Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

After Thanos’ use of the Infinity Gauntlet wiped him from existence for 5 years, along with half of all sentient life in the universe, Doctor Strange returns to find that the love of his life is marrying another, and also, he is no longer the Sorcerer Supreme. But when America Chavez, a mysterious teenage girl with the ability to travel the multiverse, crashes into our universe, Strange must protect her from the Scarlet Witch, a powerful former ally driven mad by both grief and the poisonous influence of the infamous tome of dark magic, The Darkhold. Escaping across realities, with the Scarlet Witch chasing them and leaving a trail destruction in her wake, if Doctor Strange wants to save countless lives, including America Chavez‘s and his own, then he must somehow save his fallen friend too.

I rewatched this film a while ago, while I was watching Agatha All Along, which I loved, but it’s just taken me a while to get around to posting about it. I have a large backlog of reviews on deck that I'm slowly wading through, and also, y'know... the world ended, so I've been feeling off-balance and angry and generally out-of-sorts since then, and creative endeavours, however small, can sometimes feel like a slog. My own fiction writing has certainly taken a bit of a hit of late.

Anyway...

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (the MCU) has been an interconnected mega-franchise basically since the very first film. It is a unique thing in Hollywood, the envy of the other big studios. Critically well-recieved, loved by general audiences, and as far as the box office has been concerned, wildly successful. It’s really not asking for an huge buy-in either, even when the franchises do overlap, they really don't require a person to have seen any of the previous entires. It can help, sure, and I certainly think it's more fun that way, but the storylines just aren't all that complex. If they don't go into great depths explaining something, you can assume that it's not pertinent to the story, so just relax. And once you're past that, you'll see that, while there's something for everyone in there, for the most part, the MCU is basically frivolous fun for the whole family. Meaning, it's popcorn fare. Just relax.

And yet...

Nearly 20 years since the first Iron Man film, there is seemingly no end to the weird and whiny nerds who are still super butthurt by all of this. They're mad about the general success of the MCU. They're mad about the references to other films. They're mad that there aren’t any ”stand alone” films. They're mad there isn't more graphic sex. They're mad because superheroes. They're just mad, mad about anything and everything, often while loudly complaining that the MCU needs to be something that it's not, and never has been.

And yet...

They still buy tickets every fucking time. They still go to every fucking film, and seemingly for no other reason than so they can bitch about not liking them on the internet, basically just so they can show the world that they aren’t missing out. FOMO truly is the brain disease of simpletons.

So, it’s no surprise that those same weird and whiny nerds were mad about Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Magic. Mad that the film picks up after the events of the Disney+ show Wandavision. Mad that it plays off of concepts from the Disney+ animated show What if. Mad that plot threads connect to the events of Avengers: Endgame, as well as to Spider-Man: No Way Home. They seem to be the most mad that the latest Dr. Strange movie isn’t just a sequel to the first film, that it isn’t just a fun, light-horror, fantasy adventure, but that it is also planting seeds for the next big crossover story in the MCU. Once again, they seem to be mad that the film is doing the exact kind of things that the MCU has always done.

So as a result, my question is always the same… When will this kind of shit, the stuff that the MCU has always done, stop taking these assholes by surprise? Or are they really just mad that this isn’t directly aimed at them, that they aren’t being given exactly what they want, in the exact way that they want it? Or are they just mad that other people are enjoying something that they don't? Or are they just being preformatively outraged because they're boring-ass pick-me hipsters?

Anyway...

The future plot line seeds that are being laid here seem to be meant for the coming multiversal war, the one that was once going to be waged by Kang the Conqueror, and is now going to be led by Dr. Doom. But also, the film introduced a key young superhero, one that not only may specifically play a big role in the MCU, but that is also something that is very important for the future of the live-action brand.

Y'see... In the real world, unlike in the comic books, heroes are going to age, and the idea of rebooting your whole universe from scratch just so that you can have the popular characters back–which is something the MCU might do in a couple of years, once the multiversal war is over–is an iffy bet. Your new actor might not measure up, either in talent or charisma, because some of those shoes are pretty big. But also, the audience may decide they simply do not want a new version of the character, before even seeing the new version on screen, and once they do see the new version, they may still decide they don’t want them, even if the new actor does a great job.

Shit, the whole point of John Walker as the replacement Captain America in the Disney+ show, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is that he doesn't measure up to Steve Roger's legacy. Despite that, and despite the fact Wyatt Russell was great in the role, the general audience were still angry assholes about it, and completely rejected both the actor and the character.

