This review contains spoilers for episode 4 ofWhat If…?.
The reality-bending shenanigans Marvel’s heroes are pulling off inWhat If…?may finally be about to become a bit too much for The Watcher as episode four is centered all around the darker side of Doctor Strange wreaking havoc in his own universe.
Unlike the firstWhat If…?episodes that take a lighter approach to show these alternate timelines can turn out just as well as the mainline MCU, both episode three and this one depict a far more somber scenario in each of their respective realities,however many Marvel universesreally are up to this point. If seeing the Avengers go down one by one before they assemble looks like a bad outcome, then the “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?” is one ofthe darkest stories Marvel has to offeras the misguided sorcerer looks to save the love of his life.
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The nexus event is relatively simple: rather than losing control over his hands and losing his surgical prowess in the operating room, Strange’s slightly different car crash ends up killing Christine Palmer (voice by Rachel McAdams) sending the would-be sorcerer down a depressive spiral that sees him live out the five stages of grief while taking down the whole universe with him. Strange still visits Kamar-Taj and, as usual, scenes taken straight from the firstDoctor Strangemovie or slight variations are all over the place.
Initially, it seems like this good Doctor Strange even manages to slide in his new sorcerer role quite easily, seeing as he doesn’t struggle to learn rune magic, but he does become fascinated by the Eye of Agamotto quite instantly. Mordo is nowhere to be seen, yet Wong (voiced by Benedict Wong) is here to give Strange all the stern warnings he needs, and even if he ignores Wong it almost seems like the Ancient One (voiced by Tilda Swinton) is able to forcibly get to him, except for one slight world-ending detail.
As it’s explained later on, the Ancient One basically splits Doctor Strange into two different characters within the same timeline: there’s the good Strange who stays in New York upon seeing no reality or outcome could save Christine; and, on the other hand, there’s the Doctor Strange Supreme who travels to a hidden library in search of the legendary Cagliostro’s lost books and writings.
The site of the library appears to contain the sacred Asgardian tree of Yggdrasil, aclear callback toCaptain America: The First AvengerandWhat If…?’sown first episode since the place from where the Tesseract is taken from shows petroglyphs linking the two together. That’s not the only reference toWhat If…?’spremiere chapter as the final boss Supreme Strange must absorb also happens to be a tentacled being, this time a green one and thus perhaps signaling even more that Shuma-Gorath might appear in theMultiverse of Madness.
The big takeaway here is The Watcherrealizing just how wretched this outcome could be for this particular universe, given that Supreme Strange is absorbing monsters from the type of realities Dormammu inhabits for the sole purpose of altering an Absolute Time event. However, anyone not too familiar with Marvel Comics should know that the man that introduces himself as Obeng is also a reference to the Doctor Strange nemesis Cagliostro, who in the comics is just as powerful as he sounds in the MCU.
Obeng, just like Wong, tries to warn Supreme Strange of his wrongdoing and the foolishness of his actions because no person -even an almighty one- is supposed to live forever, so in the end, he must accept Christine’s death. It’s then the good Doctor Strange who’s left to find the world crumbling as reality deforms thanks to his dark doppelganger’s actions as the two put on a show that’s packed with moves Strange uses inInfinity War.
Ultimately, Doctor Strange Supreme’s power is simply too much for the good Doctor Strange to overcome, but the battle is a perfect showcase for the sheer amount of quality and attention to detail inWhat If…?‘sanimation. Most notably, the powerful Strange Supreme’s magic seems to take on a different aesthetic from that of anyone elsein the MCU’s color-coding, keeping the usual orange of Doctor Strange’s rune magic but also adding black, reddish, and purplish tones that suggest he also learned some Scarlet Witch chaos magic or even some of the dark absorption arts conjured by Agatha Harkness.
The episode comes to an end as the universe collapses on top of the monstrous Strange Supreme and a shocked vanishing Christine, as the sorcerer finally learns his lesson and accepts that no amount of sacrifice could really save her. As The Watcher belittles Strange Supreme for his actions and arrogance,What If…?appears to finally lean in on what kind of role this mysterious character will have because, after all, he is seen fighting alongside the alternate Avengers in the promotional footage so that “not intervening” policy cannot last too long in the coming episodes.
Perhaps thisWhat If…?story could be a hint for the type of chaos Doctor Strange can summon when his mind is not in the right place, which seems like the current hypothesis onhowSpider-Man: No Way Home’s"strange" events unfold, that couldextend further ontoThe Multiverse of Madness. Or maybe, when the movie comes out, it’ll be Peter Parker who’s trying to defy reality and the good Doctor Strange who’s trying to keep the natural flow of time.
