In an interview Patrick Stewart has not answered the question.

But he has revealed that on the evening of the Super Bowl during which the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness advertisement ran, he received many communications from friends and also people he hardly knew, asking the question.

At the other end of the clarification spectrum, Marvel head Kevin Feige definitively put The Avengers to bed in an episode of Marvel Studios: Assembled.

Marvel Studios and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now past their tenth anniversary. And with the release of the final Avengers movie, we've finally completed a 22-movie Infinity Saga.

In the same week as a trailer seemingly showing Patrick Stewart's Professor X in the next Doctor Strange movie, we see this as potentially foreshawdowing an official reunion of the previously Fox owned mutants with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Avengers team and films were planned long before Disney's acquisition of Fox and all things mutant.

They now have a much bigger and also more diverse stable of characters to draw upon for any kind of team or teams to build films around.

The question is how and at what point might they do that?

Thor: Ragnarok reinvigorated those films, the first Black Panther was great and we have high hopes of the sequel. While it was a sub-par Marvel entry, The Eternals are brand spanking new.

Would Marvel use the multiverse to perform a full reset and start over with mutants in the mix?

Given the rights ownership issue which previously divided the franchise, fans might be willing to allow a big reboot but would Marvel want to slam the brakes on all of their other film series?

Perhaps they wouldn't need to.

In one of the major comic book storylines, Wanda / Scarlett Witch largely erases the mutant gene from reality.

If she can take it away then she could give it back - assuming some previous event in our reality had removed the mutant gene or prevented it from arising.

Through Professor X and his buddies she and Doctor Strange might learn that the key to fixing the multiverse madness lies in one or more mutants so she needs to restore the mutant gene.

Every mutant would have completely different origins - all becoming mutants in the same instant - but could be added to the MCU without losing any of its history.

Will that happen? Of course we don't know and will have to wait along with everyone else to see the film.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness arrives in Australian cinemas on May 5.

[ Main Image: Patrick Stewart. Credit: The Cosmic Wonder via YouTube. ]

References

Leston, Ryan (February 18, 2022). Endgame Is the ‘Final’ Avengers Movie Says Marvel Boss. IGN.

Marvel Database. Decimation. (viewed February 21, 2022)

The Cosmic Wonder (February 20, 2022). Patrick Stewart Talks Multiverse Of Madness Trailer In Interview “is that you?” YouTube.