“Let’s do something different this time.”
Those are the first words you hear at the start of this month’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” an uncanny meditation on multiple realities and how our lives can unfold. The message is clear from the get-go: We have options. Things can be flexible. You are you, sure. But wait—you can also be you and you and you.
The world is a stressful, sometimes lonely place – and even more so at a time when “this shouldn’t have happened” has become an uncommon mantra. But what if things could turn the other way? What if, somewhere, they had? Enter the realm of the multiverse and alternate realities, one of popular culture’s most glorified canvases in recent years – and a repository for pain and longing in an age of uncertainty.
Alternate universes are everywhere these days, as is the long-delayed opening weekend of “The Flash” with its regret-streaked, history-changing story (and its many variations of Batman). There seems to be a deep hunger for exploring the possibilities—to see what could have been if just one thing had turned out differently.
Douglas Wolk says, “The cultural assumption was that the world we live in is the way it is, and it might be the only way.” Miracle.
“What’s happened in the culture,” Wolk says, “is people are saying, ‘Well, no. This is not the consensus reality of how things should be.'”
The multiverse has a rich history – or history
The notion of exploring the ups and downs of life through alternate timelines has been around for a while under different guises.
The quintessential 1946 Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” sent affable George Bailey to a timeline where he was never born to unleash his true power. “You have been given a great gift, George – the chance to see what the world would be like without you,” he is told by his usual guardian angel, Clarence.
In the decades since, this notion has intensified—a rise in stories that treat events both fictional and real, extrapolating different alternatives.
What if the South had won the Civil War (“CSA: The Confederate States of America”)? What if Germany and Japan had won World War II (“The Man in the High Castle”)? What if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated (“11/22/63”)? What if the Soviet Union had landed the Americans on the moon (“For All Mankind”)? What if 9/11 had happened very differently (“The Mirage”)?
Fantasy worlds are more malleable, however, and may generate more content. So it is that fictional characters — especially beloved ones with established stories — are manipulated in books, TV shows, and movies that carry them from one life to another. It’s a concept that ranges from rom-com (1998’s “Sliding Doors,” where a missing train splits a young woman’s life down different paths) to near-musical (2019’s “Tomorrow,” Where a budding musician bumps into a universe) cuts across genres. where the Beatles never existed).
You have the reality where Spider-Man never married Mary Jane Watson (the “Brand New Day” of Marvel Comics); universe where a version of Doctor Strange has gone insane (“Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness”); The universe where a Ben Affleck Batman never existed but a Michael Keaton Batman stuck around and aged (“The Flash,” which we’re not spoiling because it was in the trailers).
And you have the “mirror universe” of “Star Trek,” whose dark and aggressive Terran empire evokes the baser instincts of beloved characters. Not to mention the recent spate of “Trek” movies that have unfolded in another reality, when an aging Spock went back in time.
“It’s a way to explore a problem that never really happened in the main story,” said Nick Lemire, a 13-year-old California teen who attends “Marvel Mondays” with his mother, former Associated Press film critic Christy. co-hosts a topical podcast called Lemire.
A great example of multiverse success: last year’s “Everything Everywhere at Once”, which showed all the different lives Michelle Yeoh would have had as the main character – with the caveat that in the multiverse, her family remains a family. . It won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Whatever the subject matter, these works all stick to one theme: there are always possibilities for better and worse, and exploring them is entertaining, enlightening, and escapist. That’s no small thing in a post-COVID world facing extreme climate events, persistent racism, the rancor of political polarization, and the rise of artificial intelligence — a planet where convulsive change may seem the only constant.
Hannah Kim, assistant professor of philosophy at Macalester College, who conducted the research, says, “The fiction has clearly done what alternate universes have been doing lately: allowing us to explore some reality for the purpose of learning about the real world.” Give what is not real.” Why does the multiverse resonate?
“We’re bombarded with things that seem arbitrary, random,” she says. “The number of difficult developments over the past few years – the pandemic, the political upheaval, the effects of climate change, etc – leave the anxiety-prone person with a sense that it all could have been otherwise.”
It’s also a profitable business move
The exploration of the question of “what if” remains fascinating – to the point where there’s an entire Marvel show exploring alternate realities called “What If…?” It is said. And while many are starting to thin as in-universe plot devices, the trope isn’t going away anytime soon in our single world, where reality is constantly put into question.
After all, what’s there to lose if you can remix popular characters across multiple properties while retaining the reset potential in the “prime universe”? Well, there’s one thing: If everything could be reversed, unlike real life as we know it, how high could the stakes really be?
Matt Ruff, whose 9/11 novel, “The Mirage,” says, “It descriptively allows you to have your cake and eat it—you can kill off the character, have an emotional death scene and then Can bring back a character from another universe.” , “presents an alternate universe that juxtaposes attackers, victims and prejudices. In fact, it was Christian extremists who attacked the twin towers of the “United Arab State” in Baghdad.
“If everything is possible, the choices are less interesting. The results don’t matter that much,” Ruff says. “Part of engaging in the real world has to do with the fact that there is no magic solution.”
However, this may be precisely the reason that the notion resonates. Human beings have always wanted to try on other organizations, other results, perhaps even other lives. This is what the stories are about. Are we heading towards a narrative age – the equivalent of choosing your own adventure stories – where all possibilities are on the table?
Technology has enabled people to get most anything – customized, to boot – from the world’s bounties within 48 hours. Who could have imagined in the days of network television in the 1980s that streaming would bring thousands of television shows and movies to our eyes with the push of a button? So why not thousands of stories with thousands of possible endings for characters and plot? How does this affect our relationship with our stories?
David Newman, a sociologist at Colgate University, says, “You’re looking at a piece of a larger cultural picture that provides a constant barrage of cultural images that reinforce the idea that we can be better versions of ourselves. ” Possibility. “People want to believe that when we have a problem, the problem is fixed.”
There is a Marvel Comics offshoot called “Marvel 1602”, which describes a universe set in the early 17th century in which Earth’s mightiest superheroes existed. Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four, makes some proposals.
“I think we’re in a universe that favors stories,” he says. “A universe in which no story can ever truly end; In which there can only be continuity.
However it may play out, it’s a universe full of possibilities. And looking back at the past two decades of man in popular culture, it’s also good business to ask: what if?
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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990. follow them on twitter
