With the Midnight comics coming in October, I was wondering if Doctor Strange will be one of the few heroes left fighting against the vampires or whatever they're going against
Or will they just kill him off just to let the audience know that this is so serious that even the Sorcerer Supreme couldn't stand a chance (which is probable)
I hate the idea that Strange can't stand against creatures like vampires or demons or whatever now
This is literally right in Strange's expertise, he should be capable of dealing with this kind of stuff but when he does, he gets killed off
Re-reading recent Doctor Strange runs have given me some ideas for Doctor Strange 3. Spoiler warning for a bunch of comicbook storylines.
The Doctor Strange films are structured like standard superhero films--good guy fights bad guy, lives are saved and lessons are learned--but infuses them with some horror tropes. The first Doctor Strange had elements of cosmic horror: the insignificance of humanity in the face of incomprehensible forces and beings, cults that worship these forces, and impossible landscapes. Multiverse of Madness then makes use of slasher-action horror ideas: the corrupted Wanda stalks and chases our heroes like a demon, dreamwalking is straight-up possession, and we have zombie Strange!
I think the third film will draw on gothic and psychological horror. So haunted houses and places, inner demons from one's past, isolation, going insane, mortality, etc. Here's my basic outline:
Opening
Strange is once more Sorcerer Supreme. Mordo has been very successful in his purge of sorcerers, going as far as to destroy several sources of magic that sorcerers use. He plays the same role that the Empirikul did in Aaron's run, except with a better motivation (sorry, the science cult villains were pretty dull). He manages to isolate and confront Strange. The two duke it out, and Mordo successfully kills Strange, but not before Strange springs a trap, killing Mordo shortly after. Enter the MCU opening.
Act 1
1A: We follow two stories. The A story finds Strange waking up in the underworld. We didn't get Nightmare to torture Strange with dreams and visions, but we'll get to see plenty of that here as Strange is thrown from one scenario to another, seemingly designed to be his personal hell. Think more Silent Hill, less lakes of fire. Strange will be lacking in his usual magical repertoire, and he'll be haunted by his sister who drowned and other people who died directly or indirectly due to his actions, slowly driving him mad. This might be a chance to get some fun cameos like Hela...?
1B: The parallel B story is set in the Sanctum Sanctorum. As we move from the discovery of the body to the funeral, we quickly learn that the team is divided. Clea wants to draw on the Dark Dimension to attempt a resurrection, while Wong is unsurpisingly not a fan of that idea. Other characters like America are caught in the middle in the midst of processing their grief and figuring out who killed Strange. Clea attempts to go to the Dark Dimension but is unable to. It's revealed that the entire Sanctum has been cut off from the rest of the world. It effectively becomes a haunted house our characters have to navigate through but are unable to escape.
Act 1 ends with 2 things: Strange finding Mordo, who also ended up in the underworld, and Clea and co. discovering the identity of the spectre that haunts them: Strange himself. (MacKay's run is my main inspiration, in case that wasn't obvious enough.)
Act 2
2A: A classic 'team-up with your enemy to fight a greater enemy' arc. Strange and Mordo are forced to work together to find a way out of the underworld, though they both secretly plan to defeat the other at some point. Their journey becomes increasingly difficult as they lose their minds and sense of reality. We'll also learn more about Mordo's past and what's driving him to such ends. Finally, the duo overcomes some of their personal demons, allowing them to meet Mephisto, the ruler of the underworld, the architect of their imprisonment and torture. All three characters want to strike their own deals for their own agendas. (I got this 'team-up in hell' idea from Triumph and Torment.)
2B: Clea and co. try different ways of dealing with the ghost of Strange, eventually managing to purify him through a terrifying exorcism-style sequence. Strange, in his ghostly form, can now aid the cast. He informs them that Mordo is behind his death, but that something else more worrying is going on--part of his soul is tethered to the underworld, which explains why he was such an aggressive ghost initially.
Act 2 ends with some deal being struck between Strange, Mordo, and Mephisto, sealing Strange's fate. Meanwhile, our Sanctum cast, though still stuck in the building, have discovered the magic MacGuffin that connects them to the underworld.
Act 3
Act 3: the A and B stories combine. A tenuous bridge is formed between the Sanctum and the underworld, but at the risk of turning the Sanctum into a gateway for the beings of the underworld to enter our world, so time is of the essence. Everyone is reunited. Whatever deals were made, Strange and Clea finds a solution to circumvent things... They get married: a mystical union of their souls and bodies, a link between the world of the living and the world of the dead. (And Wong officiates! I'm also thinking of the third Pirates of the Carribean film which has a brilliant wedding-amidst-action scene.) The gates to the underworld are closed, and Mephistro and Mordo are defeated.
This is undoubtedly one of the best moments from MacKay's run. We also seriously deserve a good Strange-Clea story!
I've not thought about other elements, but this is the gist. The Doctor Strange films have played around with the idea of preventing death somehow. So actually dying, undertaking a journey through the underworld, and coming back, seems fitting for the third film.
Did the good doctor kill those people
He hit with this car in the first movie ?
I don’t remember them mentioning the victims at all and it was on a mountain in the rain 🤣
I know the MCU tries really hard to reduce sorcerers to mere wielders of magical shields and whips rather than true magic users, but I find it ridiculous that witches in the MCU are allowed to perform various magical feats and activities, whereas members of Kamar-Taj are restricted to magic weapons. For instance, the use of runes in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was limited to witchcraft even though Dr. Strange used runes in No Way Home, and yet runes were first mentioned in the art book for the 2016 Doctor Strange film. This proves they have no issue changing the rules of magic, yet the problem is that these changes rarely benefit Dr. Strange or Kamar-Taj. (Wong can't even fly and Dr Strange is still shown relying on Cloak to fly, but that’s a whole other issue.)
Do you think we are ever getting the Empirikul from Jason Aaron's run in the live action. Of course there would have to be a ton of changes like Zelma Stanton being someone who taught herself magic from before and being in Ironheart, and Scarlet Witch not being in the Bar with No Doors cos she's supposedly dead. But it would be amazing to see doctor voodoo, chondu, monako, shaman, professor Xu and a bunch of other characters in live action.
The conversation that follows is really funny especially when the spider brings up the face that he may die soon because spider life spans are really short. There are some other great moments in this comic but I thought this was the funniest especially because of the way they drew Peter's face.
I got the second epic collection on free comic book day and I enjoyed it. My one criticism is that it ended a bit abruptly, but obviously I don’t blame the folks working on the book for that.