There's not much you can do about that.

Sidenote: I'm totally looking forward to him being in Thunderbolts*.

But back to my point… Young heroes can avoid this kind of rejection because they’re their own character, they stand or fall on their own merit, there's no meta-reasons they are measured against. Or at least, not as many. Plus, they still benefit from what came before in the story, all while providing a much-needed breath of fresh air to a faltering franchise.

Win-win.

This is something the MCU needs at this point, or will need, soon enough. And between Kate Bishop, Cassie Lang, Billy Maximoff, Kamala Khan, Riri Williams, even some of the barely glimpsed ones like Eli Bradley, and now America Chavez, there's got a great group waiting in the wings. Personally, I think Disney/Marvel is moving too slow on this shit. The fact that they don't already have a CW-style teen hero show on Disney+ is not just them leaving money on the table, but they're also missing a much-needed chance at a slowly closing window to start boosting some of these newer/younger characters' profiles in the eyes of the audience.

But then, no one asked me, so whatever…

Anyay, I digress.

On to the film...

Dr. Strange

Dr. Stephen Strange was created by Steve Ditko, and first appeared in Strange Tales #110 in July 1963. He is the Sorcerer Supreme, the main protector of Earth against magical and mystical threats.

A talented neurosurgeon as arrogant as he is intelligent, Dr. Strange was injured in a car accident, and suffered severe nerve damage in his hands. Unable to accept the fact that he will never be a surgeon again, he travels the world in the search of a cure. Quickly running out of options as far as Western medicine is concerned, he falls down a rabbithole of other kinds of healing. His journey leads him to "the Mystical East" and the hidden city of Kamar-Taj, where he learns magic from the master of mysticism known as the Ancient One. In Kamar-Taj, Strange masters both the mystical and the martial arts, and acquires several magical objects, like the powerful Eye of Agamotto and a Cloak of Levitation.

Eventually obtaining the title of Sorceror Supreme, he returns to America and takes up residence in a mansion that he refers to as the Sanctum Sanctorum. It's located at 177A Bleecker street in Greenwich Village in New York City, which you can find on Google Maps, should you ever find yourself in need of the Sorceror Supreme.

Stephen Strange is clearly based off that classic Pulp Era tradition, where the "Mysterious Orient" is a place of ancient and awe-inspiring power, and a difficult and troubled genius (usually a white man) finds himself at rock-bottom, lost and broken, both personally and professionally until, stumbling and near death, he finds himself in a world hazy with incense, amongst inscrutable Asians and their ancient secrets. The Eastward journey to Shangri-La is a pretty common thing when it comes to the superhero set. The Shadow knows about it. The Question does too. Doctor Doom has been. So has Batman. The Iron Fist too. As well as Mandrake the Magician. In fact, a whole bunch of pulp era heroes made the trip, the Green Lama, Wonder Man, the Human Meteor, Thun Dohr, Amazing Man, The Flame, amongst others. Starting in the 1930s and lasting well into the 60s, it was like a god damn parade of sad white guys climbing the Himalayas to die, only to end up with incredible power instead.

Ain't that just typical...

But speaking of typical, or more atypical, I guess, an interesting aspect of Dr. Strange is that he‘s a character who may have originally been meant to be Asian. It's possible. Probable, even. Granted, printing standards of the time make it a little unclear if this was wholly the intention of the artist, or if it‘s just the result of ink bleed, but it's accepted lore that Ditko intended Strange to be Asian, as a sort of response to that aforementioned pulp era tradition of a white guy traveling to the Far East, but it was then very quickly decided by others, probably Stan Lee, that... Nah, and they made him into yet another white guy. But hey, at least they didn't make him blonde and blue-eyed this time.

Wong

Wong is Dr. Strange's faithful valet.

Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he also first appeared in Strange Tales #110 in July 1963. However, he didn't get an actual name until almost a year later in Strange Tales #119 in April of 1964.

Born in the mystical city of Kamar-Taj, Wong was a dedicated student of the Ancient One from his earliest childhood, studying the martial and mystic arts in the remote monastery for his entire life. When Dr. Strange became the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One tasked Wong with accompanying him to the United States, and to act as his manservant, much like Kato was to the Green Hornet. And much like Bruce Lee's Kato was to Van Williams' Green Hornet, Wong is in many ways a much more capable hero than the good doctor, although also much like Lee’s Kato, he rarely gets the spotlight.

Same as it ever was...

