the life we have.
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