Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

[Rob]: welcome to dear watchers a comic book omni verse podcast where we do a deep dive

[Rob]: into the multiverse

[Guido]: Traveling through the Stroy lines before and after that, inspired or took inspiration

[Guido]: from this week's alternate universe

[Guido]: and your watchers on this, our fortieth journey through the

[Rob]: whoa

[Guido]: omniiverse of comic books are me, Gto,

[Rob]: whereas you're also known the ancient one and the rob the

[Rob]: burn

[Guido]: rude. I know,

[Rob]: cosmic burn

[Guido]: really,

[Rob]: well well agent one what is new this week

[Guido]: but wait. so then what are you? I guess, Rob Strange

[Rob]: oh i'm just rob strange the dread rob

[Guido]: Trero. That fits much better.

[Rob]: exactly yes

[Guido]: So this week. What's new? Well, we have a bonus episode out on everything everywhere

[Guido]: all at once, So if you have not listened to that, please listen. We share ten things

[Guido]: we loved and two questions we had about that movie and that was really fun.

[Rob]: and we didn't even know until after watching the movie that it's actually produced

[Rob]: by the russo brothers course michelle yo who is in a marvel movie is in it lots of

[Rob]: marvel connections that we didn't even know about

[Guido]: Yeah, S Sarah Hali Finn.

[Rob]: mm hm

[Guido]: casting. Of course, so yes, it was. We didn't know until the credits There are great

[Guido]: connections and it's great fun. So if you've seen it or if you haven't seen it and

[Guido]: don't care about spoilers, check out that bonus episode. We also still have stickers

[Guido]: with some of the original art. We've commissioned more art coming soon, but we still

[Guido]: have those stickers so feel free to leave us a review on any platform. Send us a

[Guido]: message on Twitter with the screen shot of your review and your address, and we will

[Guido]: send you some really beautiful stickers and the last new thing is we have some Cer

[Guido]: interviews coming up on some

[Guido]: near future episodes, So stay tuned for some really great announcements and lots of

[Guido]: stuff happening in the watchers council of dear Watchers,

[Rob]: yes really looking forward to those interviews but if you're joining us for the

[Rob]: first time then after a quick summary of our alternate earth we have origins of the

[Rob]: story discovering what may have inspired this other reality exploring multiversity

[Rob]: diving deeper into the alternate universe and pondering possibilities examining the

[Rob]: impact of this visit to the multiverse and what's followed or our hopes for the

[Rob]: future

[Rob]: and with that dear watchers welcome to i can't believe it episode forty so let's

[Rob]: check out what's happening in the multi verse with today's alternate universe

[Rob]: and today we are posing the question or marvel is posing the question we're both

[Rob]: posing the question what if dr strange had been a disciple of dorma mou

[Guido]: Yeah, I was wondering if there should be an accent on the last part of his name. I'm

[Guido]: curious. I guess they would have put

[Rob]: dorma mou

[Guido]: like dormu

[Rob]: a door mem yes i you know what we watched spiderman and his amazing friends and

[Rob]: they called him dormammu and that but i know in the marvel movie

[Guido]: Right, becomes Doma.

[Rob]: drctor strange they call them dormammu yeah

[Guido]: Yeah, Not sure. Well, this question leads us to Earth, Seven, nine, one, two, one,

[Guido]: eight, Eth, seventy, nine, twelve, Eighteen is where we are when we find out if

[Guido]: Doctor Strange had been a disciple of Domama, what would have happened and in that

[Guido]: earth,

[Guido]: same origin story happens. Only the difference is that Morto is not just trying to

[Guido]: defeat the ancient one. Dormamu actually tells him to befriend Doctor Strange

[Guido]: instead, so based on this, he gives Strange back the use of his hands, though he then

[Guido]: calls in a favor. For that starts working with Strange, who's just corrupted by the

[Guido]: power of being a rich surgeon.

[Rob]: very daniel devil and daniel webster there right

[Guido]: Yes, it is, although he, like Strange leans into the nastiness, which will talk a lot

[Guido]: about. so he gets seduced by Umar Dor Mau's sister. Meanwhile, Ancient One is

[Guido]: assembling a team of people to try to protect. I guess the universe he tries to get

[Guido]: Doctor Doom fails to do so, ends up with a bunch of people who I don't know who they

[Guido]: are. with the exception of Doctor Druid and Agath Haarkness,

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: and then four other different mystics and people.