BTW, in the lore of the Green Hornet, his great-uncle was The Lone Ranger, did you know that? I love little background details like that.

Anyway, the MCU has made Wong into a much more interesting character than in the comics. No longer the faithful servant, in the movies, Wong was once Strange's teacher, and is now his equal. He is also the current Sorcerer Supreme. Also, in She-Hulk, one of the MCU's best shows, we were treated to the unexpected bonus of the platonic "binge TV and fro-yo" best pals, Wong and Madisynn (with two N's and one Y, but not where you think), and they are the best.

The best.

The Scarlet Witch

Wanda Maximoff is known as The Scarlet Witch. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, she first appeared in The X-Men #4 in March 1964.

Originally depicted as a somewhat reluctant supervillain, along with her twin brother, Pietro Maximoff, the speedster known as Quicksilver, she was one of the founding members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a team that was run by her father, Magneto, and was meant for mutants who (spoiler) are evil.

But when the original Avengers broke up, Captain America was left to pick up the pieces, and he decided to try something different. The result was known as "Cap's Kooky Quartet" and it was a team of former criminals looking for redemption that included Wanda and Pietro and Clint Barton, the archer known as Hawkeye. Since then, Wanda has been a regular, appearing on multiple incarnations of the team. It was on one of them that she met her husband, the sentient android known as The Vision, and eventually, she used magic to make herself pregnant with their twin children, who would eventually become the teen heroes Wiccan and Speed. Along the way, Wanda has been through a whole bunch of crazy shit, a lot of which was pretty accurately summarized in the Disney+ show Wandavision, and on more than one occasion, she has directly threatened the whole of reality.

This is because the Scarlet Witch's powers have always been a little bit in flux. Originally she was said to have the ability to alter probability, like she'd go: "I'll use my hex power to make it more likely that the villain slips on some ice!" But at some point, the Scarlet Witch became not just an incredibly powerful sorceress, but she also had the ability to alter reality. This has since become a real issue for just about everyone else in the Marvel Universe, as Wanda also has a tendency to go a tad bit crazy on occasion.

And not only has her powers always been in flux, but so has her origin.

For a long time, she was a mutant, like her father Magneto, but since then it has changed, and both she and her powers became the result of experimentation by the High Evolutionary. Since then, her parents have been said to be Magneto, the High Evolutionary, Golden Age heroes Bob Frank—a man who wore a yellow costume and called himself the Whizzer, but not for the reasons you'd expect—and Madeline Joyce Frank, known as Miss America, who is the person America Chavez took her superhero name from. For awhile, she was simply the offspring of a pair of human Romani parents, Django and Marya Maximoff. Then Magneto said he and a human woman named Magda were actually Wanda and Pietro's parents. But most recently, it was decided that the Scarlet Witch is a mantle that has been worn by many, and Wanda is not just the latest ti wear the red headress, but she is also Natalya Maximoff's daughter, the previous Scarlet Witch, and Django and Marya Maximoff are now said to be her biological aunt and uncle.

She is a mercurial character, to say the least.

Meanwhile, on the silver screen of the MCU, Wanda and her twin Pietro are survivors of the continual state of war that has torn apart the country of Sokovia, a fictional Eastern European country. Wanda blames the deaths of her parents and family and friends on Tony Stark, as his company's munitions were used against them by their enemies. Promised a chance at revenge, the pair joined Hydra, and were experimented on using the energy from Loki's scepter, which actually housed the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Gems. This gave Wanda powers that, much like her comic book counterpart, are also a little undefined, but seem to be a kind of stew of powerful psionics and magics that basically make her one of the most powerful beings alive.

She has since seen her twin brother killed by robots, her robot husband killed by an alien warlord, and her magically-created twin boys wiped out of existence by a manipulative witch, so... she's got some beef with the universe.

America Chavez

America Chavez is a relatively new superhero, created by writer Joe Casey and artist Nick Dragotta, who first appeared in Vengeance #1 in September 2011, who assumed the mantle of Miss America from the previously mentioned WW2 era superhero Madeline Joyce.

America is another character with a somewhat in flux background. Originally hailing from the Utopian Parallel, a dimension outside time and space, she was a Starling of the Fuertona species, which basically means that she’s an alien. But that was later changed to say that she was born on Earth, and her powers resulted from scientists attempting to cure her of a disease, which is not all that unusual of an occurrence in comic book universes. The Utopian Parallel was changed from being a different dimension to the name of the facility where she was experimented on. Her powers are your basic superhero enhancement package, strength, flight, invulnerability, etc, etc, making her one of Marvel comics' most powerful female heroes, but she also has the ability to travel through time and space by "punching through the walls of reality," which creates these star-shaped energy portals.

