The MCU multiverse is doing the opposite of the many world theory, where the same people end up in slightly different circumstances.
The MCU has slightly different people ending up in the same circumstances.
It's the same thing the Arrowverse's
Crisis on Infinite Earths did a few years ago, folding earlier screen adaptations into their multiverse as parallel worlds (West and Keaton Batman, 1990 Flash, Routh's Superman, Tom Welling's Clark, Ezra Miller's Flash, etc.). As Lex Luthor put it in
Crisis, "The multiverse has a way of aligning fates."
I'm trying to remember if there are any earlier examples of crossovers that treated different actors who'd played the same character as alternate-universe versions. I have the impression there's something that did it, but I can't remember what. A borderline example is Cartoon Network's
Ben 10, whose later seasons treated its live-action TV movie adaptations as parallel universes, even though the first movie was intended at the time to be part of the animated canon. And there are the original
Spider-Verse comics, whose alternate-universe Spideys included adaptation characters such as the Japanese Supaidaaman and his giant robot Leopardon.
Now I want to see the paint universe Spider-Man.
A few seconds before the paint universe, they passed through a cartoon universe, with comical music. I feel like they missed an opportunity to make it the
Into the Spider-Verse universe and have Miles Morales swing by. But I guess that wouldn't have worked, because then you'd need Sony as a producing partner on the Dr. Strange movie and it would've just been too contractually complicated. They could name-drop Spider-Man, but showing a version of him onscreen would be another matter.
