From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at nearly every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. In this latest revisit we’ve covered some older movies—It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman!, Mandrake, and the two Timecop movies—and two December 2021 releases—Spider-Man: No Way Home and The King’s Man—we finish off with the first three 2022 movies: The Batman, Morbius, and now the latest Doctor Strange flick.
The concept of the multiverse has been all over Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After Avengers: Endgame gave us the notion of alternate time tracks and Spider-Man: Far from Home had Mysterio using the concept as part of his long con to end Phase Three, we’ve gotten the multiverse spelled out in Loki, explored in more depth in What If…? season one, and serving as the plot catalyst in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it is the plot…
There was pretty much always going to be a second Doctor Strange movie, especially given that the character became a significant presence in the MCU with his appearances in Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: No Way Home—though the original intent was for this movie to come out before the Spidey film, so that Strange could use his experiences with the multiverse in this film to help him deal with the mishegoss in the Spidey film. The apocalypse of 2020 messed with productions schedules of both movies, so instead, No Way Home was an awkward intro to the multiverse that gave Strange at least a little prep for this story…
Several elements from the comics are introduced here, starting with the notion of the Scarlet Witch as a powerful bad guy. Wanda Maximoff was actually first seen as a villain in X-Men #4 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby way back in 1964, a member of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants alongside her brother Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, as well as Mastermind, and the Toad. But she and her brother reformed and joined the Avengers along with Hawkeye as part of “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” in Avengers #16 by Lee & Kirby in 1965. In a 1979 storyline that ran from Avengers #181-187 by David Michelinie, Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, & John Byrne it was established that Wanda and Pietro were raised on Wundagore Mountain, home of the High Evolutionary. Wanda was also established as having been trained in magic by Agatha Harkness and was an enemy of the first demon, Chthon (Marvel’s version of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu).
In the Vision & The Scarlet Witch miniseries from 1985-1986 by Steven Englehart & Richard Howell, Wanda used magic to enable her and Vision to have children, twins named Tommy and Billy. However, in John Byrne’s 1989 Avengers West Coast run, Vision was dismantled and reconstructed as an emotionless automaton by the government, and shortly after that, Tommy and Billy were revealed to be constructs created by the demon Mephisto. Losing her children caused a psychic break that forced Harkness to block Wanda’s memory of the children, but it came back and caused her to go on a trauma-induced rampage in Avengers #500-503 in 2004 by Brian Michael Bendis & David Finch.
This movie also introduces the character of America Chavez. First appearing as a member of the Teen Brigade in the 2011 Vengeance miniseries by Joe Casey & Nick Dragotta, using the codename Ms. America, Chavez can harness interdimensional energies, and one of her abilities is to travel between universes.
The Darkhold was first introduced in the Werewolf by Night storyline that ran through Marvel Spotlight #2-4 in 1972 by Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, & Mike Ploog, and continued into the first three issues of Werewolf by Night by Conway & Ploog. A book of black magic spells created by Chthon, it has been a source of evil in the comics ever since, including being linked with Wanda more than once, and was also seen in season four of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Illuminati was a secret society of powerful superhero who were leaders (Iron Man, Professor Xavier, Black Panther, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Reed Richards) who had met in secret for years sharing information.
Two of Strange’s disciples from the comics make brief appearances in this movie: Clea and Rintrah. Clea was introduced in Strange Tales #126 by Lee & Steve Ditko in 1964 as a person who lived in the Dark Dimension ruled by Dormammu. She would later become Strange’s disciple and lover, and in a storyline that ran through the Roger Stern-written issues of Doctor Strange from 1982-1985 would lead a rebellion against Dormammu’s sister Umar to rule the Dark Dimension. Rintrah appeared during Peter B. Gillis & Chris Warner’s run on Doctor Strange in 1986 as an apprentice to Enitharmon the Weaver, and after assisting Strange against the demon Urthona became the sorcerer’s apprentice. (Ahem.)
Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill were originally set to return for this sequel when it was announced in 2019, but they both left over creative differences. Michael Waldron—the head writer on Loki, the TV series that codified the multiverse—and Sam Raimi—returning to superhero films after the bad word of mouth on Spider-Man 3 in 2007 made him run away from the genre—were brought in to write and direct. The latter was willing to come back to superhero films for this in part due to his longtime fandom for Doctor Strange, his respect for and enjoyment of what Derrickson did in the 2016 film, and—unsurprisingly for the mind behind Evil Dead and its various sequels and spinoffs—was all-in for the horror-tinged film that Marvel Studios wanted to go for with this film. (Cargill and Derrickson were also all-in for that, which makes you wonder what the actual creative differences were.)
Production was scheduled to start in the spring of 2020, but then the spring of 2020 happened. (Raimi and Waldron were reportedly relieved at the delay—if not, one hopes, the reason for it—as it gave them more prep time.) After initially being set for release in the spring of 2021, it finally showed up in theatres one year later.
Back from No Way Home are Benedict Cumberbatch as four different versions of Doctor Stephen Strange and Benedict Wong as Wong. Back from WandaVision are Elizabeth Olsen as two different versions of Wanda Maximoff, Julian Hilliard as Billy Maximoff, and Jett Klyne as Tommy Maximoff. Back from Doctor Strange are Rachel McAdams as two different versions of Christine Palmer, Chiwetel Ejiofor as a version of Karl Mordo, Topo Wresniwiro as Hamir, and Michael Stuhlbarg as Doctor Nicodemus West. Back from Avengers: Endgame (by way of What If…?) is Hayley Atwell as a version of Peggy Carter. Back from Logan is Sir Patrick Stewart as a version of Professor Charles Xavier. Back from Captain Marvel is Lashana Lynch as a version of Maria Rambeau. Back from Marvel’s The Inhumans is Anson Mount as a version of Black Bolt.
Introduced in this film are Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, John Krasinski as a version of Reed Richards, Sheila Atim as Sara, Adam Hugill as the voice of Rintrah, Bruce Campbell (who I believe is contractually obligated to appear in every Sam Raimi film) as Pizza Poppa, and Charlize Theron as Clea.
Wong will next be seen in She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law. While a title card at the movie’s end says that Doctor Strange will return, it’s not yet clear when Cumberbatch will next be seen, especially since two Avengers films (which involve Kang as at least one of the bad guys) have been announced and the next Strange film hasn’t been. It’s also not clear if Krasinski will be playing Reed Richards in the forthcoming Fantastic Four film.
“Are you happy?”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Written by Michael Waldron
Directed by Sam Raimi
Produced by Kevin Feige
Original release date: May 6, 2022
In the Gap Realm between universes, a version of Stephen Strange with a ponytail and America Chavez are being chased by a monster. They’re trying to reach the Book of Vishanti, but the monster stymies their efforts. Chavez has the ability to travel between universes, but can’t control it. Wounded, and desperate to defeat the monster, Strange starts to take Chavez’s power—which will kill her—but the monster stabs him in the heart before he can finish the job. The monster grabs Chavez, and the fear of being taken by it is enough to get her to open one of her star-shaped portals between universes. With his dying breath, Strange slices off the monster’s arms, freeing Chavez. However, Chavez, Strange, and the monster all fall through the portal—
—and then the mainline Strange wakes up from the nightmare.
Strange wakes up, puts on a suit, and goes to the wedding of Christine Palmer. He sits next to his ex-colleague Nicodemus West, who was also dusted during the blip, and he asks Strange if that really was the only option. Strange assures him that it was, and West bitterly says that that figures—he’s the best surgeon and the best superhero. But he still didn’t get the girl.
During the reception, Strange and Palmer chat—Palmer mentioning that her new husband is actually a huge fan of Strange—and Strange says he’s glad that Palmer is happy. When she asks if he’s happy, he insists he is.
At the sound of screams and things breaking, Strange and half the wedding guests run out to the terrace to find that something invisible is smashing things. Strange enters the fray, his suit changing to his sorcerer outfit and cloak. He makes the attacker visible, and it’s a giant multi-limbed creature with a giant eye at its center.
Wong portals in from Kamar-Taj and the two of them continue to fight the monster, who is after a young woman that Strange recognizes from his dream as Chavez. After the creature is finally defeated—by Strange ripping its eye out, ew—Chavez, Strange, and Wong sit down in a restaurant to talk. (Well, after Chavez tries to run away, having stolen Strange’s “slingie.” Apparently, they all realized how doofy “sling ring” sounds and called it “slingie” twice in this scene and never referenced it aloud again, thank goodness.)
Chavez explains that monsters who work for demons have been chasing her. She has the power to traverse universes. The dream Strange had was something that actually happened to her. The going theory is that dreams are windows into alternate-universe versions of oneself.
To prove that what she says is true, Chavez takes them to a rooftop where the corpse of Ponytail Strange landed. Chavez and Ponytail Strange were trying to get the Book of Vishanti, which Strange says is a myth, but Wong informs him it’s actually real. But, unlike Ponytail Strange, they don’t know how to reach it.
Strange and Wong bury the body in the stones of the roof, and then mention that the creature they fought had runes on it—that means a witch. Luckily, Strange knows one of those to ask for help. Wong takes Chavez to Kamar-Taj while Strange heads to Wanda Maximoff’s cabin (the one she buggered off to in the final episode of WandaVision’s first season).
