Contains spoilers for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness
For years now, Marvel fans have been waiting to see Reed Richards (along with the rest of the Fantastic Four) make his way into the MCU. Much like the X-Men, they’re due to cross over into Kevin Feige’s connected universe at some point – and in Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness, we got our first tantalising taste. In the cameo-filled Illuminati sequence of Sam Raimi’s sorcerer-centric sequel, John Krasinski answered the internet’s prayers and popped up as a variant of Mister Fantastic – before being shredded to ribbons by a pissed-off Scarlet Witch, splatted along with the rest of the Illuminati members (including Patrick Stewart’s Professor X).
It was a fun, brief, bloody appearance for Reed Richards, which writer Michael Waldron acknowledges is the most jaw-dropping cameo of the film. “That’s the big one, right?” he chuckles, speaking to Empire in the new issue. Writing for Mister Fantastic was a dream come for him. “I always wanted Reed Richards in this thing,” Waldron tells Empire – so much so that even before the Illuminati sequence came about, he penned a pie-in-the-sky post-credits sequence to satisfy his own curiosities. “In my very first draft, I wrote a tag just for the hell of it, of the events of the movie being recorded and reviewed by somebody in the Baxter Building, and a stretchy hand coming into frame to run it back.” It was an opportunity to do at least something with a superhero he’s always loved on the page. “Reed is probably my favourite Marvel comics character,” he says, “so I was always gunning to get him in here somewhere.”
Even if Wanda quickly takes Reed out in Multiverse Of Madness, the film ultimately sees the Darkhold-corrupted witch recognise her own fall to the dark side, burying herself under the collapsed rubble of Mount Wundagore. But is she really gone? “She’s removing herself from the board… For now? Forever? We’ll see,” hints Waldron. “I’d like to see her again…” Maybe she’ll have another variant of Reed Richards to rip to shreds in the not-too-distant future.
Read Empire’s full spoiler-filled Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness interview with Michael Waldron in the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery issue – on sale Thursday 1 September and available to order online here. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is streaming now on Disney+, and available on Blu-ray, 4K, DVD and digital.