The second film devoted entirely to the character of Doctor Strange, aka Stephen Strange, was released in theaters on Wednesday May 4. Who says new Marvel film says puzzle. All MCU films and series are interrelated. To fully understand the adventures of the supreme sorcerer, it would therefore be necessary to see or review certain classics. The first part of Doctor Strangeof course, but also the latest Marvel movie, Spiderman No Way Home. It is also essential to have in mind several of the series avengers : Age of Ultron, Infinity War and Endgame. To make matters worse, let’s add to that the series available on Disney+… WandaVision, What If? and Loki participate in understanding the plot.
You don’t want to see everything or review it all? We understand you. Fortunately, 20 minutes sums it all up for you. Warning, it spoils…
To understand the characters
Obviously to understand how Stephen Strange became a wizard, you have to have seen Doctor Strange 1. This brilliant neurosurgeon lost the use of his hands in an accident. In an attempt to heal, he leaves to learn the mystical arts and ultimately becomes the Sorcerer Supreme. Well, that’s the origin of the character. To find out what happened to him just before the second installment, it happens in the latest Spiderman to date. Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Stephen, comes to the aid of the spider-man whose identity has been revealed. He will cast two spells that will weaken the borders of the multiverse. In Doctor Strange 2he will therefore have to face the consequences of the modifications of space-time.
The other key character in this new film is Wanda. The heroine appears for the first time in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where she’ll go from being a terrorist villain (but with good reason to be angry) to being an Avengers (because anger gets you nowhere). In the great series Wanda Vision, we follow her after the murder of her lover Vision by Thanos. She takes an entire city hostage where she controls everything and builds herself, thanks to her extraordinary powers, her perfect life with her twins and the resurrected Vision. She embraces her destiny as a red witch, destined to destroy the world, after defeating the witch Agatha Harkness, who was hiding under the identity of one of her neighbors. Vision and her children disappear but Wanda hears of one of the twins stuck in another universe. She then immerses herself in the study of the dark magic book Darkhold. The Scarlet Witch therefore returns in Doctor Strange 2.
To be perfectly in focus on the multiverse
In the What if? series, we explore alternate realities related to Marvel characters. In this series we have a Wanda who is a zombie and who is killed by Ultron and a Doctor Strange who has not lost his hands but his lover. He will then become evil and destroy his beneficial double. But at the end of the series, he clears himself by taking down Ultron with some Avengers. Could this be a teaser for this second part?
Series Loki begins when the Avengers alter reality in Infinity War. Loki disappears with the Tesseract into another universe. Under threat from the Time Variance Authority, he must restore chronological order by stopping a version of himself, Sylvie, who is turning the universe upside down. Sylvie will unfortunately kill “The One Who Remained”, a version of Kang the Conqueror who knows the past and the future. The result: a new multiverse war.
All this to say that in the middle of this happy mess, Doctor Strange 2 is an essential step in the new era of the Marvel Universe.