It's her signature thing.

In the MCU, America was still born in the Utopian Parallel, a dimension outside time and space, but her powers accidentally activated and caused a big hub-bub, and as a result, she is now lost in the multiverse and searching for home.

I've only read some stuff with her, so I'm not 100% on who the character is, and she's a bit of cypher for me. In longer appearances, her personality seems to slide between really playing up the hothead latina, headstrong, tough, and independant, or making her more stoic and stony, a focused warrior and a woman of few words, depending on who is writing her. And in her guest appearances, she mostly seems like long legs and a super strong right hook, not to mention a pretty convenient way to travel great distances. To me, it seems like she's still waiting for that truly great character-defining story to come along.

But that aside, she is definitely a fan favorite, with a great look and a visually cool power, and is not only Marvel Comics first Latin-American LGBTQIA+ characters to star in a comic book series, she is often referred to as a queer icon, so hopefully her appearance in this film will lead to more high-profile stuff.

Baron Mordo

Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo, known to the world as Baron Mordo, is Dr. Strange's chief adversary, his mirror opposite, the other half of the coin, if you will. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he was Strange's first nemisis, appearing in Strange Tales #111 in August 1963, just one issue after Strange's debut.

Baron Mordo is a gifted magician, and he is especially adept at the black arts of magic, including summoning demons. A student of the Ancient One when Dr. Stephen Strange arrived in Kamar-Taj, he was covetous and greedy, and desired only power, more power. To this end, Mordo planned to murder the Ancient One and steal his power, but he was foiled by Dr. Strange. As a result, Mordo was cast out, and in a somewhat sadly typical move, Mordo refused to take responsibility for his actions, and instead blamed everything on Strange's meddling, so when he saw Dr. Strange become Sorcerer Supreme, he vowed to get his revenge, and has been a thorn in Strange's side ever since.

In the MCU, Mordo was initially a friend and compatriot of Strange's, but he was quickly surpassed in power and ability, and that rankled him. Eventually growing angry with the way Strange and the Ancient One used their powers, Mordo quit and decided to strike out on his own with a new mission to strip all sorcerors of their power, and to return "balance" to the world.

He's basically super butthurt, and is now making it everyone else's problem.

The Illuminati

The Illuminati are one of my favorite things to come out of the Bendis Era at Marvel Comics.

A secret society of superheroes comprised of Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans, Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, Tony Stark, the Iron Man, and a founding member of the Avengers, Dr. Stephen Strange, the Sorceror Supreme, Dr. Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, and Namor McKenzie, yes, that's his real name, who is also known as the Sub-mariner, the King of Atlantis, and is one of Marvel Comics original heroes. This group represents all corners of the Marvel superhero universe… minus T’Challa, The Black Panther and King of Wakanda, of course, who refused to join the group, and warned them that their whole endeavour was a bad idea.

And he was right.

The Illuminati first appeared as a group in New Avengers vol. 1 #7, written by Brian Michael Bendis, with art by Steve McNiven, in July 2005. But they have a long history behind the scenes of the Marvel Universe that was retconned (which is a shortened form of "retroactive continuity," a literary device that is used to change the meaning/content of a previously established narrative) into existence to say that they first formed in the wake of the Kree-Skrull War.

The Kree-Skrull War took place in Avengers #89 to #97, from June 1971 to March 1972. It was written by Roy Thomas, and featured art by Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, and John Buscema. It was the story about an interstellar war waged between star-spanning alien empires, the Kree and the Skrull, two species who have long been enemies. Their conflict consumed the galaxy, threatening Earth. Which is why the Avengers got involved. The culmination of multiple stories, featuring an enormous cast of characters, and pulling metaphors and allegories from modern history, like Joseph McCarthy and HUAC in the 1950s, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, it was also the first introduction of the Vison/Scarlet Witch romance, and is considered a highlight of that era of comics. It was a big deal, and is still referenced today.

The idea behind the Illuminati is that, in the wake of the Kree-Skrull War (which, as a quick note, didn't happen in the 70s in the Marvel Universe, it happened "five years ago..." which is known as "Marvel Time"), Tony Stark realizes that before the war, each of them had information that, if they had pooled what they knew, they might have been able to stop the conflict before it began, saving countless lives. In their hubris, the group decides to meet regularly, and in secret, specifically for this very reason. In essense, so that they can take the intiative and fix the world, if they think it's broken.

