Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness not only explored the multiverse and its many dangers but also gave a whole new meaning to dreams in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and through that, it made two Iron Man moments more heartbreaking. The MCU’s Phase 4 is introducing new events, characters, and concepts, and the main one so far is the multiverse, which was teased in the TV show Loki and explored deeper in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, all of them impacting the future of this connected universe.
Directed by Sam Raimi and set after the multiverse chaos in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) protecting America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teenager with the power of traveling between dimensions by punching open portals, from a dark force that has been hunting her across dimensions. This threat is revealed to be none other than Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who is looking to acquire America’s powers so she can reunite with her children, Billy and Tommy, who she created during her time in Westview in WandaVision. America’s introduction led to the MCU explaining a couple of things about its multiverse, including something very important about dreams.
Right at the beginning of Doctor Strange 2, Strange has a dream about a variant of himself running away from danger with America, and when she arrives at the MCU’s main timeline and meets Wong (Benedict Wong) and Strange, America explains to them that dreams and nightmares are much more than that: all those events are real, but they’re happening in another reality within the multiverse, so dreams are windows into the lives of the dreamer’s multiverse variants. This not only makes Strange realize that he witnessed his variant betraying America but it also changes many moments from past MCU movies and makes two Iron Man ones a lot more heartbreaking: a dream he had in Avengers: Infinity War and the nightmares he had in Iron Man 3.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Tony Stark told Pepper Potts that he had a dream where they had a kid and they named them after Pepper’s “eccentric uncle”, Morgan, and he insisted that the dream felt very real. Avengers: Endgame revealed that, in the five years between Thanos’ murder and the Time Heist, Tony and Pepper had a daughter, Morgan, but after Doctor Strange 2’s explanation of what dreams really are, Tony’s dream is a lot more meaningful as he was experiencing parenthood through a variant, way before he became a father. Dreams being windows to other universes also make Tony’s nightmares in Iron Man 3 heartbreaking and worrying, as he pretty much saw his death in other universes. Iron Man 3 saw Tony dealing with anxiety and PTSD following the events of The Avengers, where he took the missile into space and almost died when he went into freefall, and as a result, he had recurring nightmares. In one scene, he has a nightmare about his near-death (though in the dream, he might have actually died) that causes one of his suits to almost attack Pepper, but after Doctor Strange 2, this scene takes a whole new meaning as Tony was not only witnessing but experiencing his death in another universe.
These two Iron Man moments are now more heartbreaking in different ways – the nightmares in Iron Man 3 mean that Tony experienced his death years before his sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame, while the dream in Infinity War means that he got to experience fatherhood before he and Pepper had Morgan, and he shared a bit more time with his daughter through that, though in another universe. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness did more than change the multiverse and open the door to bigger disasters and more dangerous threats, as it also changed the way many characters in the MCU have experienced things through dreams.