Maximoff wakes up from a dream about spending time with her children Billy and Tommy in a suburban house and is tending to her trees when Strange arrives. He assures her that he’s not there to give her shit about Westview, and that he wants an Avenger’s help. (When Maximoff says there are other Avengers, Strange says that, given a choice between “the archer with the mohawk and several bug-themed crime fighters, or one of the most powerful magic wielders on the planet, it’s an easy call.”) However, when Maximoff suggests bringing Chavez to her for protection, Strange realizes that she’s the one who sent the monsters—Strange had never told her Chavez’s name. And Strange didn’t figure that out until after he told Maximoff that Chavez was at Kamar-Taj.
Maximoff drops the Hex she was using and it turns out that her getaway spot is full of darkness and dead trees—and the Darkhold, the book of black magic created by the first demon Chthon. She wants to use Chavez’s power to go to a universe where her children are truly alive, rather than fictional as they were in Westview.
Strange returns to Kamar-Taj, saying that the Maximoff they knew is gone, corrupted by the Darkhold. Wong, Strange, the acolytes at Kamar-Taj, and sorcerers from all over the world (and beyond, based on the look of some of them) fortify Kamar-Taj. Maximoff asks for Chavez to be handed over peacefully. This, she says, is her being reasonable. Once Strange makes it abundantly clear they will not hand over an innocent teenager to be killed by a witch corrupted by dark magic, Maximoff attacks. Several of the acolytes and sorcerers are killed, and Strange’s attempt to trap her in the Mirror Dimension only serves to delay her.
Maximoff forces Chavez to open a portal, but Strange jumps through it with Chavez, closing it before Maximoff can use it. They bounce through about a dozen or so different universes (including one where they’re entirely made of paint) before landing in one. In this world, the sky is full of rainbows, red means go and green means stop, and the signs are written in an unfamiliar language. Strange wants Chavez to get them home, as Wong is now alone with Maximoff, but Chavez can’t control her powers.
A food vendor named Pizza Poppa accuses Strange of doing Doctor Strange cosplay, thinking he stole the outfit from the Strange Museum—his harassment eventually leads Strange to cast a spell that makes Pizza Poppa punch himself in the face repeatedly.
On their way to find this universe’s Strange, and perhaps a way to find the Book of Vishanti, they find a device that can play a memory for you. Chavez sees when her powers suddenly manifested as a child, accidentally sending her mothers to another universe, and Chavez herself to a different one. She’s been trying to find her mothers ever since.
Strange sees the memory of when Palmer gave him a watch as a present—the same watch Strange still has in the sanctum, even though its face is cracked. Chavez asks if he blew his chance with Palmer in his universe—Ponytail Strange and Palmer weren’t able to work things out. Strange answers in the affirmative.
They arrive at the Sanctum Sanctorum to find a statue of Stephen Strange, with a plaque saying that he was Earth’s Mightiest Hero and he gave his life to stop Thanos. His replacement as keeper of the sanctum is Mordo. Strange is worried, since Mordo is now his mortal enemy back home, but this Mordo welcomes him as a brother.
Mordo explains that the Darkhold has one particularly nasty spell that Maximoff might use: dreamwalking, inserting yourself into your alternate self in another universe. However, Mordo also has access to the Book of Vishanti. But before Strange can ask how he can get at it, Strange and Chavez both collapse, having been roofied by Mordo’s tea.
They wake up in containment units, Strange wearing bracelets that neutralize his magic, his cloak nowhere to be found. They’re being examined by this universe’s version of Palmer, who took the job of being in charge of multiversal stuff at Strange’s funeral. As visitors from another reality, they could have weird contagions or other odd things, so they have to be examined.
Mordo then brings Strange before the Illuminati, a team of heroes charged with safeguarding this universe from multiversal incursions: besides Mordo, there’s Captain Carter, the First Avenger (Peggy Carter enhanced by the super soldier serum and with a shield decorated with a Union Jack); Captain Marvel (Maria Rambeau, having evidently been the one exposed to the Tesseract instead of Carol Danvers in this universe); Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four; Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men; and Black Bolt of the Inhumans. Their seventh member was their Stephen Strange, and Xavier reveals the truth to Strange: he tried to use the Darkhold to stop Thanos, and failed. Later, the team as a whole used the Book of Vishanti to stop Thanos, which succeeded. But they then chose to execute Strange for his crimes, which was done by Black Bolt, saying “I’m sorry” with his powerful voice.
Back at Kamar-Taj, one of the sorcerers, Sara, sacrifices her life to destroy the Darkhold before Maximoff can use it. However, under threat of Maximoff torturing the surviving sorcerers, Wong admits that the Darkhold is just a copy. The original is inscribed on the walls of a cave in Wundagore Mountain. Wong takes Maximoff there, and several leviathans come to life and do her bidding when she arrives. She also tosses Wong off the mountain cliff.
Maximoff dreamwalks into the Maximoff of the universe Strange and Chavez are in and attacks the Illuminati stronghold, making short work of the Ultron sentries. Xavier informs Strange that they have access to the Book of Vishanti, should the Illuminati fall.
The Illuminati initially try to talk Maximoff down, but she covers Black Bolt’s mouth which causes his voice to double back on itself and blow out his skull, then kills Richards. Carter and Rambeau put up a much better fight (mostly by virtue of their tag-teaming her instead of standing around with their thumbs up their asses while their fellows get killed), but eventually Maximoff bisects Carter with her own shield and drops a statue on Rambeau. (How the latter is able to kill someone as powerful as Rambeau is left as an exercise for the viewer.) Xavier then fights a psi-war with her, also trying to free this universe’s Maximoff from the mental prison she’s in, but he fails and is also killed.
Strange goads Mordo into a fight, and Strange is able to escape and finds Palmer and Chavez, who are running from Maximoff. The cloak finds Strange, and then he asks Palmer for access to the Book of Vishanti. Palmer reluctantly agrees, at least in part because Chavez vouches for his not being as bad as this universe’s Strange.
A bloody, limping Maximoff stumbles very slowly after them, and keeps up with them, despite the three of them running. They arrive at the Gap Realm, but Maximoff arrives and grabs Chavez before Strange can make use of the Book of Vishanti, which she then destroys. She uses Chavez’s powers to zap Strange and Palmer to another universe. (Why she doesn’t just kill them like she did the Illuminati is also left as an exercise for the viewer.)
The world they land on is falling to pieces—buildings coming apart, cars floating, snow and rain everywhere, the sky on fire, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. Strange and Palmer track down that universe’s Strange, whose sanctum is in the midst of a barren field. This universe’s Strange was corrupted by the Darkhold—which he keeps on his belt—and he’s gone to other universes to kill other Stranges. He also now has a third eye on his forehead. The pair of them fight, and Strange is able to get the upper hand, blowing his counterpart out the window, where he’s impaled on the fence.
Maximoff uses Chavez’s powers to open a portal to Wundagore Mountain in her own universe and throws Chavez through, then ends the dreamwalk. She binds Chavez and prepares to yank her power. Meanwhile, the other Maximoff beats a hasty retreat to her house to make sure her kids are okay.
Strange now needs to use the Darkhold to dreamwalk into the only Strange still in his home universe: the corpse of Ponytail Strange. Unfortunately, animating a corpse violates all manner of natural laws, and so the souls of the damned will go after him for doing so. Palmer guards his corporeal body while Zombie Strange heads to Wundagore. Wong also climbs back up the mountain to help him out and the two of them try to stop Maximoff. Wong contains Maximoff for a bit, and Zombie Strange uses that opportunity to convince Chavez that she can control her powers: every time she opened a portal, it took her to where she most needed to go.
Thus encouraged, she attacks Maximoff just as she breaks out of Wong’s container. After they go back and forth, Maximoff starts to get the upper hand, but then Chavez decides to give her what she wants, and sends her to the other Maximoff’s house.
Billy and Tommy are hugely frightened by the scary lady who appears in their living room, and when their mother attacks Maximoff, and Maximoff hurts their mother, they’re even more scared. Maximoff’s attempt to convince the boys that she’s not a monster, that she would never hurt them or anyone falls on deaf ears, especially considering she’s committed a number of murders over the course of this movie alone.
Maximoff returns home, broken, and realizing what she’s become. She collapses Wundagore in on itself, giving Chavez a chance to take Wong away. Strange ends his dreamwalk and sees that the Darkhold he used is also disintegrating—Maximoff destroyed all the Darkholds in every universe.
Chavez is able to bring everyone home. Strange wishes Palmer well, and says that he loves her in every universe, while Palmer urges him not to be so afraid of falling in love.
Kamar-Taj is being rebuilt. Chavez is now training with the acolytes, and having a rough go of it. Strange asks Wong if he’s happy, and he says he’s grateful for his life, even with its tribulations.
Strange returns home, and when he goes out for a walk, collapses in pain in a crosswalk as he suddenly grows a third eye.
Some time later, he is accosted by a woman named Clea in the street. She says that he caused an incursion, and she recruits him to help her deal with it. His third eye opens and he accepts.
In the Illuminati’s universe, Pizza Poppa finally stops hitting himself and gleefully says to the camera, “It’s over!” right before the fade to black.
“I love you in every universe”
I was so looking forward to this movie, and it was such a crushing disappointment on so many levels.