And as always, Captain America was right.

The Illuminati's meddling not only leads to the secret invasion of the Skrulls, but the Dark Reign of Norman Osborn, and eventually... the collapse and destruction of the entire Multiverse.

In the MCU, and in this very movie that I am supposed to be discussing, but admittedly have fallen down a few rabbit holes myself... the Illuminati are a group of powerful individuals, founded by a version of Stephen Strange from Earth-838, in order to protect their universe from high-level threats. But they seem to act as a sort of ruling council of superheroes in their world too. When we meet them, their membership includes Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, Maria Rambeau, the Captain Marvel of this universe, Professor Charles Xavier, Captain Peggy Carter, Blackagar Boltagon, which is Black Bolt's real name—because when he was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1965, they just didn’t give a fuck if this kind of ridiculous shit bothered you—and finally, the Sorceror Supreme from this universe, Baron Mordo, who joined after Dr. Strange's death in the aftermath of the Battle of Titan.

Mordo is still butthurt about Dr. Strange being better than him.

Mount Wundagore

In the comics, Mount Wundagore is a mountain in the Transian Mountain Range, in the country of Transia, and overlooks East Transia, which is another comic book stand-in for a vaguely Eastern European country. Herbert Wyndham, the super-geneticist known as the High Evolutionary, lives at the peak. This is where he builds his New Men, animal-human hybrids ala Dr. Moreau, who dress as knights in armor and ride rocket horses. This is also where Wanda Maximoff was born, maybe, depending on what era of comics you happen to be reading, and was raised by a half human/half-cow nanny.

It is a weird place.

In the MCU, Mount Wundagore is a mountain surrounded by dark magic and witchcraft. Atop this mountain sits Darkhold Castle. In ancient times, the cult of the Scarlet Witch built this castle, and the dark Elder God known as Chthon carved the demonic spells of the Darkhold on the walls in preparation of her prophesied coming, and tasked lower demons to protect the castle from trespassers.

It is an evil place.

The Darkhold and the Book of Vishanti

The Darkhold is a wellspring of evil.

Eons ago, all of the evil works and spells of the dark Elder God Chthon were transcribed and bound together into a tome called "The Darkhold." Known as the Book of Sins or the Book of the Damned, it is the source from which all other books of dark magic draw their power. It is the conduit through which Chthon pours his evil and his malice and his corrupting influence onto the physical plane.

In the MCU, after the events of Wandavision, the Scarlet Witch took the Darkhold from the witch Agatha Harkness, who had had it in her possession for hundreds of years, and began to study it, obsessively hunting for a way to bring her children back to her, after they had been wiped from existence.

Alone with the Darkhold, its evil seeped into her.

The Book of the Vishanti is the opposite of the Darkhold.

Marked with the Seal of the Vishanti, the same symbol which can be seen drawn across the great round window atop Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, it contains the most powerful magic spells of Light and Order known, but with the caveat that they may only be used for defense, not offense. It also holds the knowledge and histories of the previous Socereror Supremes.

Seemingly containing an endless number of pages, despite its size, the Book of the Vishanti is so powerful, simply holding it will deflect any magical attacks.

In the MCU, the Book of Vishanti is said to be an ancient book of knowledge and power that will grant a sorcerer anything they needed to defeat their enemy, but many believe it to be a myth. 

Dr. Strange needs the Book of Vishanti in order to stop the multiversal rampage of the Scarlet Witch.

And finally… The Pizza Poppa

The man, the myth, the legend. The Pizza Poppa is a pizza purveyor from the New York City located on Earth-838. The Pizza Poppa does not relax! The Pizza Poppa always gets paid! The Pizza Poppa can't stand takers!

All hail the Pizza Poppa.

And now, finally, the movie itself...

After being awoken from a dream where a strange version of him, one that wears a tiny ponytail, betrays a mysterious young woman during their hunt for the Book of the Vishanti, just before he is killed by a monster, Dr. Strange gets up, and resigns himself to attending the wedding of Christine Palmer, the woman he loves. In the five years since he was wiped from existence by the Mad Titan Thanos and then returned to life, she has mourned him, moved on, and met someone new.

And now Strange is all alone.