[Rob]: very miscellaneous people

[Guido]: Yes, along with Wong and Victoria Bentley. Meanwhile, there's this stuff with

[Guido]: eternity and the Eye of Agamoto. They give Strange the eye of Agamoto ▁ultimately,

[Guido]: realizing that the only way to defeat him is to divide him from Dormau. I suspect,

[Guido]: though I'm making greater sense of their plan than I think they do. And then Dormu

[Guido]: decides that Strange and Umar are too powerful, and in a battle turns out Strange

[Rob]: mm

[Guido]: is actually Dormamu's lens to amplify his powers to beat eternity, and Strange gets

[Guido]: to choose in that moment whether he's there for good or evil, and chooses now good,

[Guido]: and comes back and wears Morto's outfit

[Rob]: yeah very confusing

[Guido]: to become Doctor Strange, And I think that's the summary of Earth Seven nine, twelve,

[Guido]: eighteen, But when we talk about it, maybe there's other stuff I missed.

[Rob]: yes and i wasn't familiar with umar dorma mo's sister and i was wondering do you

[Rob]: think their parents are du mam and do dad do

[Guido]: Oh, my

[Rob]: that's

[Guido]: God, Okay, let's move on now. What was your background with Doctor Strangere?

[Rob]: well

[Rob]: not a character i was as familiar with now we've covered him a bit on the podcast

[Rob]: before a little bit as a more peripheral character in iliana rasputin's

[Guido]: Yes,

[Rob]: story

[Rob]: and of course i know him from the mc

[Rob]: but before that i almost never read him and a lot of my introduction to these

[Rob]: characters were from the saturday morning cartoons and i don't really think he was

[Rob]: ever really heavily featured at least in those

[Guido]: y,

[Rob]: how about you yeah or

[Guido]: mine Is

[Rob]: do you do what yeah i don't think he was really around then maybe he was a little

[Rob]: do you do what yeah i don't think he was really around then maybe he was a little

[Rob]: had fallen maybe he was the magic and children they didn't want to have him in like

[Rob]: had fallen maybe he was the magic and children they didn't want to have him in like

[Rob]: cartoons there

[Rob]: cartoons there

[Guido]: he shows up briefly like in the Phoenix Saga, He's in one of those many

[Rob]: oh okay

[Guido]: montages, like sort of feeling the effects of the Phoenix Aga in the animated series.

[Guido]: So yeah, he shows up occasionally, but no, he is not featured. From what I can

[Guido]: remember, Doctor Strange,

[Guido]: I never

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: read. Certainly the classic stuff, the Bronze Age stuff into the eighties, Soer

[Guido]: Supreme, I never read it because it was nothing I was ever too interested in. I'm not

[Guido]: too familiar with the world.

[Guido]: I

[Guido]: read Doctor Strange, probably starting in the mid two thousands.

[Guido]: In terms of his solo stuff. Prior to that, I knew him, of course, from events from

[Guido]: Infinity Warren. For any gauntlet he plays a role in, then into Hickman's Avengers.

[Guido]: Of course, he plays a major role, and so then I read some of his The Last Days of

[Guido]: Magic, and his solo title from the probably two thousand tens onward.

[Guido]: So

[Guido]: and I haven't gone back. I went back to visit some of the nineties, cause it's

[Guido]: strange

[Guido]: and

[Guido]: you know I'm looking at some of the midnightn stuff and I've been getting into more

[Guido]: of the dark hold stuff since one division, but I've never really gone back and done

[Guido]: a. a full reading certainly

[Rob]: is

[Guido]: of his sixties and seventies stuff, and barely of the eighties and nineties, So Yeah,

[Guido]: my familiarity is not much more than you.

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: It's I know his modern last fifteen years history really well, but I don't know the

[Guido]: stuff well.

[Rob]: and in the sixties and seventies too he seemed to be really popular with musicians

[Rob]: probably because of the trippy imagery mark bullet and t rex have a song where they

[Rob]: mention him and i think he's mentioned in pink's floyd kind of stuff a lot of

[Rob]: prague rock stuff definitely all those steve ditko imagery i guess that that

[Rob]: occulted definitely

[Rob]: grown in popularity during that time

[Guido]: Yeah, I think it's the occult mix with some of the imagery and then certainly the

[Guido]: name helps.

[Guido]: It is a great

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: name. So

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: that helps with a lot.

[Rob]: on a mountain range i'm doctor strange that's what mark bown says

[Rob]: well let's open our eyes of agam and journey back to the origins of the story

[Rob]: thank you stan it's appropriate we just heard stan because we got lots of stanley

[Rob]: for you coming up right now going back to strange tales volume one issue number one

[Rob]: ten from july nineteen sixty three this is doctor strange master of black magic

[Guido]: This is pencilled by Steve Dickco, who also to the inking color D by Stan Goldberg,

[Guido]: lettered by Terry Snx, edited by Stan Lee, and it is written by Stan Lee and we read

[Guido]: it. It is the first Doctor Strange, and I think we should couple it with our next

[Guido]: one,

[Rob]: yes and that is strange tales volume one issue number one fifteen

[Rob]: the origin of doctor strange from december nineteen sixty three

[Guido]: and this is now written by Stan and Steve, pencilled by Steve,

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: who also did the inking colored by Sangolberg, letter by Samros, and edited by

[Guido]: Stanley. And so this is now the first origin of Doctor Strange. It's a few issues

[Guido]: later.

