Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnesswhich became available for streaming Disney Plus last month after landing in theaters in May, sends Marvel Cinematic Universean endearingly grumpy wizard in an adventure that spans multiple realities. The 28th MCU film brings a director Sam Raimi back to Marvel for the first time since then 2007’s Spider-Man 3 and leans heavily on his signature horror style, with one of the two post-credits scenes riffing on a moment from early in his career.
The film takes place after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Homewhich saw Strange suggest Peter Parker some magical help how the teenager dealt with the whole world knowing his secret identity.
Let’s enter a portal and explore a universe full of SPOILERS. We also have a separate clarifying ending, a a deep dive into the illuminati and a list of WTF questions the movie left us.
Another wizard
In a mid-credits scene, Strange happily walks the streets of Manhattan, having seemingly accepted the corruption caused by his use of the Darkhold. He is met by a blonde sorceress in a purple and pink costume (Charlize Theron). She opens a portal to the Dark Dimension, the hellish reality ruled by Doctor Strange in 2016, the big bad Dormammu.
“You created an invasion and we’re going to fix it…unless you’re scared?” she says.
“Not in the least,” he replies, his Darkhold-induced third eye opening.
What does it mean?
She’s not named until the credits start rolling after this scene, but Theron’s character is Clea, a Dark Dimension magic lord who has appeared in the comics since the 1960s.
She is the daughter of Dormammu’s sister Umar and Prince of the Dark Dimension Orini, and is infatuated with Strange during one of his early adventures in this reality. Their paths crossed many times in the years since, with Clea becoming Strange’s student and later his wife.
After the events of 2021 Miniseries The Death of Doctor Strange (you can imagine the premise), Clea replaced Strange as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. Steven will undoubtedly be resurrected and return to the role soon, as status quo changes like this rarely last long in comics.
You may have been too busy jiggling or squealing with joy when Reid Richards (John Krasinski) explained what the invasions were earlier in the film, but they were catastrophic events that happened when one multiverse reality collided with another. In the comics, this happened in 2015 Secret Wars event.
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It’s unclear how Strange caused the invasion — he’s jumped through a whole bunch of realities in the Multiverse of Madness — or what that means for the MCU, but it could see elements of a different cinematic universe crossing over into this one.
A similar crossover has already set up a dangerous scenario (filled with delightful cameos) in No Way Home, so it’s possible we’ll see characters from Fox’s X-Men the next reality. The presence of Professor X (Patrick Stewart) may have foreshadowed this.
Or maybe just like that more wishful thinking.
Poppa Pizza is back
In an alternate reality Manhattan, the gruff street vendor Pizza Poppa (Bruce Campbell) earlier accused America Chavez of stealing his precious dough balls. Strange hit the poor guy with a spell to get him off their back and they left him to be attacked by his own hand.
The post-credits scene returns to Pizza Poppa just as his meat hook’s campaign of violence comes to an end.
“It’s over!” he says happily.
What does it mean?
This scene is unlikely to have any implications for the MCU as it is more of an homage to Campbell and Raimi’s relationship. The two have been friends since high school, and the actor played the character Ash Williams in Raimi’s 1981 breakout game The Evil Dead. In the 1987 sequel to this film, Ash’s hand is bitten off by one of the undead, he becomes possessed and tries to kill him.
Unlike Pizza Poppa, he tries to solve the problem by cutting off his hand and replacing it with a chainsaw (which is extremely metal). His former hand haunts him for the rest of the film.
Campbell also appears in Raimi’s non-MCU Spider-Man trilogy, appearing to play three different characters. He was a wrestling announcer in the first film, a snooty usher in the sequel, and a French maître d’ in the third. If the scrapped Spider-Man 4 had come to fruition, the actor could have played Mysterio, Raimi confirmed to Rolling Stone.