One of the truisms about comics that run as long as Marvel’s (and DC’s) is that the characters will go through periods where one writer will decide to retcon or overwrite or totally change something established by prior writers. Sometimes this is a joyous process, building and expanding on the existing mythos. And sometimes it’s a slap in the face, one writer deciding, “This is stupid” and rewriting it.
This is what John Byrne did with the Vision and the Scarlet Witch on Avengers West Coast, as Byrne was of the belief that Vision was just a machine, not a sentient being, and he didn’t like him being married to the Scarlet Witch and having kids.
That story decision—to wipe out decades of character development of the Vision, to turn their children into magical creations of Mephisto—warped both characters significantly. It’s what led to turning the Scarlet Witch into a villain on more than one occasion.
Given the huge history of Marvel to pull from, Kevin Feige, Sam Raimi, and Michael Waldron decided to focus on this abuse of character perpetrated by Byrne in 1989 and continued by Brian Michael Bendis in the “Disassembled” and “House of M” storylines in the 2000s.
And it’s a really really bad reading of those comics. Because all the men responsible for this movie can think to do with Wanda Maximoff is make her the mother from hell, turning a grieving character struggling toward heroism in several previous movies and a TV series into a mass-murderer who will commit any depraved acts necessary as long as she can be a mother. Because that’s all the ladies really want, am I right, fellas?
When I first saw the movie, it wasn’t bothering me as much, because I know from the comics how foul the influence of the Darkhold can be, but this movie doesn’t do nearly enough to sell it. Maximoff’s redemption arc is weakly done, and requires her to kill herself, which is just horrible. It’s especially galling after the complex meditation on grief that was WandaVision. To have the character be so completely capital-E evil this time is disappointing, lazy, and not fair to a character who was finally given some depth on Disney+, only to be shit upon in the cinema. It’s a bad look for a cinematic universe that has already shit upon Gamora, the Black Widow, May Parker, and Jane Foster in recent movies, not to mention the sidelining of the Wasp in favor of the much-less-interesting Ant-Man and taking way too long to have a movie headlined by a woman.
It could’ve been so great to have Maximoff come back on her own, or maybe have her be manipulated by Chthon (of all the times for Marvel to not do the big CGI monster for the climax…) and then fight back against him with Strange and Chavez, or something to make her come back to being a hero at the end. But she doesn’t get even the consideration of that.
Okay, this is the ninth paragraph of this review, and I’ve hardly talked about the title character at all. Benedict Cumberbatch is never not wonderful, and while I’m still not all that thrilled with his version of Strange taking over the Snarky-White-Guy-With-A-Goatee role from Tony Stark, he’s at least very good at it. Cumberbatch doesn’t get anywhere near the credit he deserves for his comic timing. (If you ever want to be blown away, check out the BBC radio show Cabin Pressure, in which Cumberbatch voices a screwup of a pilot. He’s absolutely hilarious.) I love Palmer’s line to him early on about how he always has to be the one holding the knife, and Strange’s control-freak tendencies are beautifully examined here. It’s something that has been true of the character in all his MCU appearances—even his cameo in Thor: Ragnarok—and Waldron’s script does a good job of digging into what that means, and how it affects his personality and his performance as a superhero. We see three alternate versions of the character who pay the ultimate price for that arrogance just to drive the point home. And the question of whether or not he’s actually happy continues to be asked throughout the film, never with an adequate answer.
(Also, I was a little peeved at Strange virtually ignoring the fact that he killed his counterpart late in the film. This is the same Stephen Strange who was livid at being forced to kill one of Kaceilius’ hench-mages in his previous movie and made it clear he would not be put in that position again if at all possible.)
Having said that, there’s a line of Maximoff’s that deserved to be the theme of the film, and the movie very carefully avoids dealing with it in any meaningful manner. It’s when she throws Strange’s decision to give Thanos the time stone in his face. Strange says he did it for the greater good, but that’s a tough pill for Maximoff to swallow. Maximoff blew a hole in the head of the man she loved to stop Thanos, but because the mad Titan had the time stone, he was able to reverse time and get the mind stone anyhow. Maximoff’s line: “You break the rules and become a hero. I do it, and I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.”
This is never examined, even though Strange himself uses the Darkhold also, and conveniently doesn’t suffer any of the consequences that Maximoff—or his alternate selves—do.
Speaking of things that are never examined, we have the Illuminati. My little fanboy heart went squee when they first appeared. I’ve wanted more of Captain Carter ever since What If…? aired, and Hayley Atwell doing the role in live action just makes me want to see more of Captain Carter, like, yesterday. I think it’s very fitting that she, in true Cap fashion, held out longest against Maximoff despite having the weakest power set. And seeing Anson Mount and Sir Patrick Stewart and Lashana Lynch was just beautiful, as was finally seeing Reed Richards (and I’m now really hoping John Krasinski plays him in the upcoming movie, though Marvel Studios is being typically cagey about that).
But then the fight started, and to call it a disaster is being far too kind. It’s especially galling because most of the fight choreography in this movie is fabulous. The battles against the monsters both in the Gap Realm and in Manhattan at the top of the movie, Maximoff’s attack on Kamar-Taj, the fight between Stranges (especially the delightful use of musical notes as weapons), and the final battle on Wundagore Mountain are all beautifully done.
Which makes it all the more galling that Raimi utterly botched the Illuminati vs. Maximoff. They just stand there, which makes sense initially when they’re trying to talk her down, but the moment Maximoff threatened Richards’ life, they should have all attacked. Instead, they stand there while Black Bolt’s mouth is sealed shut and he basically kills himself, and then they stand there some more while Maximoff rips Richards to pieces, and only then do Carter and Rambeau attack.
I have no trouble believing that Carter would eventually fall to Maximoff, but I don’t buy for a single nanosecond that Rambeau—whose power source is the same as Maximoff’s, an infinity stone (the mind stone for Maximoff, as established in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron, the space stone for Rambeau, presuming that her origin matches that of Carol Danvers in the mainline universe in Captain Marvel)—would have that much trouble defeating Maximoff. I especially didn’t buy for a picosecond that dropping a statue on her would kill her. I can, barely, accept Xavier losing to her, only because he was focused on trying to save his universe’s Maximoff. Even then, I can only just barely accept it.
And then, to add insult to injury, the deaths of these characters is never even mentioned again. For starters, this battle adds to Maximoff’s body count. We know that at least some of the folks at Kamar-Taj survived, because we saw them at the end of the movie, but at least a few of them were tossed over a cliff. This battle, however, firmly cements Maximoff as a murderer, and makes her all but irredeemable. You’d think that would be brought up at some point when she’s trying to insist she’s not a monster.
On top of that, Palmer has just watched her friends and colleagues get murdered in front of her, and she never even mentions them again at any point. It’s like she’s a character in a role-playing game who knows that the Illuminati are all non-player characters, so their deaths don’t really affect her, but in real story terms that makes her a sociopath. She’s far more worried about Strange’s love life than she is her colleagues who died.
Right after that, we have the most ridiculous sequence in the movie, as Strange, Chavez, and Palmer run from Maximoff, who is limping and in bare feet after her fight against the Illuminati. Strange, Chavez, and Palmer then stop and stand staring behind them instead of running very fast toward the Book of Vishanti, giving Maximoff a chance to catch up. What the hell?
Having said all this, there are things to like in this movie beyond Cumberbatch’s acting abilities. For one thing, he’s hardly alone in the great-acting category, as the MCU continues to be the home of superlative acting regardless of the quality of the script. Benedict Wong remains rock-steady as Wong—I love the running gag of Wong reminding Strange that it’s traditional to bow to the sorcerer supreme, with Strange not actually bowing until the very end. Xochitl Gomez is excellent as Chavez, imbuing her with both the resilience of youth and the heaviness of tragedy. Despite how horribly the character is treated, Elizabeth Olsen sells Maximoff’s pain and anger, as well as the more quotidian happiness of her counterpart in the Illuminati’s universe. Rachel McAdams gives us both a Palmer who is much more content and happy in the mainline universe and one who is harder and sadder in the Illuminati universe. Chiwetel Ejiofor is great as ever as Mordo. Both Michael Stuhlbarg and Sheila Atim do excellent work with roles that are far too brief. And it’s always fun to see Bruce Campbell…
The look of the movie is spectacular. Raimi cut his teeth on the balls-to-the-wall horror of the Evil Dead movies, and that experience is very much on display here, from the miasma of the destroyed Earth where Strange meets his corrupted counterpart to the visuals of the one-eyed squid that attacks New York to Zombie Strange and the souls of the dead attacking Maximoff to the general dark, dank atmosphere of Wundagore Mountain.
I just wish it had been in service of a better movie.
That ends this latest revival of “4-Color to 35-Millimeter.” We’ll be back at year’s end with new films—the current slate includes Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Samaritan, and Black Adam—as well as some older ones.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is also rewatching Star Trek: Enterprise every Monday on this site. He’s currently in the middle of the second season, with “Singularity” having gone up this week.
Yeah, I was really wishing they weren’t going to go the Avengers Disassembled route with the MCU Wanda, either. I was dreading it as early as Wanda’s mid-credits appearance in Cap’s second film and especially after WandaVision.
