Image Credit: Marvel Studios
Doctor Strange's Super Bowl LVI trailer in the Multiverse of Madness may have hinted that the sorcerer will travel to an animated world, making Marvel cartoons a potential part of the MCU's multiverse. This is the strangest revelation of the upcoming Sam Raimi-directed sequel, along with confirmation that Patrick Stewart will reprise his role as Professor X from the Fox X-Men films.
In the trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it appears that the character will star in an animated sequence as superhero America Chavez breaks through one of her star portals. At 1:26 of the trailer Strange can be seen apparently falling from an animated universe at the top of the frame.
The universe background features an animated background, and Strange's lower body is half in transition from cartoon to live-action. This suggests the possibility that Marvel's multiverse contains animated dimensions and that previous Marvel cartoons and animated shows could be made canonical in the same way that SONY films did.
One of Marvel's Phase 4 projects, What If ... ?, was Marvel Studios' first fully animated project, and it appears that the premise of the series is to explore various alternate realities so that it could be closely linked to the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The poster of the film seems to indicate the appearances of Captain Carter and in the trailer, there are Zombie variants, two possible links with What If…? and the upcoming Marvel Zombies animated series coming to Disney +.
With the animated series of the X-Men and Spider-Man: Across the Multiverse in production, the prospect of an animated drift of the MCU seems truly exciting.