One of the most impressive aspects of Stranger Things is how much mystery the Duffer brothers have kept the series shrouded in. Fans still don’t know much about dark villains such as Vecna, The Mind Flayer and Demogorgons. Though Dark Horse Comics has been shedding insight into the sinister MKUltra program, a lot of variables have still been kept secret.
Throw in Russia’s experiment with the dark realm, and there’s clearly a lot to mine. This is why the planned spinoff actually feels welcomed, with so much blank canvas still to paint. Interestingly, given what’s transpired on the show so far, the spinoff could fix a major mistake made recently by Superman & Lois, which failed to address its alternate dimension properly.
Superman & Lois had an inverse world akin to the Upside Down — the Bizarro World. But unfortunately, not much insight was shared into how its Man of Steel came to Earth, who raised him, why Tal-Rho partnered with him, and why Lana Lang turned into a dark Superwoman. All of this was to enable the evil Ally Allston to take over, creating a scary world, but the history wasn’t given into how she infected that reality.
In short, the Bizarro World’s potential was wasted, leaving fans uncertain what it was really about. Hopefully, the remaining episodes detail the missing material, but in Stranger Things‘ case, it doesn’t need to unpack its inverse world in Season 4 or in general. Instead, the spinoff can focus on the Upside Down, naturally bringing fans over as comic tie-ins would to big events.
The spinoff series can shock fans and subvert by telling a multiversal story — something popular right now as seen with the Marvel movies and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Revealing the Upside Down as an Earth that was once normal can bring in variants of familiar faces (per Doctor Strange and Wanda’s variants), new spins on certain characters (akin to how Marvel has different Spider-Men) and ultimately, what caused the rot of that world in 1983, which Season 4 confirmed was the timeline there.
It could tell What If?-like stories years later, maybe even shaping Eleven as a villain that damaged the world and prepped it for Henry Creel as Vecna to take charge of for The Mind Flayer. It may be a broken Eleven used her powers to invite the monsters in from a different dimension. Or the show could use some characters in their younger forms, as Season 4 also did with Eleven, while using a new cast in this alternate Hawkins.
The point is, the show won’t be beholden to rules as it maps the decay of that realm into an ashy nightmare. This would allow the Duffers to fiddle around with lore and map the catalyst for the Upside Down to be born. Ultimately, this could end on the reality becoming poisoned, all before puncturing the Hawkins, Indiana, we know in the mainstream show to bring the story full-circle.
Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 is available to stream on Netflix.