I get what Bendis was trying to do back in 2004, but his decision is a piece of storytelling that really hasn’t aged well and did long-term damage to Wanda’s character that it’s only now starting to finally move beyond (between James Robinson’s underrated 2016-2017 run and Wanda’s new importance in the X-Men’s Krakoa era).
I wish Feige had known better.
My wife pointed something out after this article went live that I didn’t even think of: Black Bolt is immune to his own power — he’d kind of have to be, otherwise he’d be dead the first time he used it. So sealing his mouth shut shouldn’t kill him.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Random bit of silly trivia – the character Captain Carter originated in the Demiurge match-3 app Marvel Puzzle Quest back in 2016. Writer Saladin Ahmed liked the game and the idea, so brought it to the comics 2 years later, and then What If… last year.
I had this discussion with my wife when the film first came out; what did she think of Wanda being supposedly “reduced” to wanting to be a mommy and having that drive her insane? Doesn’t that seem regressive? She looks at me and says “you have no idea how insane it makes you when you lose a child.” I nodded and we didn’t have anything else to say about it.
It seemed pretty clear to me that Wanda, at the end of WandaVision, hadn’t really absorbed the enormity of what she had done to the townspeople, and then she started delving into the Darkhold. While I wish there was a bit more connective tissue there to underscore the influence the Darkhold must have had on her, her turn towards villainy seemed set once she started reading it. So I wasn’t all that surprised that she took the turn she did in this movie. It seemed pretty clear that the Darkhold took the reins of the insanity that led her to take over Westview and amped it up to 3000.
I liked the film, with reservations. It was very much a Sam Raimi film, and it struck me while watching it that Sam Raimi is a really good director. It was wild and imaginative, and Xochitl Gomez is a fantastic addition to the MCU as America Chavez. They did a good job making Wong a major player; I love how the MCU has elevated Wong beyond the stereotypical “Chinese servant” role of the comics (in fact, he seems to be the new Nick Fury, showing up in everything).
The Illuminati business was silly, but it was kind of cool the way they salvaged the “canon immigrants” Patrick Stewart and Anson Mount, analogously to how the Arrowverse brought back Matt Ryan’s Constantine, Brandon Routh’s Superman, and most of the core characters from the 1990 The Flash. They even made Stewart’s Xavier a double for the one from the ’90s animated series, complete with green suit and yellow hoverchair.
I did have a number of issues, though. I do agree that Wanda’s story was mishandled. I mean, she just went through all this in WandaVision, learning to cope with grief and move on, and now she’s just repeating the same beats in a way that undermines what that show did. I suppose the idea is that the Darkhold corrupted her, but that serves her character even worse.
(By the way, Keith, the Agents of SHIELD edition of the Darkhold also played a major role in the final season of Runaways.)
It disappointed me that they completely avoided following up on Mordo’s arc from the first film, instead featuring only an alternate version of him. That’s a wasted opportunity. It was also a disappointment that there’s no real connection with Spider-Man: No Way Home. I’d expected that movie’s multiversal shenanigans to be the catalyst for what happened here, but instead, it just turns out that Strange coincidentally happens to have two multiverse-related crises in quick succession. Maybe it would’ve made more sense in the original order, e.g. the spell he used for Peter might’ve been something he learned during this story.
I’m sure Raimi and Bruce Campbell enjoyed the gag of him hitting himself, and I think it was a nod to one of the Evil Dead films. But it didn’t work for me. Pizza Poppa’s behavior may have been a bit rude, but not without justification, and he didn’t do anything bad enough to warrant punishing him so cruelly. I mean, Strange basically condemned him to torture, just for a minor bit of rudeness. That’s something a supervillain does.
The concept of dreams being glimpses of alternate realities is implausible. Dreams are far too incoherent as a rule to represent any reality. Also, if demonic forces promptly attack anyone who reanimates the dead, where were they in the “Zombies” episode of What If…?
I’ve seen some discussion that Maximoff was draining Rambeau’s power just before the statue drop, thereby making Rambeau vulnerable.
rickarddavid: If so, the movie did a shit job of making that clear.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@krad#2 Black Bolt is immune to his own power while using it…but would he be immune to is being deflected back at him? That’s what Wanda did.
Glad toes BP:WF is definitely going to toe part of the rewatch when you return. I agree Krazinski should come back as Reed. his wife should play Sue, and IMO Johnny should be young white and blonde (Not Chris Evans, that would be too weird) and Ben Grimm should be a tall Jewish football player type! (I know you like MC…but no.)
So, “some older ones”. You told me 3 of them at the end of last week’s review. So can we have an idea if there are any more? We (all right, in large part me) have given you dozens of ideas in the last few weeks (as well as suggesting where to look for unmentioned one), did any of them stick?
Oh, I should actually talk about the movie…ummm…the only reason they married off the old girlfriend was so Strange could move on to Clea! Lazy!
@6 / CLB:
They even made Stewart’s Xavier a double for the one from the ’90s animated series, complete with green suit and yellow hoverchair.
And replete with Elfman’s snippet of Ron Wasserman’s 90s X-Men theme.
As someone who grew up with the show, that definitely made me smile.
@6.
Dreams are far too incoherent as a rule to represent any reality.
On the contrary, given the state of the world, and in particular the state of Hollywood screenwriting, it would seem incoherence is our reality.
@9/EP: “Black Bolt is immune to his own power while using it…but would he be immune to is being deflected back at him? That’s what Wanda did.”
No, she sealed his mouth so it couldn’t get out and bounced backward inside his head. Keith is right that that shouldn’t work, because any vibration that passes through air is going to pass even more easily through flesh, so Black Bolt’s voice would always resonate inside his body whether he opened his mouth or not. (Which is how we can hear our own voices with our ears covered. Also, we can hum, so you obviously don’t need an open mouth to produce sound.) So BB would have to be immune to his own voice.
@10/Mr. Magic: “And replete with Elfman’s snippet of Ron Wasserman’s 90s X-Men theme.”
Oddly, the music credits in both this film and Ms. Marvel (which also quoted it at the mention of mutation) attribute the theme to Haim Saban & Shuki Levy. Apparently they took credit for Wasserman’s themes (on Power Rangers too) to get royalties, and it looks like that hasn’t been changed.
This movie made me crazy because the parts that were good were SO good, but it wasn’t the story I wanted for Wanda. And I got pretty offended that they put us through all that lovely stuff in WandaVision just to give us another example of MCU being weird about femininity and motherhood. (Like, I get that Natasha didn’t think she was a monster because she couldn’t have children, but that enforced sterilization made it easier for her to detach from an entire part of life for a while. But c’mon, guys, REALLY?)
Just…I don’t think it did well by Wanda and Strange was a sidekick in his own movie.
I was nodding vigorously during this review. Sure, I loved the Sam Raimi-ness of it, and the sheer weirdness, and there is a certain satisfaction to watching Wanda wreck shop (regarding Black Bolt, I just have to assume that since she can basically rewrite reality, yes, she can use his power against him).
But I basically felt the same way about where Wanda’s story went (and let me tell you, it was a weird experience to be watching this on Mother’s Day). Yes, all the fanboys want to explain to me about the Darkhold, but it’s still lazy and one-dimensional. It kind of reminds me of what happened with Dany on Game of Thrones – it’s not that she COULDN’T go mad and villainous, but instead of taking the time to really show that, we just go from A to Z because women be crazy, amirite?
WandaVision is my absolute favorite piece of Marvel content and it was just kind of upsetting that it was more or less discarded. To be sure – I think Wanda still had work to do in her redemption journey. But I was hoping the story would instead be about her continuing that journey, maybe fighting/resisting the call of the Darkhold (or only partially succumbing). And it really pissed me off that Strange also uses the Darkhold to Dreamwalk and suffers basically no consequences, so apparently it’s not inherently evil when he does it. Yes, he gets the third eye but…so? By the end credits scene, he seems fine.
I liked America, but her big climax at the end was a little too “and then she got a pep talk and believed in herself and it all worked, yay”
I also totally agree about Mordo being wasted – it sounds like maybe our version of Mordo was just handled offscreen???
The Iluminati was cool but I think also demonstrates some of the danger of over using the multiverse as in a way it felt like there weren’t real stakes – we can kill these characters for fun/shock value, but it doesn’t really impact OUR universe.
@6 – yes, I HATED the pizza poppa thing. I can see it for a few minutes because they need to get away, but the way he so nonchalantly says ‘3 weeks’ was a huge WTF moment for me and it was so weird to me that it was played for laughs.
@13 – agreed – I never had an issue with the whole Natasha ‘I’m a monster’ thing because at least to me it felt clear that it wasn’t specifically about having children (be it from infertility or the decision not to have them), but rather being converted into a utitiliarian tool with a singular purpose without her consent, and how thorough and invasive they were about it. Even the POSSIBILITY of children is something denied her because what use would she ever have for that?
But this – despite the fact that grief, especially the grief of losing a child – really can break you – just felt super icky to me. That said, I get that the children were real to HER and Strange throwing that in her face was…not smart. And for sure, there are ways to tell this story of her struggling with this, but with more care/nuance.
I have to admit, I was kinda hoping for a post-credit scene of a woman in a suburb slowly coming out of her ‘nosy neighbor’ haze now that Wanda is dead, haha. I get it’s kind of a trope that magic doesn’t persist when the user is dead but I guess it depends if the spell she put on Agnes was a permanent alteration, or something that has to be maintained and could be fought against.
