Have you ever met a person that was so passionate about something that the moment you say something wrong about it (intentionally or otherwise) they put on their “nerd glasses” in order to correct you? Well, the Marvel Cinematic Universe apparently has that person now, and her name is Iman Vellani, the star of the upcoming series Ms. Marvel. She was noted by Kevin Feige and others to have a diehard passion for Marvel Comics…but you might not realize just how far it goes.
For example, at the premiere of the series, the star was asked about the MCU as a whole, and she noted that one thing she wasn’t happy about was that in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness they referenced how the MCU universe was the 616 universe. A reference to the comics. She didn’t take too kindly to that:
“I like to say [the comic book universe] is 616,” Vellani explained. “I don’t think the MCU is 616. As much as Kevin Feige would have us believe it’s 616, it’s 199999.”
While that may sound like a mean-spirited thing, it’s honestly not, and in fact…she made a very important point. Because if you really think about it, the MCU can’t be the 616 universe for the most basic of reasons…it doesn’t have all the Marvel Comics characters in it.
In fact, in this current form of the MCU, the Mutants of the world (including the X-Men), the Inhumans, and the Fantastic Four don’t exist yet. They even went out of their way (over the course of years) to turn Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver into experiments instead of mutants.
And there are other key characters who aren’t in this universe yet as well. So as such, the main COMIC universe honestly is 616, and the MCU is just another universal variant in the grand scheme of things.
Let your nerd flag fly Iman Vellani…let it fly.
Source: ComicBook.com