We’ve been living inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the past 15 years, bearing witness to one of the biggest sea changes in the entertainment industry since Georges Méliès landed a spaceship on the moon. Superhero movies and fandom culture have completely changed the way we consume content, to the point that it’s difficult to imagine a world where Robert Downey Jr. didn’t play a guy in a red metal suit for 10 years. But because these movies go through so many iterations before the final product we see on the silver screen, that world is closer than we might think. There are many paths the MCU could have taken, each one weirder than the last. (For example: Did you know Nicolas Cage was almost Iron Man?)