The Blip, as those five years are known in the MCU, the five years when half of all sentient life was wiped out of existence, was a bad time for everyone, whether you turned to ash, or you were left behind to sweep up all the dust. In probably the best example of how much the Blip ruined lives–at least, to me–while at the wedding, Dr. Strange finds himself sitting next to Doctor Nicodemus "Nic" West, a man who was once a neurosurgeon and a rival of Strange's when that was his life too. Nic is clearly having a rough time, having returned to life after The Blip to find that not only has his brother passed in the intervening five years that he was gone, but he lost his two cats too.

I mean… Fuck you, Thanos. That's reason enough for the Avengers to go back even further in time and kill your purple ass again, if you ask me.

Anyway, the wedding is interrupted by a fight on the street between a teenage girl in a jean jacket and giant cyclops/octopus demon, because New York is crazy, y'all. After Strange and Wong dispatch the monster, he realizes that the girl is America Chavez, the same girl from his dream, and the explanation of who she is and how she is being hunted because of her ability to travel the multiverse, leads to one of my favorite jokes about Spider-man.

America Chavez: How much experience do you guys have with the Multiverse?
Dr. Stephen Strange: We have experience of the Multiverse. Most recently, there was an incident with Spider-Man.
America Chavez: What man?
Dr. Stephen Strange: Spider-Man. He has the powers of a spider.
Wong: Hence the name.
America Chavez: Gross. Does he look like a spider?
Dr. Stephen Strange: No. No, more like a man.
Wong: Climbs walls, shoots webs.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Yeah. Bingo.
America Chavez: Out of his butt?
Wong: No.
Dr. Stephen Strange: No. Well, maybe, I don't know. Honestly, I hope not.

Recognizing that there were witchcraft runes on the demon, Strange consults with his colleague and fellow Avenger, Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. But when Wanda accidentally reveals that she already knows about America, Strange realizes that Wanda is the one who was responsible for sending the demon, because she is the one who is hunting America.

Having lost her family, her brother, her true love, and her childen, Wanda has become a bit ungovernable. She's going to get her children back, and to do this, she needs America Chavez's powers.

Strange tries to dissuade her, saying:

Dr. Strange: "Your children aren’t real. You created them using magic.”
Wanda Maximoff: “That’s what every mother does.”

This leads to the best distillation of Wanda's whole arc:

Dr. Stephen Strange: What you are doing is in violation of natural law. And if you take that child's power, she won't survive.
Wanda Maximoff: I don't relish hurting anyone, Stephen. But she's not a child. She's a supernatural being. Such power could reap havoc on this and other worlds. Her sacrifice would be for the greater good.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Well then you can kiss the lunchbox goodbye, because that's the kind of excuse our enemies use.
Wanda Maximoff: Is it the one you used? When you gave Thanos the Time Stone?
Dr. Stephen Strange: That was war, and I did what I had to do.
Wanda Maximoff: You break the rules and you become the hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair.

Strange retreats with America and Wong to the mystical city of Kamar-taj. The hidden city has become a fortress, its students and teachers bolstered by members of both the London and Hong Kong Sanctums too.

And also one green Minotaur that no one seems to acknowledge...

Wanda soon shows up, doing her best "Surrender Dorothy!" and when Strange refuses to give her America, she rains hell down on the whole lot of them, because the Scarlet Witch ain't no one to fuck with. America manages to transport herself and Strange away, but it's panicked, and they tumble through a world of crystals, a forest filled with giant flying bugs, a jungle filled with dinosaurs, and an ocean that teems with sea creatures. Their bodies separate into cubes, and then become blobs of multicolored paint. One world has zeppelins and old-fashioned cars. In others, there are giant pillars, or tangled tubes, or massive volcanoes, of clouds of smoke. There are futuristic cities, and plains scattered with the skeletons of giants. One world is ruled by the Living Tribunal, another resembles 1960s-70's era comic book art, and finally, they fall into Earth-838.

It is serene and beautiful.

Meanwhile, Wanda is in Kamar-Taj, back on Earth-616 (which is known as the sacred timeline. I know, I know, the comics have long been known as Earth-616, and the MCU was actually Earth-199999, but let's be honest, the MCU is now 616 because the MCU is more important to Marvel/Disney than the comics are. I know that hurts, comics fans, but get over it).

Anyway, Wanda is using forbidden spells found in the Darkhold to cast a spell called "dreamwalking" so she can take control of her counterpart on Earth-838, a version of her who might not be a superhero at all, and who lives a quiet suburban life with her twin boys. But before she can catch up to Strange and America, one of the surviving sorcerers of Kamar-Taj sacrifices herself and destroys the Darkhold, breaking Wanda's spell. She forces Wong to take her to Mount Wundagore, where the only copy of the Darkhold left in this reality is scratched into its walls.

