Following a mid-credits appearance by Venom and Eddie Brock, Marvel finally revealed their Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that sees Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) back at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Inside, the Sanctum is trashed, a shell of its former self and outside, New York City is not what it once was. Mysteriously distorted, it is cold, desolate and in shambles. As a fracturing, purple-hued presence takes over the skyline, an ashen Strange looks on in horror, shocked by the events in front of him.
We hear some of Strange’s lines from No Way Home repeated in voice-over: “The multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little.” Intercut is dialogue from someone else, likely the sorcerer Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), warning Strange his tampering with the stability of space-time and “desecration of reality will not go unpunished.”
“It was the only way,” Strange says. “But I never meant for any of this to happen.”
There is a flash showing Strange spiraling through an array of mages: Wong (Benedict Wong) in distress; Strange’s Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) wearing a wedding dress walking down the aisle; and mixture of other images and scenes that’s allude to a tale we’ve never seen before.
Then there’s calm as a tired and traumatized Strange visits Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in an orchid as she clips flowers. She looks semi-peaceful and not the grieving Wanda we’ve seen in WandaVision terrorizing the town of Westview. “I made mistakes and people were hurt,” she begins. But Strange tells her he’s not interested in talking about what happened at Westview despite knowing everything that occurred, and instead asks, “What do you know about the multiverse?”
Wanda panics, and the two are shown in a sequence dreamscapes and fight sequences featuring Wong, Mordo, and others in a quest to fight whatever lies ahead. Strange cuts a city bus in half with a magic blade.
As all of this is happening, Mordo tells Strange, “I’m sorry, Stephen. I hope you understand the greatest threat to our universe is…you.” On “you,” a Strange doppelgänger with an extra black goatee that looks ripped from Marvel’s…What If? episode 4 ‘What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart?’
“Things just got out of hand,” the Sorcerer Supreme states, before a title card promises: DOCTOR STRANGE WILL RETURN.
Join us in the video above as we discuss the meaning behind the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer, the connection to Marvel’s …What If? episode 4, what this means for the multiverse, the connection to Loki (Tom Hiddleston is confirmed to appear) and WandaVision and more.
