Doctor Strange 2: Who Will Be In The Illuminati

the new trailer for doctor strange ii has fans who aren't knee-deep in plot leaks excitedly wondering if this is our first glance at the illuminati a group that in the comics basically operates in a similar way to the real illuminati or uh theoretically real there are a bunch of hyper-intelligent superheroes who make decisions on massive conflicts where in the world safety is in the balance while they aren't usually meant as a judge and jury type of team like say the tva they are nonetheless the most likely group in the trailer however we don't actually know

exactly who all is on the team so let's take a look at both the all but confirmed and likely members obviously the one we have to start with is professor x since that is 100 patrick stewart's bald noggin and luxurious voice in the trailer if it's not i'll pull a herzog and eat my own chew in the comics he's a part of the illuminati from the get-go and among other things helps to turn marvel boy away from his more villainous predilections a scene i love by the way is is when reed richards is explaining the

original captain marvel to novar through an old memory presented through xavier's psychic abilities top-notch stuff right there of course the important bit here is that this would be the official introduction of the x-men and mutant kind in general to the mcu unless of course you know this is all a trick and marvel is playing us i'm not saying that's never happened before but um you know sometimes they do pull a boner anyway this one's also notable for being spoiled by concept art leaks which have folks very intrigued as to what other leaks turn out to

be real one of which is the potential for tony stark in his superior iron man mode played by tom cruise now i have my doubts about this one since the only leak i could find was obviously fake but also it would be pretty rad to see tom cruise as an alternate universe tony stark and meta as hell i'm sure you all know this but tom cruise was originally eyed for the role of tony stark back in the 90s this does lead to the question of when tom cruise would have had time to show up for

the role in the midst of all his mission impossible lunacy but then if it's true then this could very well be a very short cameo as a fun nod to the fans and history of the character's casting process that said this right here yeah i'm pretty sure that's monica rambo guys anyway it's fans assumptions based on that shot in particular as well as the ultron like centuries that cruz is specifically playing superior iron man this villainous version of tony stark debuted during the axis event in which all the characters had their moral compasses switched up

thereby creating good versions of bad guys and bad versions of good guys basically that nonsense got reversed but tony being tony thought ahead and made sure to shield himself from this thereby preserving what would be known as superior iron man if this is who we wind up seeing in doctor strange 2 then we could be seeing a face-off of magic vs tech perhaps with scarlet witch siding with strange to fight this big threat after her own brief bout of madness induced villainy either way it's an exciting proposition but casting aside the cruise element the idea

of tony stark showing up in some capacity makes a lot of sense again if this is the illuminati and not something else that the mcu has rejiggered to fit their narrative desires see stark was the one who initially proposed to the illuminati the idea being that after the cree scroll war he felt that each of the members of the illuminati whom he brought together had some connection to parts of earth's superhero forces that could have stopped that event from happening in the first place oddly enough the illuminati in the comics is essentially responsible for secret

invasion due to their having threatened the scrolls to never again attempt invading earth the scrolls being well um generally dickish then kidnapped and took the identities of these heroes and well you know you got yourself a secret invasion of skrulls as you can already tell none of this really has anything to do with multiversal shenanigans and as we've seen time and time again generally these comics aren't adapted exactly as they were written presumably if this is the illuminati they'll be given a far more grandiose purpose now reed richards is another founding member of the illuminati

and one who's pretty all in on it too calling it in the initial meeting one of the best ideas he's ever heard and for the most part usually falling on tony's side you know like a total simp since we know fantastic four is coming from spider-man director john watts this seems like a pretty swell way of introducing our mr fantastic now person promotional material for the film including a tv spot it looks as though one variant of doctor strange will be seeing is defender strange a character seemingly made up for the movie his exact role

is uncertain but having doctor strange on this secret council would make sense after all he's a founding member in the comic and it is a doctor strange movie filled with all sorts of um stranges so it stands to reason that perhaps this prim and proper defender strange might be the leader of the group heck he could be the variant of strange who most closely resembles tony's mindset making him the founder of the team that said all i've got here is pure speculation so let's move on baron mordo is of questionable allegiance based on this trailer

