After seeing the small tease at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, fans are hyped for the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Marvel has finally released a more in-depth trailer for Doctor Strange 2. While it included so much information and teases for fans to digest, one particular part seems to allude to the inclusion of a famous group from within the comics, The Illuminati.

Now, who are the Illuminati? In the aftermath of the Kree-Skull War which ravaged Earth, Iron Man realizes that some of the superhero community possessed knowledge of the coming war beforehand and believes they could have potentially stopped it if only they had been able to communicate with each other effectively. Based on this, he suggests a “council” be created to help govern superheroes and the much bigger threats against the world. Despite some of the founding members disagreeing at first, they do eventually agree to meet every so often and exchange information.

Much like The Avengers, the roster has changed somewhat over the years. However, the original group is made up of Iron Man, Namor, Black Bolt, Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic), Doctor Stephen Strange, and Professor Charles Xavier.

What does this have to do with Doctor Strange 2 then? In both the tease at the end of No Way Home and this new trailer, we see Doctor Strange seemingly facing the consequences of his actions during the aforementioned movie which resulted in the opening of the Multiverse. This leads to him being placed “under arrest.” However, the new trailer shows him being brought before some sort of “council” and a very, very familiar voice is heard saying “You should tell him the truth.” That voice belongs to none other than Sir Patrick Stewart, who is famous among Marvel fans for his portrayal of Professor Charles Xavier (Professor X) in Fox’s X-Men franchise. Do you see where I am going with this? A strange (pardon the pun) council, Patrick Stewart’s voice who happened to already play a character who is in the Illuminati, and Doctor strange being brought before said council. What else could this possibly be alluding to?

We know this cannot be the Illuminati as they appear in the comics due to Iron Man no longer being around. However, the trailer suggests that the council is now made up of characters from throughout the Multiverse. There have been rumors of Stewart reprising the role of Professor X for some time along with rumors abound regarding Tom Cruise playing a variant of Iron Man. With the Ultron-like robots in the trailer, he could be playing a variant of Iron Man based on Superior Iron Man. This means that he too could be part of the Illuminati.

As with anything related to Marvel, this is all just pure speculation. Something like this is not likely to be confirmed until the actual movie itself is released. It is always fun to think about what could be coming based on the teasers we get. One thing for sure, regardless of what happens, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is shaping up to be even crazier than Spider-Man: No Way Home and will likely be nothing short of amazing. The fact that Stewart is included in the trailer also suggests there may be many more surprises in store.

The movie is scheduled for release in May 2022. Until then you can check out the new teaser trailer below and see for yourself what we might be in for.