massive spoiler warning for doctor strange and the multiverse of madness doctor strange in the multiverse of madness is out and it actually made me feel emotions inside my cold grinch-like heart sparked some joy sadness and excitement i was genuinely giddy seeing the illuminati of earth 838 especially when they were all horribly dispatched by scarlet witch like she's jason voorhees going after so many randy teens but who are the illuminati and where did they come from there's a big difference between the secret group the mcu gave us and their comic counterparts join me as i break
down how the mcu changed the illuminati a quick bit of info on what the term illuminati means and where it comes from don't worry viewer this video isn't about to become a history lesson there are various groups that have supposedly held this title in our own world but there is just as long a list of illuminati in fiction it would make sense for marvel to have their own the basic idea is that it's a secret organization made up of the world's elite it exists only to affect or control the world through various forms of influence
and direct action occasionally they try to stop lara croft from finding something in the marvel universe there is no denying that the most powerful and influential people are the leaders of the various superhero teams that run around the superhero based illuminati are just as secretive as the real world mythos implies both the comic and film versions operate without the knowledge of the public while the avengers or fantastic four get buildings with their symbols on it the illuminati meet secretly away from prying eyes so who are the newly introduced and then quickly dispatched illuminati of earth
838 it contains some of the same members as its comic counterpart center among them is professor charles xavier this incredibly powerful telepath is also the leader of the x-men even though he is played once again by patrick stewart this is the closest he's ever looked to his comic and cartoon self it's not just the yellow hover chair because even the circular thought beam representing his telepathy is taken right out of the 90s cartoon the next most prominent member is reed richards played by jack ryan star john krasinski richards is also the leader of the fantastic
four in fact the 838 illuminati are all leaders of their own teams with maybe the exception of rambo's captain marvel it's still unclear if jon krasinski will be reprising this role in the upcoming fantastic four film but we certainly know it won't be this version there is also the fork-headed royal black agar boltegon yes black bolt has a tremendously stupid real name it's like if peter parker was actually named spider-guard managon black bolt is the leader of the inhumans and is once again played by star trek's anson mount what do i mean by once again
well we could all be forgiven for forgetting that marvel had a failed half season of a terrible inhuman show anson mount played blackguard on the failed series since then he has gone on to a much better character with captain christopher pike on strange new worlds which unlike inhumans is actually a good show hey the illuminati has two star trek captains on it let's get hailey atwell in a center seat and make it a hat-trick speaking of which next up is captain britain herself peggy carter this version while not the exact same is similar to the
captain carter introduced in what if she was enhanced with the super soldier serum instead of steve rogers this isn't the exact same peggy from what if so if you like her in that don't worry that one's torso is still attached to her legs finally there is captain marvel but not the one we know normally this captain marvel is maria rambo maria was carol danvers friend and fellow test pilot it seems that in the 838 universe maria was the one who gained the powers cosmic in the prime mcu maria's daughter monica has gained similar powers due
to her messing with wanda's bubble too many times she probably won't be too happy to hear that wanda killed her mother from another dimension she's probably now wishing she hadn't helped her defeat sword and agatha the comic book origins of the illuminati are actually relatively recent their first appearance was in the brian michael bendis century storyline of new avengers in 2006 the members of the original group of esteemed and powerful gentlemen were brought together by tony stark just after the crease gorilla war the tech billionaire's original idea was to create a united nation of superheroes
he realized that not only did the wider galactic community consider superheroes earth's police force but that each of the individuals he rounded up had obtained information about the coming war but none had the pieces to put it together if they'd shared information and resources they may have been able to stop the war before it started it seemed like a great idea until he was shouted down by the very people he'd nominated as representatives to be fair though we have seen what happens when tony decides he's earth's only hope do you see the beauty of it
[Music] one of the people shouting him down was namor the submariner king of atlantis and half mutant half merman besides the regular suite of superhuman powers neymar can also speak telepathically to marine creatures he's even got an expanded lifespan to the point where he fought in both world wars sometimes with captain america yep he's just cooler aquaman or he's cooler than most versions of aquaman i'm god you microscopic misanthrope professor x and reed richards also didn't agree with the idea of a superhuman un but thanks to some suggestions from doctor strange all saw fit to
form a secretive council that allowed them to coordinate on the larger threats earth and its citizens faced one of the more notable choices made by the comics illuminati was a poor decision on how to help bruce banner and contain the hulk a recent relapse into his savage form left las vegas in near ruin and banner's future control over his counterpart was very much in doubt tony stark proposed shooting the scientist into space on a ship pointed at a peacefully uninhabited garden world professor x wasn't available for the vote but reed strange and black bolt agreed
namor was pretty angry about it and even got into a little tussle with the rest of the group namor was right in the end however because the spaceship got sucked into a wormhole and ended up on sakhar this has more or less been adapted into thor ragnarok with the secret group noticeably absent from the story where this storyline differs from the fun ragnarok is that in the comics hulk finds happiness being a king of a new world he even found love unfortunately the shoddy spaceship that crashed with hulk on this world goes nuclear and eradicates
most of the planet including hulk's new wife needless to say he kind of wanted revenge on the four douchebags who were responsible for everything what happened next is summed up pretty nicely by the very title of this event world war hulk after some truly epic rampages hulk is eventually defeated but the illuminati were pretty much over as a group distrust had already begun to fracture their cooperation and the scroll replacements of the secret invasion shattered what was left so that's it they didn't really last that long as a group instead serving as a failed attempt
at collusion between the world's most powerful and arrogant people who could have guessed it would have never worked i'm surprised it lasted that long so there are a lot of big changes to discuss first amongst them are the inclusion of captain carter and rambo's captain marvel it's interesting to find these two taking a seat amongst the secret group their 616 counterparts aren't members of the comic version instead replaced by tony stark and namor given that tony stark is dead in the mcu universe and namor has yet to be introduced their inclusion in any future version
would require some further setup the 818 illuminati also exist in a world where the avengers do not exist they were formed in response to thanos attack also because tony stark is not around for some reason the whole thing was 818 strange's idea after his death at the hands of black bolt his seat is replaced by the new sorcerer supreme mordo does that mean the mcu 616 universe illuminati would have wong in it the 818 illuminati doesn't exist anymore and really they only amounted to 15 minutes of screen time it's even unclear if we will ever
see universe 818 again so it's hard to say if we will ever see any real fallout from their deaths will anyone ever even know what happened to the secret group the 818 and comics illuminati share one thing very much in common even in the short time they appeared on screen they are both arrogant and kind of dicks in multiverse of madness they let 818 strange use the dark hole to defeat thanos but then decide to destroy him with black bolts voice they are also dismissive of wanda as a threat right up to the moment she
absolutely flattens all of them the comics illuminati were the same deciding to unilaterally make decisions like shooting the hulk into space in the end both groups underestimated a hero turned foe and paid a large price for it so here they are and there they go before the film's release we were all so sure that the illuminati would play a pivotal part in the upcoming stories the mcu has to tell i guess the joke's on us because the secret group of the world's most powerful people let their own hubris destroy them well their hubris and whatever
wanda did to reed richards
