With the multiverse now open to business, we have seen a bunch of Doctor Strange variants out there. The first variant was introduced to us in ‘What If…?”s episode 4. Then, as expected, we saw multiple versions of Doctor Strange in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But we don’t know if you noticed, they all had one thing in common- they all struggled with their moral ambiguity. They found it hard to follow the natural law, as the Masters of Kamar-Taj taught him. Many fans who noticed it has been wondering why! And we think we found a reasonable answer and, spoiler alert, it is pretty simple. 
Disney+’s Loki saw the formation of multiple Nexus events that led to the formation of the Multiverse. It was also the first MCU series to feature variants of a single character. It also demonstrated that the variants need not be exactly similar but can be very different from the MCU’s one. Spider-Man: No Way Home further illustrated this, while still keeping the origins of the heroes similar. However, they made different life choices following the same origin. But after seeing multiple variants of Doctor Strange in Disney+’s What if….? and MCU’s DS2, we find an awful lot of similarities between them. Other than having a heartbreaking origin, they all deal with unimaginable power and are often drawn to dark magic.
THE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF DOCTOR STRANGE
The different versions in question here are MCU’s Stephen Strange, What if…? episode 4’s Strange Supreme, 838’s Defender Strange, and then the Sinister Strange. While one would argue that all of them are very different from each other, we say they are more or less the same. They all belong to different worlds and hence, the different motivations, but the end result was always the same. They become bad, or evil, if I dare. And if you have been following the story closely, the reason is not that far-stretched. But first of all, check out their individual stories.
What If…?’s Strange lost the love of his life, and that drove him to the world of Mystic Arts, as opposed to most of the Stranges who lost their hands. And then he wandered some dark paths with a noble motive to bring her back, thus leading to the end of his reality. As for Defender Strange, he was willing to kill a teenage girl if it meant that the multiverse will be safe. Earth-838’s Strange messed with the Darkhold, thus being possessed by its power and causing an incursion. This incursion, according to the Illuminati, killed trillions of brought into another reality.
Sinister Strange had become so irredeemable that despite the destruction of his Earth, he wasn’t going to stop hunting his variants any time soon. As for the MCU’s variant of the character, despite being different from most of them, messed with Darkhold. This led to him breaking bad with the third eye on his forehead. And who knows what the future holds for him? But how do all of them were tempted to take these steps?!
THE REASON ALL STRANGES TURNED BAD
Doctor Strange was always supposed to be a Sorcerer Supreme and the very best one at it. He had the responsibility of keeping the thread of reality from breaking. This entailed keeping some of the strongest beings at bay. Reality is always under threat from beings of unimaginable levels of strength. And DcotrStrange is the only one keeping them from destroying the world as we know it. So he often finds himself backed into some corners where there is only one way to come back on top. And that involves using some spells that are traditionally considered forbidden.
But he is not always wrong. He knows that he will not always be there to protect the Earth and thus tries to stop the threat before it even arrives. And as Cap once said, every time someone tries to stop a war before it happens, innocent people suffer. And that’s exactly what happened in most of the cases. 838’s knew a threat was coming after America, so the easiest solution he could find was to kill her himself. He could have done what Stephen Strange did but he chose the method he thought would help him save the multiverse. What always made matters worse was his overbearing ego. And both of these combined makes him a bigger threat than anyone else out there.
And if you think about it, this was the message that Sam Raimi wanted to convey through this movie. Many of us failed to understand it, saying that it was a Wanda movie more than Doctor Strange’s. Raimi wanted to say how all variants of Strange are almost doomed to turn evil and it is only a matter of time before MCU’s Strange turns too.
What are your views about these versions of Doctor Strange? Comment down your answers.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter for more content.
Also Watch:
