The first three episodes of Marvel What If…? focused on three very different stories, but they all had one common theme: a change of characters we’ve already seen. Captain Carter becomes the sentinel of World War Two instead of Captain America. T’Challa is abducted by Yondu and becomes Star-Lord instead of Peter Quill. The first wave of Avengers are killed before the team can be assembled, but the discovery of Captain America and the return of Captain Marvel intimates that an Avengers 2.0 was likely.
But the latest episode of What If…? gives us a character whose origin remains mostly intact, but pushes him down a slightly different, much darker path.
Heads up that I will be posting spoilers below so if you haven’t seen the episode yet, you’ve been warned.
In “What If…Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands,” we find Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch himself) at the beginning of his tale, before he gets into a car accident, loses the feeling in his hands, and turns to the mystic arts to get it back. While the accident still plays out the way we know it, in this universe, Stephen is driving with Christine Palmer (with Rachel McAdams returning to the role), who is killed.
Stephen becomes distraught and searches for healing, discovering the mysticism, and goes on to defeat Dormammu like in the film. However, he later uses the Eye of Agamotto (which we know to be the Time Infinity Stone) to go back in time and save Christine. He thinks he succeeds until Christine winds up dead once again.
So, Stephen tries again, with similar results. It becomes the plot of Groundhog Day with how many times Stephen tries to save Christine, only for her to die in some horrific accident. It’s not until The Ancient One (once again portrayed by Tilda Swinton) shows up and explains to Stephen that Christine’s death was an Absolute Point, a moment in time that set events on a certain path and could not be altered. But Stephen, through both grief and arrogance, decides that he will save Christine and disappears in time to learn how.
Arriving at the lost library of Cagliostro, Doctor Strange learns that he can absorb power from other creatures to give him the strength he needs to destroy the Absolute Point. And so he sets off summoning and absorbing creature after creature, filling himself with dark magic, and darkening his own soul.
With the librarian of Cagliostro’s books, O’Bengh (voice by Ike Amadi), lying on his deathbed, Strange realizes he’s been absorbing magic for centuries. He also learns that he’s not the only Strange in this universe.
We quickly arrive back in New York, where Stephen Strange ponders the loss of Christine. He’s disconsolate, but he’s also accepted her death. But when he steps outside, he sees the city disintegrating all around him. That’s when a projection of The Ancient One shows up and explains that, just as we saw Stephen disappear into the timestream, she split him into two, allowing two Stranges to exist in a single timeline.
That’s when Doctor Strange meets Dark Strange (as I’m calling him). Stephen battles to save their existence while Dark Strange battles to absorb Stephen’s powers and save Christine. In a lot of ways, this is like the Jet Li movie, The One, where Li has to kill his alternate selves from other universes to absorb their power and become stronger. Anyway, Stephen loses, and Dark Strange destroys the Absolute Point and brings Christine back. But the damage has been done, and Christine begins to melt away just like everything else. Then the bounds of reality close in on Dark Strange, and the world vanishes.
As far as alternate stories go, this one was great. I’m not a big fan of the first Doctor Strange as I always felt it was too derivative of both Iron Man and, strangely enough, Green Lantern. The effects, which were inspired by Inception and a college dorm blacklight poster, were weak, and the characterization was rushed. Don’t get me wrong; I like Doctor Strange in the MCU, but his introduction movie was subpar at best. I felt like this episode was a better introduction to the character (minus the destruction of everything, mind you), and used magic in far more imaginative ways than the film did.
What I liked most about this episode is that it finally felt like a true What If…? story. The What If…? comics rarely, if ever, ended on a positive note, or even on an outcome that was equal to the true events. They almost always showed a reality where the change in events led to terrible things, showing us that, no matter how badly things ended up in the “real” world, it could have always been worse.
That’s what this story did. It showed Doctor Strange at his lowest point, willing to do anything to get the love of his life back. And, more importantly, it showed that there were consequences to Strange’s arrogance, consequences that he doesn’t experience in the real world. But by losing everything, literally, he realizes just how much he messed up.
I also liked Strange’s interaction with the Watcher. Through his connection to the mystic energies, Strange is aware of the Watcher’s presence from almost the beginning. Then, when the world is falling apart and he understands just how badly he messed up, he pleads with the Watcher to fix things. The Watcher points out Strange’s arrogance, refusing to help him, while also stating that even if he could, he was forbidden to interfere. This has always been the Watcher’s purpose, to oversee, but never interact, and stated for those who are unfamiliar with the What If…? comic series.
(However, comic fans know that the Watcher, or Uatu at least, will interfere when the consequences are dire enough, so at this point, it’s just a waiting game to see if that will happen.)
What I didn’t like about the episode was the premise itself. It relied on the death of Christine Palmer to get Doctor Strange onto his path to become the Sorcerer Supreme. Comics and media have this bad habit of maiming or killing female characters to deepen the male protagonist’s story. Essentially, what this media says is that women are little more than set dressing and can easily be eradicated to give the man the spotlight. It’s become such a trope that it even has a name: Women In Refrigerators, named after a scene in a Green Lantern comic in which Kyle Raynor finds his dead girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, in his refrigerator. It’s a lazy, hackneyed way to enhance a character’s story, and thankfully it didn’t take place within the MCU proper. But it is a shame that this episode relied on that trope.
All in all, the fourth episode of What If…? had a bunch of high points but also one very low point for me. Despite that, though, the series is still doing well and highlights some of the imaginative ways the writers are rewriting the MCU. I’m certainly glad that this series will be going for a full nine episodes and can’t wait to see what else is in store.