I totally agree that what they did with Wanda was especially bad given that they had just told this story in WandaVision, only with a great deal more nuance than “crazy lady need to be stopped!” I had a similar reaction as Lisamarie, thinking this was Game of Thrones all over again. Also, for a movie with Madness in the title, I expected more madness, especially given the director. And yeah, the Illuminati fight just ticked me off.
But other than that, it was OK.
@14/Lisamarie: “(regarding Black Bolt, I just have to assume that since she can basically rewrite reality, yes, she can use his power against him)”
You know, now that I think over the physics of it, it actually does kind of make sense after all, with no reality rewrites required. Yes, BB’s own body should be resistant to the destructive effect of his voice, but then, the walls of a cannon are resistant to the explosion that launches the cannonball. But if you seal up the mouth of the cannon, then you turn it into a bomb, and it explodes because the force has no way to get out. So it’s not entirely implausible that his tissues normally reflect the force outward rather than being affected by it, so by sealing in the force with equally resistant skin over his mouth, it would build up without release and it would be like a pressure cooker exploding.
In any case, though, yecchh.
“it sounds like maybe our version of Mordo was just handled offscreen???”
I got that implication too, and I hope it’s not so, since that would be a terrible way of dealing with the character. I’d like to see Ejiofor back in the third film as the real Mordo (well, Mordo-616, I guess) and have a genuine payoff for the way the first film set him up as Strange’s nemesis.
“That said, I get that the children were real to HER and Strange throwing that in her face was…not smart. And for sure, there are ways to tell this story of her struggling with this, but with more care/nuance.”
There were moments when I wished that someone would respond to Wanda’s “I just want my children back, is that so wrong?” insistence with “What about the mothers of the people you’ve killed? How do you think they feel?” I’m not sure that would’ve been enough to get through her Darkhold corruption, but it might have had an impact, and at the very least it was worth pointing out that she was fundamentally being a selfish hypocrite.
Feige only seems interested in using the most recent iterations of a lot of characters. Not only does this ignore literally *decades* of character history, it means the following misfires:
– The central conflict of the Civil War in the comics is all about how Steve and Tony end up at each other’s throats after literally decades of friendship, some of it so gushing that, y’know, the slash basically writes itself (see: the miniseries where Tony mentions Steve’s “clear azure eyes,” which is not something that a straight guy thinks about his buddy, ever)…and they did it without the MCU versions of these characters even seeming to *like* each other. I’m just glad they didn’t try to do “The Confession,” because even RDJ wouldn’t have been able to sell that after the previous films.
– Completely wasting Sharon Carter (who was clearly being set up to be Steve’s love interest in Winter Soldier) in favor of Peggy Carter (aka Cynthia Glass, who betrayed Steve in the actual comics but never mind *that*), then turning her in the Power Broker for no discernible reason.
– Making a Black Widow movie only after the calls for one had faded and the character herself had been fridged, then having the film be a blatant hand-off to a Yelena Belova. If that weren’t enough, the studio brass then whined about the Black Widow doing poorly at the box office!
– Turning Peggy Carter into a reward for Steve’s pretty man-pain in Endgame.
– Steve getting a cute happy ending in Endgame that makes zero sense in terms of the character’s development over the previous films, plus neatly forgetting that, y’know, *he’d kissed her once TWELVE YEARS AGO in terms of his lived experienced.* It was cheap, frigid storytelling, and I am all but convinced they threw it in to make Chris Evans happy because he was so obviously sick of the whole thing by then.
– The whole “daisy chain sequence” of female superheroes handing off the Gauntlet to Tony instead of Nebula (who does for Thanos in the comics) or Carol (who’s powered by the Tesseract and could have blown Thanos to pieces without even breathing hard. It was a cheap, early 2000’s sop to the lady fans that ignored how badly Gamora and Natasha had been treated.
– That stupid five year gap in Endgame, which was basically so a) Cassie Lang can grow up enough to be a superhero (which no one asked for) and b) Tony Stark gets a cute line with his plot moppet.
There are others, but cripes, can we just stop pretending that Feige gives a damn about anything but his Master Plan at this point?
–
Lisa Evans: I disagree with your first point. The entire comics story of “Civil War” never worked for me precisely because of the history the characters had with each other. The notion worked much better, to my mind, in the MCU due to that lack of history. I just never bought the conflict between Steve and Tony in four-color form (especially since it mostly required Tony acting waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of character, IMO), but I had no trouble buying the version of it we got onscreen.
Also, I don’t agree that the calls for a Black Widow movie ever faded, and her overdue solo movie was announced before the release of Endgame, with the events of that movie kneecapping all the good will the BW film announcement had engendered.
Agree with everything else, though. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@16 / Lisamarie:
There were moments when I wished that someone would respond to Wanda’s “I just want my children back, is that so wrong?” insistence with “What about the mothers of the people you’ve killed? How do you think they feel?” I’m not sure that would’ve been enough to get through her Darkhold corruption, but it might have had an impact, and at the very least it was worth pointing out that she was fundamentally being a selfish hypocrite.
Right.
That’s one thing I liked about Zemo in Civil War — and his penultimate scene with T’Challa in particular.
While it wasn’t explicitly stated, Zemo at least did seem to be aware on some level of his own hypocrisy — that by trying to avenge his family, he was destroying or damaging more families.
@18 / KRAD:
Lisa Evans: I disagree with your first point. The entire comics story of “Civil War” never worked for me precisely because of the history the characters had with each other. The notion worked much better, to my mind, in the MCU due to that lack of history. I just never bought the conflict between Steve and Tony in four-color form (especially since it mostly required Tony acting waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of character, IMO), but I had no trouble buying the version of it we got onscreen.
If I remember right, Millar’s Civil War started as an Ultimate Marvel project.
t was an idea Millar was kicking around during Ultimates and which got repurposed for the mainstream Marvel Universe after the original pitch for Marvel’s 2006 event was scrapped at their Summit.
Ironically, if it had been used for Ultimate Marvel. the schisms and ethical lines crossed would have worked in that particular setting (much in the same way the Tony/Steve schism worked in favor of their MCU incarnations).
I’m not a comic book guy so excuse me for missing some backstory, but I have the same problem with this movie a lot of others have- the fall of Wanda isn’t earned. I just spent several movies and a mini series rooting for her, now I’m suppose to not? She’s just evil now. Yes evil book corrupts and she just went hard over crazy, but that’s it?
Also can we agree that Dr Strange needs to learn to start talking through things before acting? The entire plot of this movie and Spider-Man 3 could’ve been avoided if he just talked to someone before he started spell casting?
I had issues with the movie. Mainly a strong subtext of misogyny that ran through it. Scarlet Witch’s (inadvertent) grief self-therapy in WandaVision being tossed in favor of she’s Evil now, to the “damned spirits” coming after Strange having only female voices (not to mention he made them useful by binding them to him and using them as a Cloak of Levitation), to America needing a white man to tell her he believed in her to utilize her powers effectively, it all left a bad taste in my mouth.
Looking at it from a distance they could have had a grief maddened, Darkhold possessed Scarlet Witch chasing after America, our Scarlet Witch having a lower power level because she’s devoting most of it constraining her version of the Darkhold but still willing to do the heroic thing and America would have two heroes mentoring her (with getting counsel about losing loved ones from Wanda). And they still could have had Wanda taking out the Darkhold (and Alt-Scarlet Witch) on the mountain (for whatever value of kamikaze exists in a superhero movie when the audience doesn’t see the body).
Krad- I’m so happy you feel so similarly about this film as I do. I was shocked at the positive reactions it was getting around release. I don’t know the comics apart from knowing that Wanda does have a history of being sometimes a villain and treated in a sexist way, but I was shocked that after the nuance of Wandavision, they literally went with ‘and she read a book off screen and now she’s completely, murderously evil’. It just felt so lazy and basic, like they couldn’t be bothered to do proper character development as they needed to make room for cameos. I agree with other commenters that if we’d seen her struggle with the dark hold, or embark on a series of catastrophic decisions each with more devastating consequences than the last, that could have been compelling. If you want Wanda to be the villain of your movie, there’s a way that you can go there. But this is not that way.
I didn’t really like the illuminati scene either – it felt very fan servicey and niche, likewise Strange just casually mentioning off hand that prime mordo is now his mortal enemy? Maybe mention that?
I think the MCU has generally done a good job of balancing catering to the hardcore fans of the comics and related media and the more casuals who only engage with the top-line movies and tv. This was one of the first films that I think really got the balance wrong in favour of going way too deep into the hardcore perspective. And honestly it’s kind of alienating, as a viewer, to think that.
Throughout the film, I kept waiting for Wanda to lament Vison’s passing as well. It’s kind of mentioned, but it’s as if the character was ignored because the actor wasn’t in the film (example: Chrispin Grover as George McFly in the Back to the Future sequels).
The whole WandaVision series was a love story, and that love seemed to have been forgotten in this story in favor of 2 kids that did not even appear in the early episodes. It was difficult for me to believe her motivation with the kids was so strong, yet with Vision, so non-existent.
