The MCU Just Made Its Alternate Dimensions Even More Confusing

This article contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel episode 4.

Ms. Marvel episode 4 just added another confusing layer to the MCU's multiverse and its alternate dimensions. The multiverse lies at the heart of the MCU's Phase 4 slate, and it has been surprising to see the Ms. Marvel Disney+ TV show explore it as well. Kamala Khan's MCU origin story involved a scene in which Ms. Marvel appeared to travel the multiverse, while episode 4 ended with an apparent time travel scene.

This is because the MCU has tied Kamala Khan in to the "Noor Dimension." According to the Red Daggers, this is another plane of existence that sits atop our own, unperceived and normally inaccessible. It is separated from our dimension by a field of energy known as Noor, which Kamala Khan taps into when she uses her powers. The villains of Ms. Marvel - the ClanDestines - are exiles from the Noor Dimension, and they are seeking to unite them in an interdimensional collision that would destroy the Earth. The action has moved to a completely different scale.

Unfortunately, the Ms. Marvel episode 4 explanations about the Noor Dimension shine a light on the MCU's biggest and most confusing multiversal problem - a lack of precision when discussing alternate dimensions and what this exactly means. Each MCU TV film and TV series appears to use key terms in a totally different way. In Loki, Marvel's What If...?, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the word "dimensions" refers to alternate timelines. In the first Doctor Strange, and now in Ms. Marvel, it instead refers to different planes of existence. The same is likely true in Shang-Chi & the Legends of the Ten Rings as well.

The multiverse is central to Phase 4, but the core problem is that the MCU still hasn't quite made up its mind what the multiverse actually is. This is why the multiverse was apparently introduced in Loki, even though the Masters of the Mystic Arts had already referred to it and claimed to be drawing their powers from other dimensions. It's why the Red Daggers are essentially describing an interdimensional invasion, akin to Dormammu's invasion of this plane in Doctor Strange, rather than an incursion leading to the destruction of two universes - as seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

There is, of course, a simple reason the MCU's multiverse is so confusing; because in this matter, Marvel Studios has done things back-to-front. Marvel Studios has encouraged viewers to think it always operates with a long-term planning running between five and ten years in advance. In reality, Marvel's major masterplan is much more fluid, and a lot of it is just luck when different elements come together. Marvel didn't even hold a summit defining the basic rules of the multiverse or its alternate dimensions until after a number of key properties had been produced - including Loki, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and possibly Ms. Marvel as well. Hopefully, this at least means future MCU films and TV shows will start using words with more precision, committing to a single model of the multiverse and clarifying how all the pieces come together.

More: How Ms. Marvel Time Travels At The End Of Episode 4

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