Meta post from Meta People about Strange Doctors

Helloooooo everybody!

Noelle in dah house, I’m back with another Marvel prep post, except it’s not my man B.P. (somebody do some fan art of Tony referring to Black Panther like this).  It’s also not the All-New All-Different Avengers (sad face) nor is it for Netflix’s new show Iron Fist (and since I’m going for world record of most tangents in one intro, Iron Fist was good but is now bloody.  Go watch some trailers and dream of fan-made RMS shows.)

Nope, today we are talking about a doctor.

NOT YOU.  Go on, get off this post.  Maybe next time, time travelling sarcastic space alien, maybe next time.

YES PLEASEEEEE

Shh!  That wasn’t your cue, go back down in the basement with the other IBFs authors.  *hiss*

:(

Sorry ‘bout that.  Nothing to pay attention to.  

No, today we are talking about Marvel’s one and only Dr. Strange.  And I say one and only, but really there’s been many versions of Dr. Strange… just none as easy to remember as the arrogant, rich, and successful neurosurgeon-turned-cripple-turned-sorcerer-turned-Sorcerer Supreme.  And if I just spoke a bunch of gibberish to you, that’s alright, because when Marvel announced they were making a Dr. Strange movie… it was the Thanos end credits scene all over again.

CONFUSING.

But worry not, random reader, I haven’t been left alone to my own devices today, which means (hopefully) not too much rambling.  Or double the rambling.  We’ll see here in a second.  Without further ado, our guest blogger (or at least, guest for this particular series) ……………. :

AYYYYYYYY! GUESS WHO. (Sadly, not Doctor Who. One day; I have been promised one day.  There were no such promises. I’ll take what I can get, thank you very much.) THAT’S RIGHT. Clarissa here. (I'll be writing in the blue text.) And yes, this will most likely mean double the rambling.

Ooooooh goodie.  Let the rambling commence, take it away--

...Yes, thank you. I think.

*evil laughter*

:P If you read my previous blog post (sorry again that I’m so bad at being consistent with these) I alluded to an epic collab and welp…. Ta-daaaaaa here it be. Letting loose on the whole Spider-man: Homecoming obsession I’ve bottled up for about a year now kind of opened the floodgates of Marvel fangirling and theorizing I’ve tried to chain up inside. But not today! Today I will indulge in every wild theory and detail about our character. And that character is Dr. Strange! What a fantastic hero to start with! :D

Though sadly he’s not really fantastic… that’s another Sony property.  But anyway, today we are talking about everything to do with Dr. Strange, including his comic book origins, his brand new appearance in the MCU, and our theories about his stories to come!

Yes well soooorry. I’m just recovering from that Doctor Who reference. ANYWAY, NOELLE. Let’s focus.

I am focused thank you very much.  I don’t know movies, I know characters *shoves post to you*

Well that’s perfect because I’m the exact opposite! xD Let’s dive into the plot of this wonderful movie.

First off, the basic surmise of the Dr. Strange story is, like we’ve already mentioned, about an arrogant neurosurgeon who becomes a sorcerer. When he gets in a near-fatal car accident, his hands are badly damaged, leaving him unable to perform his job (his hands shake too much to perform surgery). Desperate, Dr. Strange travels the world seeking medical help until he stumbles upon sorcerers in Kamar-Taj, a… secret sorcerer compound in Kathmandu, Nepal? You know you’re desperate when you end up in Kathmandu.

I think my mom threatened to kick me there once.

Anyway, when he is introduced to the “Ancient One,” who astounds him with an out-of-body experience (in the movie, anyway), he begins his journey of studying to become a sorcerer in order to heal his hands. He quickly progresses and, before he knows it, realizes the true purpose of the sorcerers- to protect the spiritual realm.

Thus progresses his internal struggle between his own arrogance and serving a greater purpose. The movie climaxes with him fully accepting the role of sorcerer as a protector, and then there’s an epic battle and yeah climax. (I can’t give away too much! If you haven’t watched the movie, though, you should probably do that first before even thinking about reading all this crazy stuff.)

He eventually becomes sorcerer supreme, AKA leader of all the other sorcerers. During this whole character development story, he gains an epic costume, cloak, and “weapon.” If you have watched the movie or have any previous knowledge of Dr. Strange, you’ll know that aside from his cloak of levitation, his biggest “weapon” (he wears it like a long necklace) is the Eye of Agamoto, a legendary sorcerer’s device, shaped like an eye, that allows the user to manipulate time. The device is built around the “stone of time.”