This 2015 interview probably isn’t the inspiration for using the “fake babies” story in the MCU, but it is an amusing coincidence: Elizabeth Olsen predicting WandaVision and her favourite storyline “House of M” in 2015 – YouTube
@23/Andrew: “I was shocked that after the nuance of Wandavision, they literally went with ‘and she read a book off screen and now she’s completely, murderously evil’. It just felt so lazy and basic, like they couldn’t be bothered to do proper character development as they needed to make room for cameos.”
Given the much longer lead time of feature films, plus the COVID delays, I think it’s probably more that this movie’s plot was determined first and then WandaVision was made to lead into it. Which is not a defense of the film’s more superficial treatment, just saying that there was never much chance of WandaVision having any significant influence on how this film was plotted, since the film’s plot would’ve already been largely set.
Christopher: your comment #28 is wholly incorrect.
First of all, the whole point of the Disney+ shows is to have tighter continuity with the movies than the ABC, FreeForm, or Netflix shows did, which is also why they’re all under Kevin Feige’s oversight now.
Secondly, WandaVision was already written and partway through production when the apocalypse hit in March 2020, whereas Michael Waldron hadn’t even started writing the script for Multiverse of Madness at that point. There was a general concept in place, yes, but the movie was written at a time when WandaVision was already written, so it absolutely should have been influenced.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@29/krad: I concede the second point, but the first point doesn’t conflict with what I was saying. I wasn’t suggesting a lack of continuity, because I’m fully aware that these shows are directly under Feige. Rather, I was talking about logistics and timing. Even with tight continuity, movies usually take a lot longer to make than TV series, often needing their scripts and plans locked in years in advance of release as opposed to months for a series. So it’s logistically easier for a series to adjust its plans to follow the lead of a movie than the reverse.
Although of course, that doesn’t apply here if WV was done first after all.
@29 & @30
The impression that I got based on interviews, rumors, and the Assembled “Making of” on Disney+ is that when Cargill and Derrickson left, Marvel brought Waldron on to a 3 week re-write. At that point, they were already well into production of the movie. Then the pandemic happened. That allowed Waldron to throw out the script and start a page one rewrite.
By that point, WandaVision had filmed at least 6 episodes of the show before being closed down for the pandemic. The scripts for the other episodes should have been completed. The only excuse for ignoring Wanda’s growth in the show – that I can imagine – is that Waldron wasn’t given the scripts to review prior to the page one rewrite.
No Way Home being released first also forced additional re-writes.
If you watch this interview with LADBible TV (https://youtu.be/SRv06knl-Bs?t=185), Cumberbatch very tellingly says that the title of the movie is the only thing that stayed the same.
The care given to Wanda and the Vision in their show tells me that this seeming mistreatment of Wanda is a transitional move, kind of like IM3 was for Tony and his PTSD. And also a result of our own spot in the MCU timeline, we don’t know where these threads will take us, or what will be woven from them. We saw neither hide nor hair of the White Vision in this film, and you don’t have a ship of Theseus debate instead of a cgi battle with 2 superpowered synthoids, if you don’t plan on following it up.
I think Wanda still has a redemption arc left in her (admittedly tarnished) hero’s journey. Perhaps we will get a deeper understanding of what the dark hold did to her when we get to House of Harkness. And I think White Vision will return and assist in her arc, and his too, hopefully.
My own personal head-canon for Steve Rogers, post endgame:
He knew Peggy married later, she had a family and children. Steve Rogers would not take another man’s future away from him. I feel, he got his dance, and he said the goodbye he was never able to before… and then he went to return the Soul Stone. When he did, he retreived Natasha. At one point earlier in the film, Steve says to Natasha ‘we need to get a life.’
The two of them (Bucky too, of course, but I’m in my Steve/Natasha happy place, so lets focus on them) have never had the chance for normal or peaceful in their lives, and I love to think of them being able to go off-grid somewhere and live out the 20th century in love and comfort.
Once this made it in to my heart/mind, any time Nat and Steve interact, I’m looking for validation of my theory, and have often ended up in ugly tears for this slim to none chance at happiness I’ve imagined for these fictional people.
Necro-threadia, but I had to post despite the time-gap to say this:
#HeadCanonAccepted
@17:
“The central conflict of the Civil War in the comics is all about how Steve and Tony end up at each other’s throats after literally decades of friendship”
From 1963 to 1988 they might have been good friends, but 1988’s Armor Wars storyline was a major crack in the friendship, and 1992’s Operation: Galactic Storm really helped set the ideological schism between Tony and Steve, and the years since didn’t exactly help. There’s a really strong narrative through-line separating the two due to different perspectives and attitudes that leads all the way through Civil War and even through Time Runs Out. Mainly, it’s because Tony has long been portrayed as the kind of guy who does whatever he thinks necessary, to hell with the consequences, and to hell with confiding in anyone save his closest allies–if even then. And Steve of course, often gets portrayed as morally unyielding, a bit righteous, a bit sanctimonious. So of course they clash. Tony thinks he knows best, and the answer is more regulation so no one gets hurt (see his actions in Armor Wars) and that’s how he ends up on one side of the Civil War, Steve thinks he knows best, and the answer is personal responsibility (that’s how we ended up with the Steve-as-The Captain storyline at the same time as Armor Wars) and that’s how he ends up on the other side.
The early “gushing praise” always felt like a Stan Lee kind of “Captain America fanfic” deal where many of the fellow Avengers were concerned. They either loved him or hated him. :)
I agree that Wanda was done dirty by this film. And one of the most ironic things about that, to me, is that they could have easily ended WandaVision with Wanda basically in this place. Once you’ve enslaved and tortured an entire town, is killing a few people that far off? But instead they tried to end WV with us believing that she was still a hero at heart. (See Monica’s comment, “They’ll never know what you gave up for them.”) So then to have her immediately going full villain in this movie was whiplash, to be sure.
And I agree, it’s frustrating because there are plenty of things to love about this movie taken in isolation. I love that it’s a Marvel movie that lets its director have a distinctive voice instead of getting watered down in the house style. I love that it ended rooted in its characters’ emotional journeys rather than just who punched the best. And I loved the cheekiness of introducing the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the MCU only to immediately kill them off.
But yeah, they definitely needed to “show their work” on Wanda’s transition.
–Andy
@36/Andy Holman: “But yeah, they definitely needed to “show their work” on Wanda’s transition.”
The problem is that for a multimedia franchise like this, you can never guarantee that your entire audience has seen the works in the other medium. In short, not everyone who goes to the movies will have a Disney+ subscription. So they had to try to make a film that would work both for people who’d seen WandaVision and those who hadn’t seen Wanda since Endgame. To work as the latter, it had to feel like there was a fairly direct throughline from the death of Vision to here, but that comes at the expense of a smooth transition from WV to here.
Yet at the same time, it doesn’t really work for people who haven’t seen WV, because Wanda’s motivation in the film results directly from the events of WV, the creation and erasure of her fake children. The film does its best to set that up with the opening dream sequence and some expository dialogue, but it’s still blatantly a sequel to something that people without Disney+ wouldn’t have seen. So it’s utterly dependent on WV, yet it glosses over WV. It makes for a rather awkward integration.
I just hope this was first-time clumsiness and that there are smoother throughlines between Falcon/Winter Soldier and Captain America 4, and between Ms. Marvel and The Marvels.
Also agree that Wanda was character assassinated in this, and a little turned off by the central issue of this plot basically being Dr. Strange’s mid-life crisis, to which the people in his life – Wanda is also going through a mid-life grief and acceptance of not having children in this universe. What Chavez and Christine and Wong are actually going through more interesting and challenging dilemmas and were given short shrift. Loved the zombie Dr. Strange. That was fun, and symbolic death and rebirth are always classic. Bowing to Wong is a running gag because Stephen needs to check his ego and accept and allow other people to do their thing, and so the ending of the Multiverse of Madness-where Stephen accepts, rather than overcomes his character flaws and learns to support rather than control everything — was surprisingly nuanced and mature compared to the usual Marvel fodder.
@32/MissAnna Do you by any chance write fan fiction? You could do the Steve/Nat story yourself, and say it takes place in a pocket universe.
Lots of missed opportunities here, but the movie also seems to be taking some odd angles of criticism. For example, we never see Wanda’s body, but we all assume she’s dead because heroes and villains in comics who “die” are always dead? It’s ridiculous that some of the Illuminati might hesitate to murder the Wanda of their universe, who they know and who has children, because she’s possessed by the Scarlet Witch (who will survive if they crush their Wanda)?
The big problem here is that the movie has two related lines of inquiry but seems to shy away from both of them, while also being a Doctor Strange movie that shouldn’t be focused on Strange. This would play very differently as a Wanda movie, or a Ms. America movie where Strange is the mentor figure. The “Are you happy” through-line ought to be much more explicitly and clearly linked to the multiverse idea: that different yous made different choices in different universes and that some of them are going to have ended up happier than you are in yours. That gets linked to the questionable “reality” status of various characters. For example, my headcanon is that Wanda was studying the Darkhold to figure out how to make her children “real,” and it tormented her with the knowledge that all the other Wandas were happy, and mothers, and she is the lone Wanda who is alone. She sacrificed everything to stop Thanos and is alone and unhappy? There needed to be some emphasis placed on the contrast with Tony Stark, who refuses to allow time to get rewound to before the original snap because he doesn’t want to lose his daughter. Tony is pretty damn clear: 50% of all people in the universe are less important than my daughter. But he gets a pass on this, while Wanda absolutely does not, and all she’s asking is to take the place of one of her other selves.