During all of this, Strange and America meet the Mordo of 838, and he captures them, taking them before the Illuminati. In this universe, the Darkhold corrupted Dr. Strange when he sought to use its power to stop Thanos, forcing the members of the Illuminati to execute Strange for the good of the universe.

These guys are not Dr. Strange’s friends.

Sidenote: John Krasinski as Reed Richards is basically Nerd Dreamcasting come true. They have begged for this for so long now that Emily Blunt gets visibly mad whenever asked about the possibility of her and John Krasinski possibly playing Reed and Sue Richards (and now the roles have gone to Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby so she's finally free of that burden).

Anyway, Dr. Strange finds himself standing trial before the Illuminati, and all for the simple fact that he is Dr. Strange. The Illuminati believes him to be dangerous, regardless of what universe he may come from, and they are unwilling to take any chances. They're not wrong either, honestly, Strange does have a tendency to do what he needs to without thinking about the consequences.

This is also the first mention of an Incursion in the MCU, which is an event where one universe “crashes” into another, and either one universe dies, or they both do. The Incursions we see here are the first sign of the dominos that have begun to fall, of the threat that will eventually consume the multiverse as one universe falls into another, and in the resulting vacuum of each now destroyed and missing universe, like Newton's pendulum, an ever-increasing cascade of Incursions begin until it is either somehow stopped, or the entire Multiverse collapses into nothingness. This is mostly likely what the upcoming films, Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, will focus on.

But before the Illuminati can render any judgement, Wanda reestablishes her dreamwalk at Mount Wundagore and takes over her Earth-838 counterpart. She shows up at the Illuminati’s headquarters and basically wipes the floor with them, just brutally whooping some ass. This is a particularly powerful group too, proving once again, that the Scarlet Witch ain't no one to fuck with. The Illuminati makes a decent show of it, especially the Captains Marvel and Carter, but really, the best any of them can really do is slow her down a bit while Strange and America, as well as the Earth-838 version of Christine Palmer, who was working for the Illuminati in a scientific role, escape into...

The Space Between Reality!

Here, they find the Book of Vishanti. The book is supposed to grant a sorcerer anything they need to defeat their enemy, but Wanda manages to catch up to them and she destroys the book, but only after they opened it. Using America’s powers, Wanda throws Dr. Strange and Christine across the multiverse, and the pair land in a broken reality, one that is slowly dying as another universe collides with it.

This is an Incursion.

This is a world where yet another version of Strange took too many risks, and found himself corrupted by the Darkhold. In this cold and misty universe, on the shores of a gray ocean, in a Sanctum surrounded by bones, Strange meets himself, a man twisted by the dark powers of the Darkhold, and carrying the mark of the evil eye in the middle of his forehead. This Strange is the cause of this Incursion, and now, still carrying the Darkhold, he is the last living witness to the gradual collapse of his reality. But when he sees that Christine is with this new Strange, he decides that death can wait... for him, at least.

Dr. Strange manages to defeat this evil version of himself, but with America now under Wanda's control a multiverse away, he is running out of time. With no other options, he uses the Darkhold from this universe to dreamwalk into the corpse of the Dr. Strange he first saw in his dream in the beginning of the film, the one with the tiny ponytail, the one he buried on Earth-616.

In classic Sam Raimi style, Strange possesses the rotting corpse of that other version of himself, lashing together the blackened souls of the angry damned souls, who are trying to drag him down to hell, into a tortured and multi-armed cloak of shrieking black smoke, and then uses the ponytailed ghoul to get to Wundagore. There, he intends to stand with Wong in the defense of the Multiverse, and together, hopefully stop Wanda and save America.

(the girl, not the country... the country is beyond saving).

There's some magic fighting, which is cool, but like I said, the Scarlet Witch is no one to fuck with, and it is here that Strange realizes that he can't do this alone.

One pep talk from a rotting corpse later, and America is ready to embrace her powers and kick some ass. She transports Wanda back to Earth-838, where Wanda sees her children, Billy and Tommy, recoiling in terror from her. Seeing the fear in their eyes, Wanda sees clearly how far she has strayed. She relents, and uses her powers to bring down Mount Wundagore, simultaneously destroying all copies of the Darkhold throughout the multiverse, and sacrificing herself in the process, dying as a hero.

Or "dying," I guess I should say.