Ehehehehe, more on that glowing green stone later later.

Wrong movie.  I'm talking about the one Dr. Strange uses.  Anyway.

Now, for cinematic history: Dr. Strange is a movie that has been floating around in the backs of the minds of the greatest Marvel cinematic directors for a long time. There have actually been several attempts at developing a Doctor Strange movie before, but the rough synopsis never appealed to producers. (Can’t imagine why.) Since the original comic book summary of Doctor Strange is a neurosurgeon-turned-sorcerer, the initial image one imagines can seem very far-fetched. You know, magic and time and space and wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey…. Wait wrong fandom sorry.

...this is going to take a while, swamping through all the random references, isn't it?  Anyway, the concept of Iron Man got a similar reaction.  A lot of people thought that comic book movies were just kind of ‘eh’, and then Marvel appeared out of NOWHERE with Iron Man and blew them all away like he was Philip Hamilton.

True, true. (Let’s not get too crazy with all the fandom references please? xD )

Aw you’re no fun.  Fiiiiiine.

I know, I’m such a hypocrite, sorry. xD So yes, like I mentioned in my Spider-man: Homecoming post, Marvel truly is a revolutionary company when it comes to cinematography. They reached for what most people deemed impossible- making realistic superhero movies!-  to gain success and basically Z-snapped in Hollywood’s face. However, when people were first presenting the idea of a Dr. Strange movie, it was before these blockbuster hits of the Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor series productions. So the idea faded away and was forgotten. But Dr. Strange still clung to the MCU through brief cameos in other cartoon T.V. shows, such as Avengers Assemble and Ultimate Spider Man.

AND IT WAS AWESOME.

VERILY, BROTHER, IT WAS A MIGHTY FEW EPISODES. That it was.

So basically, the idea faded away. But then Marvel started getting geared up for this huge climax that will be called Infinity Wars, which we will discuss more later, and the concept of the “infinity stones” was re-invigorated. (You see, the infinity stones play a very important role in the MCU. More on that soon!) Since Doctor Strange is tied with this whole infinity stone concept, what with his primary weapon being the Eye of Agamoto, or the “stone of time,” Marvel decided that a Dr. Strange movie might be a grand idea after all. So with the re-introduction of the idea, the directors needed something to really make their proposal appealing. And who do you call when you need an actor comfortable with mystery, arrogance, dramatic costume and mental prowess? ….That’s right, Bimbernick Scrumplescratch. Er, Benedict Cumberbatch.

And the idea took off from there! The result is the glorious cinematic masterpiece you glance longingly at whenever you walk past the movie section in Target. They make it in 3D, too, you know, because all the crazy dimension-bending and glowing runes look so fabulous in 3D. Also, Bernersnert’s cheekbones get that extra pop. That’s oh-so-important.

Now for some more comic-based trivia and backstory of Dr. Strange from Noelle! *panting*

Hang on, I think I hear the sound of my fangirl demon creature crawling from the depths of hell *the seventh circle of hell* to talk about stuff that will definitely help me land a well-paying job in the future :D  I looked up yours truly’s comic book form in the Avengers Encyclopedia, because yay using resources.  Since I’ve had some time recently, I’ve started making notes, and gosh does it make it easier to find stuff AND I’M ALREADY OFF-TOPIC.  I need a road map for my brain, I swear.

Name:  Doctor Strange (shocker, I know)

Real Name:  Stephen Vincent Strange (no, really)

Height:  6’2” Benedict is exactly 6’, so that’s pretty accurate

Weight:  180 lbs Pffsht don’t ask me for Benedict's weight though, that’s a bit creepy. ...Although I do know he purposefully bulked up for the role, a fact he seems very proud of. ‘Course, he had to lose a bunch of weight to go back to the role of BBC’s beanpole Sherlock. xD

Eyes:  ‘pparently they’re grey but we all know that Benderdoodle Cumpersnitch’s eyes are rainbow aphrodite colored. Ohhh, yes. The color of the ocean after a calming rain. Which is beautiful.

Congrats, internet.  You managed to get me to search ‘Benedict Cumberbatch eyes’.

Anyway, first appearing as a Christmas gift to the world in 1973, Dr. Strange has.... weird powers.    The best I can possibly start to explain it is ‘magic’, ‘sorcery’, ‘burn the witch’, and ‘ooooh sparkles’. Lol. That’s… actually scarily accurate if you’re gonna be brash. This video gives a better run down, and also points out the mention that he got as far back as Winter Soldier.