And that’s where the “reality” of other universes comes into play. Do you treat everyone there as unreal? Or everyone is real, except for alternate you? Strange solidly takes the second option (except for the Pizza Poppa misfire), while Wanda seems to think that her children are real and nobody else is. (Again, I think the contrast to Stark’s behavior in Endgame would be useful here.) And most significantly, how do you see Ms. America? Is she real? Does her life have value?
By bobbling the “are these people across the multiverse really real” theme, the movie can’t render coherent pieces of it that could be so. Wanda has an argument, though not a great one, that she made a lot of choices trying to stop Thanos and in return she’s miserable, and what she did made no difference. She lost, unnecessarily, on behalf of everyone else, and their response isn’t to support or help her but to avoid her. Strange is coming to her for help? When did he ever provide her with help or support? Her other selves, who are all happy, aren’t different people. They are her, but made different choices. She can’t go back and make new choices, but she can find a universe whose Wanda made different choices and replace her.
Of course, the underlying logic of the multiverse is unintelligible here, too. Surely there’s a universe where Wanda had her children, and then got killed? Why not simply send Wanda there? Of course, it almost certainly wouldn’t work, but wouldn’t that be an interesting direction to go? Having that happen prior to the movie might justify Wanda’s madness, because she’s learned that the only way she can be happy is to swap places with another her, that the other options don’t work.
Ultimately, the flaw in this movie is that it wants to be about Ms. America and Wanda but for some reason got written and designed as a Doctor Strange movie. He should have been a supporting player. The focus on him at the expense of the two women distorts the entire story in ways that serve the current MCU phase but not this movie’s own narrative or themes.
@40/Narsham: “There needed to be some emphasis placed on the contrast with Tony Stark, who refuses to allow time to get rewound to before the original snap because he doesn’t want to lose his daughter. Tony is pretty damn clear: 50% of all people in the universe are less important than my daughter.”
Uhh, Tony and Pepper were not the only people who had a child in those five years. The current global birth rate is around 18 births per 1000 people per year. If the world’s population were halved, that would be about 3.8 billion people, so that’s about 68 million births per year for five years. (It’s hard to say whether the Snap would’ve reduced birth rates due to hopelessness or people needing to start over and find new mates, or increased them due to the desire to replenish the lost population, so let’s simplify by assuming it would stay the same.) That means that if the previous five years were undone, it would erase over 300 million children from existence on Earth alone, never mind the rest of the universe.
So Tony wasn’t being selfish. He was refusing to be like Thanos by saying it was all right to erase some lives for the good of others. He wanted to bring back all the erased people while also keeping the millions of children who’d been born since then. He wanted to save them all, to have his cake and eat it too. And he did. Everybody lived.
@37 / CLB:
The problem is that for a multimedia franchise like this, you can never guarantee that your entire audience has seen the works in the other medium. In short, not everyone who goes to the movies will have a Disney+ subscription. So they had to try to make a film that would work both for people who’d seen WandaVision and those who hadn’t seen Wanda since Endgame. To work as the latter, it had to feel like there was a fairly direct throughline from the death of Vision to here, but that comes at the expense of a smooth transition from WV to here.
Yet at the same time, it doesn’t really work for people who haven’t seen WV, because Wanda’s motivation in the film results directly from the events of WV, the creation and erasure of her fake children. The film does its best to set that up with the opening dream sequence and some expository dialogue, but it’s still blatantly a sequel to something that people without Disney+ wouldn’t have seen. So it’s utterly dependent on WV, yet it glosses over WV. It makes for a rather awkward integration.
Right. This has been my concern about the Disney+ shows interweaving with the theatrical releases and how much of the audience has or hasn’t seen them.
@41,
My other take on Tony having his cake and eat it was the Avengers were also playing it safe.
They knew the Gauntlet can wipe out life; that’s a proven fact. Winding back the clock 5 years…probably could be done, but not worth the risk — since, as far as they knew, they’d get one shot to snap things right (especially after using it nearly killed Bruce).
Better to stick with the known capabilities rather than betting it all on red, so to speak.
I liked the movie better than you did, KRAD, but do agree that they fridged Wanda’s character to give a chance for Strange’s character to grow.
And I loved the introduction of the Illuminati, but hated what they did with them.
America was great, both the actress, and the way they portrayed the character.
@44/AlanBrown: Honestly, I hate the idea of the Illuminati. A secret society of powerful elites making morally questionable decisions without public scrutiny is anathema to what superheroes are supposed to do. I dislike it for the same reasons I dislike Section 31 in Star Trek. So I’m glad they a) introduced it as a parallel-universe thing rather than part of 616 and b) didn’t spend too much time on it.
Referring back to #42/Mr. Magic and the issue of how the TV shows and movies are integrated, I was disappointed that there was no direct connection to What If…? The trailers made it look as if “Third Eye Strange” here was the same guy as the “Dark Strange” from WI?, but he was just similar. And I would assume that Captain Carter here was not the same individual as WI?’s Captain Carter, for two reasons — one, she appeared to be of Hayley Atwell’s normal height and build instead of bulked up like her animated counterpart, and two, she died, while WI?-Cap is still in play for season 2.
I briefly wondered if the version of Xavier here was meant to be the actual Xavier from the ’90s animated series; after all, Cedric Smith gave him enough of a Mid-Atlantic accent that you could rationalize it as an English accent and buy Stewart in the role. But then I remembered what became of Xavier in the series finale, which makes it unlikely that this was he.
@45 – I also wondered how much, if at all, they were trying to hint at What If…the zombies also seemed to kind of hint at that.
But I got the impression that the universes visited here were different than the WI universes (I keep reading that as Wisconisn, haha). If there are multiple Captain Americas, there can also be multiple Captain Carters!
@46/Lisamarie: Yes, it’s a given that they could exist. That’s not the issue. I’m saying it would’ve been cool if the film had tied directly into the What If…? versions, instead of just having roughly similar variant characters. I mean, they brought in Wanda’s kids from WandaVision, Black Widow brought in the Countess from Falcon/Winter Soldier, and The Marvels is going to feature Monica from WV and Kamala from Ms. Marvel. So it would’ve been nice if one or two of the What If…? characters had gotten to make the transition to the feature screen as well. Having it just be a Captain Carter or Dark Strange doesn’t have quite as much impact as if it had been the one we’d seen before.
It really is a pity that this follows WandaVision, which was so creative and gave Wanda a really good arc. This–would be a decent movie otherwise. Oh, and if it didn’t also follow No Way Home where the multiverse and the people in it mattered. Here, it was more a series of interesting backdrops. Lovely backdrops–if the movie were standalone, I’d have appreciated them.
As it is, they pushed Wanda so far past the event horizon on evil, any “redemption” she has later (if she does) is going to be problematic. And “The Evil Book made her do it” doesn’t work in the context of the films. The Evil Book is not something that is shown on screen to have that effect on people. Strange & others say it does, but the movie doesn’t show this–it just gives us an already-corrupted Wanda.
I don’t think the movie does well by America Chavez, either, really. She spends most of the movie as a combination of magical mcguffin and unneeded morality pet. It’s her power Wanda is after, not her, and 616 Strange gets to prove he’s the better person by not taking them. Her only real choice in the film is to accept Dumbo’s feather when Strange hands it to her.
About Strange: He’s stylish, and snarky, and has the best cape ever, but I really don’t care whether or not he’s happy. And, he pretty much gets the same arc he had in the first movie.
I do like Wong as Sorcerer Supreme, and Benedict Wong has tremendous screen presence. The bow Strange gives him is a good moment.
I do not like the comic book Illuminati, but I did enjoy seeing Marvel lining all their toys up. It was completely gratuitous, but I did enjoy it!
One thing that annoyed me that really disserviced Wong is this.
At the beginning of the movie, we see the alt-Strange consider and attempt to take America’s powers, which of course fails and propels us into the plot. And Wanda wants her powers as a through line for the movie.
At the final confrontation, though, why does Wong of all people, who was ready to sacrifice himself to destroy the Darkhold until one of his peers did it instead, make the suggestion to Strange to take America’s powers? It seemed BADLY out of character for Wong to make such a suggestion. I know we needed that beat so that Strange could reject the idea and then have America step up–but, IMO, by having Wong of all people consider it it is a disservice to him as a character.
@50/Paul Weimer: Is that really out of character for Wong? Wasn’t it a beat in the first movie that Strange refused to kill while the other sorcerors pragmatically argued that it was sometimes necessary? Maybe I’m not remembering where Wong fell on that issue, but it seems to me that, as Keith pointed out, if anyone’s out of character, it’s Strange for killing his own counterpart and not seeming troubled by it.
@50:
At the final confrontation, though, why does Wong of all people, who was ready to sacrifice himself to destroy the Darkhold until one of his peers did it instead, make the suggestion to Strange to take America’s powers? It seemed BADLY out of character for Wong to make such a suggestion. I know we needed that beat so that Strange could reject the idea and then have America step up–but, IMO, by having Wong of all people consider it it is a disservice to him as a character.