Death can be somewhat unreliable in comic book universes…

And so in the end, love saves the day. Some time later, Kamar-Taj is under repair and the surviving sorcerers, joined by new student America Chavez, are teaching again. Things look good for Dr. Strange, at least until he develops a third eye in the middle of his forehead, the mark of the Darkhold's corruption. Which is not good. Then, a woman named Clea, his wife in some universes, appears. She informs him that he has caused an incursion, which is also not good, and as Dr. Strange follows her into the Dark Dimension, we are left with the realization that multiverse is collapsing, and that the Secret Wars have begun.

Dark times ahead.

More than a fun fantasy and horror romp, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a movie about depression, about the toxic need for control, learning to let go, to trust others, to ask for help, and to accept that help.

Early on in the film, Strange is asked by Christine if he's happy. He answers yes, but he clearly is not, and it’s not just because he's not the groom at the wedding of the woman he loves. Despite his power, his huge house in Greenwich Village, being famous for having saved the universe, and having a snazzy cape, he isn't happy. And it’s because he won't let himself be. He believes that the universe has taken what was his, and he rails against that; he fights it for control. He's clearly going through a bit of a midlife crisis, which is illustrated by the existence of a version of him with a tiny ponytail, the little red sports car of haircuts. As Christine tells him, using a reference to their days as surgeons, the reason they could never be together is because, “You always had to be the one holding the knife.” 

The same can be said of Wanda too. She is locked in on all that has been taken from her, refusing to relent, to let go. To move on. She definitely lost more than Strange, of course, but still, isolated, wallowing in her grief, using substances to cloud her mind and corrupt her soul, all she cares about is recapturing something she can't possibly recapture, regardless of the cost to herself or others. Saying that she’s not happy either is an understatement.

Along the way Strange witnesses the choices his other selves have made in the multiverse. Whether it’s trying to steal power from America Chavez, believing it’s the “only way," an echo of his line from Infinity War when he gave the Time Stone to Thanos, or the multiple versions of himself who have hurt themselves, others, and their entire universe, when they justified dark means for "good" ends. It is a tour of the darkness within his own soul.

These experiences are key to Strange realizing that he doesn’t need to just save himself and America, but Wanda too. He does this not by beating her himself, but by giving America the support, the love, and the encouragement they need to be the one to do it. He “lets go of the knife" in essense, and puts his faith and his trust in America Chavez. America then gives The Scarlet Witch the thing she wants, which is to see her children, which allows her to finally see herself reflected back to her in their eyes, to see how far gone she is, to see how her own grief and anger and selfishness are hurting others. This is why she stops. She realizes she was wrong. She acknowledges it. She does what she needs to do to make amends. Everyone makes healthier decisions. Everyone takes a first step on the road to becoming a better person.

I liked that.

I also liked how all of this took place while Strange was magically driving a long-dead corpse, while wearing the souls of the damned like a cloak.

I also really liked how Strange's decision to hand Thanos the Time Stone had ramifications. It was an unbelievably huge gamble that resulted in the deaths of half the galaxy, and even though they were all brought back, it ruined an untold amount of lives. Yes, yes, sure, there's a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking there, because the gamble did save everyone in the end, but still it's the kind of thing that the character, the franchise, and the superhero genre in general should acknowledge. Great power and great responsibility, and all that stuff, right?

Although, if we're being honest here, if Dr. Strange saved the universe but killed my cats while doing it, well... there's no apology that is going to bridge that gap between us. Eventually, I will be showing up outside the Sanctum, dressed in a funny outfit, one that reflects a mixed theme of whatever powers I have managed to scrounge up, as well as my need for revenge in the name of my cats, and I will loudly demand he face me...

But maybe that’s just me.

Also, as I'm sure you all know at this point, I’m a sucker for the multiverse, as well as the MCU. It's my shit, and I am unreasonably excited at the mere mention of the Incursions, and the potential story we may see unfold in the future. So while I've only ever been a moderate fan of Dr. Strange, I really enjoyed this film. It was right up my alley.

And no small amount of that is due to it having been directed by Sam Raimi, with all of the classic Sam Raimi camera-work throughout.

Sure, the pacing can be a bit awkward at times, and I can see how that might’ve bothered some people, but it just wasn't a dealbreaker for me. But like I said, the MCU is my shit, so whatever...

In the end, I did really enjoy this film. Out of the currently 33 films in the MCU that I have seen (I haven't seen the latest Captain America movie yet) Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is my 11th favorite. So, y'know... it's up there. Top third, baby. Top third.

Take that for what you will.