Marvel Phase 4 has introduced us to a variety of new concepts about its Multiverse. Be it Wanda’s chaos magic or Doctor Stranger’s spell gone wrong, one thing is certain, the MCU Multiverse has opened up. Further, we saw Loki and Thor variants – Sylvie, the crocodile Loki, (Lokigator if you please) Throg (the frog Thor). Having seen that, we are quite okay with anything, no matter how bizarre or unexpected.
But when a Doctor Strange variant declared, ‘things just got out of hands,’ in the end of Multiverse of Madness trailer – well we have to agree. With all that mess-up in No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness will be full of repercussions… and Doctor Strange variants of course!
Let’s start at the beginning…
Our Doctor Stephen Strange
Our ‘not the sorcerer supreme’ Doctor Stephen Strange is surrounded by some real problems. He’s got ‘Mordo’ problems, Wanda problems, the octopus monster problem plus a spooky variant of himself probably causing more problems. And all this we gather from the official synopsis and the trailer of the movie.
Doctor Strange seems to know about something that has caused chaos in the multiverse and Mordo, who went wizard hunting at the end of the first Doctor Strange movie has returned. And something unleashes a giant octopus monster which is villain Gargantos and all these events lead Doctor to seek out Wanda’s aka Scarlet Witch’s help.
And then comes the evil mirror match variant of our Doctor Strange.
By far it looks like either Wanda or Evil Doctor Strange would be the main villain of the Multiverse. However, given Marvel Studios’ ways of misleading the audience with we don’t know how ‘Mad’ the Multiverse is going to get!
The Evil Doctor Strange aka Strange Supreme
Now, if you’ve seen the Disney+ anthology series What If…? one of its characters was Strange Supreme. A dark, sinister and way more powerful multiverse variant of Doctor Strange. Whose powers come from having absorbed the spirits of hundreds of demons, including a giant octopus.
If the evil Strange is the same Strange Supreme from What If…?, he is possibly there to protect the multiverse from danger, which he had promised at the end of the What If…? – season 1 to the watcher.
Probably, since Strange Supreme sees our Doctor Strange as a threat, he will fight against him and everyone who is in alliance with him including Wanda. Most fans feel Marvel is throwing fans off the scent of the real MoM villain with this variant.
But despite all the similarities, including the serpent attack in the Multiverse of Madness teaser looks very much like the one we saw in What If. He is unlikely to be the same variant.
Because by the end of What If, Strange Supreme is redeemed and bringing him back now would be kind of boring. Additionally, this Strange does not seem to use his hands, at least one of his hands.
This might have something to do with the director Sam Raimi’s storytelling wherein his heroes lose a hand and ultimately end up fighting their evil twin. Yes looking at you The Evil Dead series! So, this spooky Doctor Strange might be a Doctor Strange variant that wasn’t able to recover the use of both his hands.
The Defender Strange
The next Strange in the line is the Defender Strange!
This one was an easy guess by the fans because whenever a superhero movie is round the corner, its merch has to be everywhere! Doctor Strange 2 merchandise leak made Defender Strange’s presence quite clear.
The Defender Strange is a more basic variant of our Doctor Strange but his appearance might just be the stepping stone for creating a team-up like the Defenders. This can change the whole dynamics of Doctor Stranger’s position in the MCU and its future plots.
There’s room for other Doctor Strange variants as well!
With the concept of multiple universes and their infinite possibilities, it all depends on Sam Raimi whether he wants a billion Doctor Strange variants or just 3. But while thinking of his variants one for sure cannot miss a very minute reference of Doctor Strange in Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, where J.J. Jameson yells on Ted Hoffman to provide him with a name for Doctor Octavius and one of the names suggested is Doctor Strange, to which J.J. replies, “That’s pretty good… but it’s taken.”
It’s been 2 decades since Jameson said these lines and it might be a good time to get the Madness tweaked up with this.