[Rob]: yes i love that

[Guido]: So,

[Rob]: they even say on the first page

[Rob]: a lot of readers wrote into us and saying we love this doctor strange character but

[Rob]: we have no idea what his origin is so we threw this eight page together

[Guido]: but I think that is B. S. I think that

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: is B. S. I. I, especially, you know we talked about this when we were reading some

[Guido]: early Batman for their recent else Worldor's episode, Because it's clear that they

[Guido]: introduc these characters and didn't want the Origin Didn't know if they'd stick.

[Guido]: Like, just really wanted to jump into the story so that I think it's a great uh,

[Guido]: marketing thing there, part of the Marvel myth Magic,

[Rob]: are you saying stan made something up that didn't i don't i don't know about this

[Guido]: cause, I, I love that there's like this three paragraph editors

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: note on the cover of that origin like, like they were already trying to do this, And

[Guido]: then all these letters came and they want to respond to readers and give them what

[Guido]: they want And it's like I think you're foolish of there, but

[Guido]: the uh. The other thing I'll say is the opening, since we're on these uh, opening

[Guido]: editor's notes. There's that opening editors note, I guess of, on the scroll of his

[Guido]: first appearance,

[Guido]: where it says men call him Doctor Strange. Never have you known his like. It is a

[Guido]: great pleasure and privilege for the editors of Strange Tales present Quitee Ly, and

[Guido]: without fanfare, the first of a

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: new series based upon a different kind of superhero, Doctor Strange, Master of Black

[Guido]: Magic, Though it's

[Rob]: mm

[Guido]: ironic that they're like using literally, Fanfare, right, it's literally

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: this giants scroll, opening the page and saying, Without fanvererso. I just thought

[Guido]: that was a funny detail as

[Rob]: totally

[Guido]: we read this. Probably for my first time. What did you think?

[Rob]: yeah and my first time too and what's interesting is they call him a different kind

[Rob]: of superhero but he's not doing a lot of superhero

[Rob]: things at least in this very first if she was a little closer to an east a very

[Guido]: Totally?

[Rob]: light ec comic

[Guido]: It's very clear that this is I in a vein of strange tales, which is you know. that's

[Guido]: kind of anthology horror short story set up stuff. But yeah, for sure, you know the

[Guido]: fact that he's just sort of helping this person sleep better. And it turns out this

[Guido]: person you know screwed over a lot of people in business and was feeling guilty about

[Guido]: it. It's It's a funny thing that that's the story. although, of course with

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: that he ends up in the nightmare dimension encounters nightmare, and there's cool

[Guido]: visuals, but it's basically just that.

[Rob]: yeah which we were shocked by that nightmare also has his first appearance in dr

[Rob]: strains first appearance especially because that's a character we've yet to see in

[Rob]: the mcu u he's often been rumored about and he's been such a big character so it's

[Rob]: interesting that he has this he's all you know in shadows but he's got the the

[Rob]: green suit that we know

[Guido]: Yeah, I think it's only a matter of time before we see him. But yeah, I was also

[Guido]: surprised that they were introduced together

[Rob]: h

[Guido]: and then into the Origin. It's a clever origin. It, you know. it's It's like a lot of

[Guido]: the marble origins. The you know, create this character with a lot of personality.

[Guido]: It's very Tony Stark, ish, uh, readed, Richards, ish, In Reed's case, he's not a

[Guido]: reluctant hero, but Intonis is a little bit, and this one he is very much so a

[Guido]: reluctant hero.

[Guido]: So it's what's strange? What surprised me about his origin.

[Rob]: no if i intended

[Guido]: I, I have to pick a new word,

[Guido]: Um, or I'm going to sound like you,

[Guido]: but

[Guido]: he, I know that his characterization is that he iss selfish and self centered, and

[Guido]: that's going to come up a lot in what we read today.

[Rob]: is

[Guido]: It comes up a lot in even the Mcu depictions to the extent that they like to make

[Guido]: people bad, which is not a great extent. But

[Guido]: I was really surprised that he in fact

[Guido]: doesn't

[Guido]: really embrace becoming Doctor Strange. That it's

[Rob]: h

[Guido]: more that he gets into this conflict with Morto, that he ends up needing to learn the

[Guido]: spells to warn the ancient one. That

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: surprised me.