While it is problematic, also don’t forget that Wanda had just torn through Kamar-Taj and tortured and killed how many of Wong’s colleagues and friends.
They were out of time and options and so Wong’s desperation/OOC Is Serious Business moment could be justified in that context.
@52/Mr. Magic: “They were out of time and options and so Wong’s desperation/OOC Is Serious Business moment could be justified in that context.”
Exactly. It was something he only proposed as a last resort, like when Captain Kirk orders the self-destruct. It’s not that he doesn’t care about the lives of his crew, just that the situation is so desperate that it outweighs that concern. So it’s not a reflection on his character or values, just on the extreme peril of the situation.
The only difference between Strange-616 on the one hand and Wong and Ponytail Strange on the other is that Strange had had more time to get to know America and trust that she could control her powers despite the appearance that she couldn’t. It didn’t mean Wong was less ethical, just less familiar with her.
If she couldn’t have controlled her powers, would that have justified taking them from her? I am just posing the question/
It did also bother me a little that – after everything they had gone through, including his friend sacrifciing herself to destroy the Darkhold copy – Wong was fairly quick to give up the location of the ‘real’ Darkhold. Would I have done better in that scenario? Probably not. And obviously it’s needed to get the plot where it is, in part so Wanda can destroy it in all universes, but still.
@54/Lisamarie: “If she couldn’t have controlled her powers, would that have justified taking them from her? I am just posing the question/”
Yes, that was Ponytail Strange’s whole rationale at the start of the film — that only America’s power to jump universes could stop the enemy (who turned out to be Wanda), but America couldn’t control that power, so Strange had to take it for himself so that he could use it instead.
I ran across something while looking for something that had absolutely nothing to do with the rewatch…but the thing I found might! A Japanese “Light Novel” is like a pulp story with sporadic illustrations often in the Manga style. So…would a film based on one of these qualify for the rewatch? If so Tom Cruse’s EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014) is based on one of these called All You Need Is Kill and since I’ve been encouraging him to go after whitewashing….
If the movie had been “Wanda and the Multiverse of Madness” the Darkhold’s turning Wanda EVIL would and should have been more deeply explored. But since this was a Dr. Strange movie we were left with Wandavision’s (and Agents of Shield’s) descriptions of the Darkhold. Perhaps in the future depiction of Wanda (and you know there’ll be one) we will get it.
Agree with the criticisms mentioned by others, but there’s another big one I haven’t seen mentioned. The central theme of Strange’s story got bungled. We start with alt Strange going to kill America to take her power for himself, when the final confrontation comes instead of just giving America a pep talk Strange should sacrifice his power/control to her.
@60/Jeff: “We start with alt Strange going to kill America to take her power for himself, when the final confrontation comes instead of just giving America a pep talk Strange should sacrifice his power/control to her.”
But that’s essentially what he did. Instead of insisting he had to be the one to “hold the knife,” he learned to trust America to do it, to encourage another person to take control rather than hoarding it to himself. The important thing is that character beat. Making it about his possession of his powers would’ve shifted the attention to the wrong place.
And really, it sends the wrong message, that the only way he can defer to others is by giving up entirely. The more valuable lesson is that you can have your own power and still let others exercise theirs, that it’s not a zero-sum choice but a partnership of equals. Strange, like many men, was afraid that if he let others have control, it meant losing his own. That’s why he clung to that control. So the important thing was to recognize that he could encourage others to embrace their power without losing anything himself.
@@@@@57. Charles Oppenheimer
So–why wasn’t it about Wanda and the MultiVerse of Madness? She was, after all, the one going mad and the one whose character they pushed well past the moral event horizon. If they wanted to tell a story about her, they should have gone all out and told a story about her.
And, really, her actions in this film have pushed her past the point where any thing other than Redemption Equals Death won’t work: What is she going to do, apologize to Wong for killing so many of his people?
One of the many things that worked about WandaVision is that it was clear why Wanda was acting as she was–even without Agatha’s help, she was in considerable pain and there was every reason to see why someone who could build a better reality would do so. And, once she realized she was hurting people, she stopped. Here, we’re told “She read the Evil Book” but since we, as viewers, have no reason to feel or believe the Evil of the book, all that happens is Wanda goes crazy and tortures people. Again.
Worse, Strange uses the same book to DreamWalk and it’s no problem. Sure, some “damned spirits” bug him for putting on a dead body suit, but Christine gives him a pep talk and he’s fine! The spirits even obligingly line up to make another great cape for him.
@62/IBookwyrme: I would submit that many stories are about their villains at least as much as their heroes. After all, it’s often the villains who catalyze the story, who make the whole thing happen because of what drives them, while the heroes are just reacting to them and trying to stop them. So Wanda being the villain doesn’t mean the story wasn’t about her. Just the opposite, because everything in it was motivated by her goals and desires and reactions. Sure, it could’ve been a better story about her, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t about her.
“Worse, Strange uses the same book to DreamWalk and it’s no problem.”
He used it once. The idea was that Wanda had been studying it constantly since Westview and had been gradually corrupted by its continued use. Which I believe is consistent with how Agents of SHIELD and Runaways portrayed its effect, though it’s unclear whether those series are still considered part of MCU-616 canon. (The rumor I’ve heard is that they’re being treated as an alternate universe going forward, so that the Daredevil, Kingpin, etc. who appear in new MCU productions are doppelgangers of the ones from the commercial-TV and Netflix shows.)
39. EP
I wish I had the kind of mind that could start, much less finish, some fan fiction. My executive function says no. Alas.
However, in my HEAD, oh yes, I’ve seen all the heart-warming scenes and cried for the two of them finally getting a chance to love and be loved in peace.
While I liked the first film, I thought this was a major improvement, overall. Sam Raimi’s touch made all the difference. The film feels more alive and energetic.
I don’t see Scarlet Witch’s actions in this film as a rollback of her Wandavision development at all. If anything, I thought her actions in this film were quite realistic, even before the Darkhold’s corrupting influence. No matter how hard she fought to come to terms with her grief and the loss of Vision, it’s still a slippery slope that she could easily fall back on. If there’s even a chance for her to lose the children that still exist in her mind, of course she would take extreme actions to prevent such a thing. The post-credits scene on Wandavision made that possibility crystal-clear.
As for Strange himself, I felt as if this movie wasn’t as much about him as a character with a specific arc. He more or less completed that journey during the first film anyway. Other than facing his darker self, he’s more of a chaperone to America on this one.
And I was ecstatic I heard the classic ’90s X-Men theme on the big screen. That whole sequence was a delight, and I loved it that they brought back Mount as Black Bolt – at least there was something still worth redeeming on Inhumans. Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more effective use of Wanda as a fighter than here. She was genuinely frightening the minute she caused Black Bolt to blow up.
@63 The trouble with making this “Wanda’s Movie” is that, unlike Thanos (who did have his own movie), she’s been an ongoing character. Tucking her story into Strange’s ultimately subordinates her growth to Strange’s–her story is only important insofar as it affects him. And, honestly, I think her story–told as her story, would have been much more interesting. It certainly was in WandaVision.
This is part of an ongoing frustration with Marvel sliding a woman’s story into a movie with a man as the headline character. They did a pretty good job with Black Widow in Captain America, but it would have been nice to see her struggles present in her own movie, before she was killed. And I will have Things to Say when this rewatch gets to Thor: Love and Thunder.
He used it once. The idea was that Wanda had been studying it constantly since Westview and had been gradually corrupted by its continued use. Which I believe is consistent with how Agents of SHIELD and Runaways portrayed its effect,
I guess I’m suffering from seeing too much and not enough Marvel TV then. I watched and loved WandaVision. I never made it very far into SHIELD and haven’t seen Runaways at all. My comic book literacy is also very hit and miss, so I only knew the Big Evil Book of DOOM was a big evel book of doom because someone told me.
@67/IBookwyrme: My comparison to Agents of SHIELD and Runaways was a sidebar, an incidental observation. The key point, that Wanda used the book on an ongoing basis while Strange only used it once, was clear enough from the movie itself. And you don’t need any comic book knowledge to understand that a corrupting influence is going to be more harmful the more often it’s used.
I thought Wanda’s arc was less about wanting to be a mom, though that was definitely part it, but more about the pain of realizing she *can’t* be a mom/ have children, which is a valid pain *a lot* of people have.
There was also a big part about how deadly it is to pretend to be someone you’re not / try to take over someone else & their life, or try to be someone you’re not.
That being said, I do agree killing her off & not giving her a redemption arc is bad.
It reminded me of Avatar the Last Airbender (though I *love* that series.)
Female characters, esp. adult ones & moms or motherly characters, are still not allowed to go mad & recover. No, they nearly always go mad & die.
But not male characters.
As far as the older ones you’re going to analyze in your next post, is Bride of the Incredible Hulk (1978) being considered? It was aired as a TV movie and later split up into two episodes, just like The Return of the Incredible Hulk, which you covered. So I think it should count.
@70/spoonfan: The difference between “Married” (Bride of the Incredible Hulk is a home video retitling) and Return of… is that “Married” was not a standalone TV movie, just a double-length episode of the weekly series. I’m not sure that counts as a movie by Keith’s definitions. For example, Keith didn’t cover the 90-minute season 2 premiere of Wonder Woman, which was the same length as the standalone pilot movie that he did cover.