Friends:

Ancient One - was a bearded guy in the comics, now is a bald woman.   Because Marvel has to appeal to feminists, too, instead of sticking to canon, apparently. No offense intended, I’m just amused.  As the man-eating, agenda-holding feminist I am.... I take no offense. NEXT.

Wong - The actor who plays Wong is… Benedict Wong. Like what the heck Marvel, I swear you grow your heroes on a farm.  Is that where they get their Chrisses?  Chris-i? Yes, the very same hero-growing-farm.

Clea - not RMS evil shadow-twin Clea. This Clea’s actually the daughter of Dormammu.  And they fell in love?  Wait, daughter of Dormammu?  Daughter of Dormammu.  Because psychadelic planet eaters can have humanoid daughters. Ok, but in the movie who’s his girlfriend again? I think I mixed her up with Clea.  She’s forgettable Marvel girlfriend #4 (I don’t think she was in the comics) Oh, of course. xD But seriously, I love the role of his girlfriend in this movie. Christine Palmer! That was her name. Well, I can elaborate more on her later.

Mr. Fantastic - Dude they needa do a canon crossover with the Fantastic Four and Avengers and Dr. Strange.  Ah but Clarissa, F4 are Sony, and we know how Sony feels about sharing its toys. (Also I think the Human Torch and Cap would be a bit confused. Is that joke old? I think that joke’s old).    Awww that’s right, I forgot about copyright issues for one glorious moment. :\ OHO, no, my dear friend, that joke will never ever be old. I understood that reference.

Foes:

Dormammu - (I’ve come to bargain)

Morgan le Fay - Again with the whole “sorcery- first poke it and then kill it with fire.” You probably should.  She’s kind of evil and all that. And again, this is one of those characters Marvel had to leave out of the movie production simply because, well, sadly, movies can’t have ten antagonists and be twenty hours long.

Before we continue on to the ‘theories’ bit of this mega-post, there’s something we need to discuss that are becoming very important in all MCU movies.  Clarissa, what are these things, these awful things that we’re setting up a whole war over (not a civil one) and they’re stones.... fillllllll in the blank....

Oh oh oh I know! Infinity stones! (See, I can play along and pretend to be dumb.)

Nobody’s dumb, according to Penny and her Dark Power of Sparkly Butterflies.  But that’s a totally different post for a difference day. Rrriiiightt... Basically all you need to know:  Stones = bad.

Wh- what? But why are they bad? Look, just because Thanos wants to hoard them all and use them to destroy everything doesn’t mean they’re inherently bad, right? (Sorry if I’m getting ahead of myself here.)

Er… I meant bad like… destructive.

AndtheyactivelybentTonytotheirwillandwereresponsibleforFalconandCap’sDEATHbutIdon’tholdagrudgenotme.

Ok woah there, backing up, I did not realize they were directly tied to that. That’s from Avengers Assemble, right?  Yup.  Evil voices and everything. Why did I not realize that. Proceed.

Here’s a handy-dandy chart of all the stones we list below

There are...

(1!) the space stone (a.k.a. The Tesseract, that cube that melted Red Skull’s face off and made everybody really mad in the Avengers),

(2!) the soul stone, which hasn’t appeared in anything,

(3!) the reality stone, which (if you watched that cruddy movie -yeah that movie was… interesting. Still crucial to the plot, but not bursting with action and emotion, if you get what I mean) was the red pixie dust that made everybody mad in Thor 2,

(4!) the time stone that made everybody really mad in Dr. Strange (eye of Agamoto!),

(5!) the power stone that was apparently… important?  In Guardians of the Galaxy (all I can remember about it is that it made them all hold hands and burn together. Ring around the rosies… ashes… all that good stuff.  Yeah.  Wait didn’t Groot DIE!? OH MY. WE ALL FALL DOWN), and

(6!) the mind stone, which is apparently responsible for EVERYTHING and makes EVERYBODY mad.

I’m seeing a trend here. ….Why does everyone keep going insane….?

(Insert necessary Clarissa quipping)

(Awww my heart is happy when you say my quips are necessary. None of my family appreciates my sarcastic quips the way you do, thank you so much. I’mma cry again.)

NO DON’T CRY.  Shh, I guess I have to calm her down now, but don’t worry, more on said trend.... next time!  Because we.... kinda..... went overboard.  And we might as well cover ALL the details, since we’re here and we’re on a roll.

Make sure you stay tuned for part two of this epic collab! There’s more exciting theorizing, moralizing, and character development analysis headed your way! ….Meanwhile I’ll be over here, pondering existence.

CYA NEXT TIME!!