Doctor Strange within the Multiverse of Madness hit theaters Friday, and despatched the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s grumpy sorcerer on a actuality hopping journey. It brings director Sam Raimi again to Marvel for the primary time since 2007’s Spider-Man 3, leans exhausting into his signature horror model and one of many two post-credits scenes riffs on an iconic sequence from early in his profession.
The film takes place after the occasions of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which noticed Strange providing Peter Parker some magical assist in coping with the complete world figuring out his secret identification.
Let’s step right into a portal and discover a universe filled with SPOILERS. We even have a separate ending explainer, a deep dive into the Illuminati and a listing of WTF questions the film left us with.
Another sorcerer
In a mid-credits scene, Strange is fortunately strolling by way of Manhattan’s streets, having seemingly accepted the corruption brought on by his use of the Darkhold. He’s intercepted by a blonde sorcerer in a purple and pink costume (Charlize Theron). She opens a portal to the Dark Dimension, the hellish actuality dominated by 2016 Doctor Strange massive unhealthy Dormammu.
“You created an incursion and we’re gonna repair it… until you are afraid?” she says.
“Not within the least,” he responds, his Darkhold-induced third eye opening.
Clea has been amongst Doctor Strange’s most dependable allies within the comics.
Marvel Studios
What does it imply?
She is not named till the credit begin rolling after this scene, however Theron’s character is Clea — a Dark Dimension magic wielder who’s been within the comics for the reason that ’60s.
She’s the daughter of Dormammu’s sister Umar and Dark Dimension Prince Orini, and have become fascinated by Strange throughout considered one of his early adventures in that actuality. Their paths have crossed many instances within the years since, with Clea changing into Strange’s scholar and later his spouse.
Following the occasions of 2021’s Death of Doctor Strange miniseries (you’ll be able to think about the premise), Clea changed Strange as Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. Stephen will undoubtedly be resurrected and return to the function quickly although, since establishment shifts like this seldom final lengthy within the comics.
You may need been too busy reeling or screaming with pleasure when Reed Richards (John Krasinski) defined what incursions had been earlier within the film, however they’re catastrophic occasions that happen when a multiversal actuality crashes into one other. (In the comics, this occurred in 2015 occasion Secret Wars.)
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It’s unclear how Strange brought about an incursion — he jumped by way of an entire bunch of realities in Multiverse of Madness — or what this implies for the MCU, however it might see parts from a special cinematic universe crossing into this one.
Such a crossover already created a harmful situation (full of pleasant cameos) in No Way Home, so it is doable we’ll see characters from Fox’s X-Men actuality subsequent. The presence of Professor X (Patrick Stewart) might have been foreshadowing this.
Or possibly that is simply extra wishful considering.
Bruce Campbell’s cameo pays homage to his iconic Evil Dead character Ash Williams.
Starz
Poppa Pizza returns
In an alternate actuality’s Manhattan, impolite road vendor Pizza Poppa (Bruce Campbell) earlier accused America Chavez of stealing his valuable dough balls. Strange hit the poor man with a spell to get him off their backs, they usually left him to be attacked by his personal hand.
The post-credits scene brings us again to Pizza Poppa simply as his meat hook’s marketing campaign of violence ends.
“It’s over!” he says joyously.
What does it imply?
This scene is unlikely to have any MCU-scattering implications, because it’s extra of an homage to Campbell and Raimi’s relationship. The pair have been associates since highschool, and the actor performed hero Ash Williams in Raimi’s 1981 breakout function The Evil Dead. In that film’s 1987 sequel, Ash’s hand is bitten by one of many undead, turns into possessed and tries to kill him.
Unlike Pizza Poppa, he tries to unravel the issue by severing his hand and changing it with a chainsaw (which is extraordinarily steel). His former hand stalks him for the remainder of the film.
Campbell additionally exhibits up in Raimi’s non-MCU Spider-Man trilogy, seemingly taking part in three completely different characters. He was a wrestling announcer within the first film, a snooty usher within the sequel and a French maître d’ within the third. If the scrapped Spider-Man 4 had come to fruition, the actor might have performed Mysterio, Raimi confirmed to Rolling Stone.
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