Warning: Spoilers for Marvel's What If...? episode 4.
Marvel’s What If…? just demonstrated that the character with the potential to be the MCU’s most dangerous villain is actually Doctor Strange. Even Thanos and Kang may not be able to rival the Sorcerer Supreme when he’s at the height of his power. Episode 4, "What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?", shows how lucky it is for the main MCU timeline that Stephen Strange opted to go down a noble path, and how devastating it could be if he ever strayed from it.
In Marvel Comics, Doctor Strange has long been depicted as one of the strongest forces on Earth. He doesn’t have the physical strength of the Hulk or the raw power of Scarlet Witch, but his mastery of the mystic arts easily makes him one of the Earth’s greatest assets, which has a lot to do with why the heroes depend on him in so many crossover events. The MCU’s Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) closely matches his comic counterpart in terms of what he’s capable of. While Marvel has stopped short of referring to him as its most powerful character, he’s clearly close to the top, with Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, and Thanos being among the few who may outclass him.
While the MCU Doctor Strange may not yet have reached the heights of his powers from the comics, he has what it takes to be so much more – just not necessarily as a superhero. Marvel’s What If…? episode 4 reveals a scenario where Strange summons a number of unnamed magical entities and robs them of their power in order to increase his own abilities. Strange achieved a tremendous degree of power through his efforts, but the cost of it all was his humanity. By absorbing so much dark energy, Strange transformed into a twisted shell of his former self, but it made him literally unbeatable. With his new powers, evil Strange even had the means to undo an absolute point in time and bring back Christine from death. The problem, though, is that his power level was too high and Strange inadvertently brought about the destruction of his entire universe through a combination of arrogance and magic.
Armed with the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos erased half of everyone in the universe, but didn’t present a threat to the actual universe itself. That still stood, albeit with half the population it had before. Strange, on the other hand, literally unmade his own world with his misguided ambition. Strange having this potential raises questions about what kind of villain he would be in the MCU, should he ever go down that path. A fully-powered Doctor Strange messing with time and channeling vast amounts of magical forces could prove to be even more dangerous than Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror.
Stopping Doctor Strange from wrecking the multiverse could be more difficult than beating Kang. As confirmed by the Loki season finale, Kang’s time travel shenanigans can start a multiversal war and unleash all sorts of chaos, but it’s likely that Ant-Man is going to stop him eventually in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. And if not, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes could finish the job in Avengers 5. But if they were fighting the Doctor Strange shown in Marvel’s What If…? episode 4, that could be one story where the villain wins. Kang lacks actual superpowers, but a Doctor Strange who has had centuries to master the stolen powers of over a dozen cosmic beings would have the advantage over any MCU hero, including Scarlet Witch.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/3h3eNrU
0 Comments