and potentially brings strange to the illuminati although that could just be tricky trailer editing mordo this you either way he'd make for a solid member especially if solid member jesus uh also like you know it could just be a variant of mordo who knows sam raimi knows me i don't know the most vocally opposed to the illuminati concept in the comics original lineup while also joining in the moment is namor the submariner a character we already are pretty sure will be showing up in wakanda forever so again assuming fans are right about the illuminati his

inclusion makes a ton of sense he's also a massive dick and in their initial meeting he's the first to say no to tony's idea now the reasoning here other than again being a huge pain in the booty is that he doesn't want harm to come to atlantis now this fear is assaiged somewhat when reed richards and doctor strange come up with having their team-up of sorts happen in secretive meetings however as time goes on namor continues to be one of the more self-centered and disagreeable although also pretty much always right notably he's against the superhuman

registration act that tony proposes just before nitro causes civil war and proclaims it a surface world problem that isn't his concern now strange is also super against it and calls that nonsense disgusting this arc of course was also already adapted in captain america civil war not that this really matters in relation to multiverse of madness but the one issue with neymar's opposition is that among the 612 people killed by nitro's explosive blast in civil war number one is neymarita i think that's how you say her name i've never heard it said in my life um

i'm gonna say name arita she's neymar's cousin who is attacking nitro as part of a new warriors reality show when he goes off needless to say namor takes this um poorly the most iffy almost but not quite original member of the illuminati for this iteration has to be black panther if only because of chadwick boseman's death and our still having not seen how that will be handled with wakanda forever speaking of wakanda not only is t'challa eventually one of the illuminati his big connection of course being that he controls a whole secret of nation himself

and therefore would be integral to tony's plan but their first meeting is held in wakanda it's worth noting though that he had no idea what the meeting was for and when it's time to vote on whether to enact it he's the lone hero to abstain being the why some gun that he is t'challa rightly points out what happens when you disagree when one of these earth-changing moments finds you all at odds with each other he leaves and doesn't actually join until new avengers vol 3 wherein oddly enough the illuminati does have to contend with the

closest thing to the multiverse dealt with by the illuminati and features extensive use of the infinity stones which we know are readily available in the multiverse another og member of the illuminati is black bolt king and leader of the inhumans he's an easy one to pop onto this iteration as well since and i know a lot of you either forgot about this or are willfully purging it from your memory but black bolt has already been cast and even caught a whole season of television anson mount portrayed the character in marvels and humans back in the

long long ago of 2017 and honestly he did a great job it's just you know that show um yeah anyway for those unaware black bolts whole thing is that he's basically oratory cyclops he can't speak without emitting deadly shock waves and therefore has someone else speak for him or uses sign language he's a rad character and if it's just a matter of filling a seat and bringing together all of the marvel properties just to smush the multiverse together heck just bring back good old anson and heck there's a great reveal just ready to be had

ripped straight from the comic right here in part 5 of the new avengers illuminati mini series tony stark reveals to the whole gang that a scroll has been playing elektra for an indeterminable amount of time he believes that there's a lot more to it that there's an invasion which you know could call and right then black bolt freaking talks turns out shaka shocks that he's a scroll and he attacks the other members of the illuminati this is obviously only if for whatever reason kevin feige and company want to return to the secret invasion well they

dabbled in with captain marvel and the stinger to far from home i don't know how a straight adaptation would work but if there were some plan to having a big scroll or scroll adjacent reveal black bolt just dropping some bars out of nowhere would be quite the shocking way to do oh there's a secret invasion show actually so that maybe there's something to that there's also some strong potential for some variation on captain america to show up so far the money is on captain carter due to her shield appearing on the poster and just the

sheer number of what-if characters seemingly showing up in this massive event been living the dream alone in a prison of my own making ever since