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: I, I thought there would be a change of heart, change of consciousness moment, and

[Guido]: there's actually not, which is probably for the better. And why most of the stories

[Guido]: have him as a jerk. Then

[Rob]: yeah

[Rob]: and i think some of that goes back to that he's more really definitely more dis

[Rob]: likable here in this comic or the than he is in the mcu

[Rob]: he's really just being a surgeon for the money while in the

[Rob]: movies you kind of get while he's doing it because he wants to be the best and here

[Rob]: it's definitely super capitalist and it makes sense that we wouldn't see that in

[Rob]: the movies made by a big giant capitalist corporation but i think to your point

[Rob]: there like he's not jumping to save the ancient one you know out of the goodness of

[Rob]: his heart as much as he he wants to he uncovers this plot because he's not as good

[Rob]: of a person to begin with

[Guido]: yeah, so it that that's an interesting aspect to it. The art of course is is awesome.

[Guido]: I mean, you know the faces I don't love the faces. Everyone's also much older than

[Guido]: they go on to be depicted, which is is not a problem inherently, but they look unlike

[Guido]: the characters we're familiar with both mortal and strange are just aged. much older.

[Rob]: the one little detail there that i like is that when we see dr strange in the final

[Rob]: panel of one fifteen he has the white streaks in his hair because time there's been

[Rob]: so much time past since he has

[Guido]: Way's learning right.

[Rob]: been studying which is a nice little feature like that that's such a small detail

[Rob]: that they added in and clearly they could have just had him learn everything he

[Rob]: needs to know in a matter of months but they really make it clear that it it is

[Rob]: years

[Guido]: Yeah, like, I guess I have that flexibility since they're telling the origin after

[Guido]: his debut, so it can be set any amount of time

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: prior to what we're reading from him.

[Guido]: So yeah, it's it's fun. It's a fun read. Let's bring

[Rob]: at

[Guido]: in one other of these really

[Rob]: op

[Guido]: classic Silver age books to our discussion.

[Rob]: i was gonna ask just before right before we do and you because you were talking

[Rob]: about the art do you think that in his very first appearance in one ten that doctor

[Rob]: strange is supposed to be asian american and that they then changed it because that

[Rob]: seems to be how he is drawn

[Guido]: I don't know, I. I think what you'd have to do to draw that conclusion and I'm sure

[Guido]: there are much smarter people who have done this is. you'd have to look at Dico's

[Guido]: Arch from that moment in sixty three and see how he draws faces to tell what he's

[Guido]: drawing. Because I could also see him drawing.

[Guido]: I don't know you know, but some of those character actor, classic Hollywood people

[Guido]: who who have very

[Guido]: uh, almond shaped eyes and very arched eyebrows that almost give a mystical

[Guido]: appearance, but are are are not,

[Guido]: are not asian in ethnicity or descent or ancestry. So yeah, I'm I'm not sure. I doubt

[Guido]: it. I would think we'd know that if that were the case, but

[Rob]: well and some of it

[Guido]: yeah,

[Rob]: is because all of dio's people don't look like real people anyway

[Guido]: Mhm,

[Rob]: too their faces are always kind of distorted so you could

[Guido]: lawence

[Rob]: definitely read it either way

[Guido]: and stranger's face is. Def. Definitely looks different from like the guy whose face

[Guido]: is is having the nightmares, for sure, but I think it's more to to indicate some

[Guido]: mysticism, mystical magical nature, But maybe

[Rob]: yeah and he's more fully depicted in these later stranger strange tales is issues

[Rob]: but that might be because they then knew that this character was popular and i

[Rob]: would imagine his very first appearance was maybe a little rushed they just needed

[Rob]: to round out the book

[Guido]: yeah,

[Rob]: hm

[Guido]: so let's go to the the third and final Origin story issue

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: we read.

[Rob]: that is strange tales volume one issue number one hundred twenty six from november

[Rob]: nineteen sixty four and it is the domain of the dread dormammu

[Guido]: So this is pretty much the same team. It's written by Stan. The art is all by Steve.

[Guido]: It's lettered by Ai Simac and edited by Stan. I will say that the credits, in fact,

[Guido]: in the issue are written by Stanley Prince of Pressdigitators which

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: I have no idea what that word is, but Prince of Prestig, diititors, illustrated by

[Guido]: Steve Deco, Lord of the Leger Domain, and lettered by Arti Simek Nabab of Necromany,

[Guido]: So they're like going for all sorts of

[Rob]: i don't know if i've already got the short end of the stick there that

[Guido]: mystical, Uh other worlddly, I'm curious if Prested digitators or ledgerd demain are

[Guido]: existing words since Neckromansi is, but I don't know what Nabab is, either that Arti

[Rob]: no

[Guido]: is being called, so Yeah, lots of uh word play there as we enter the. Domain of the

[Guido]: Dread Dormau,

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: and this issue was real fun be cause you get the trippy art all over. You

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: get the what's cool about the art? Is it this? this art here? since I guess, since

[Guido]: it's early Dic,

[Guido]: it's not quite as trippy as I think. some of the later strange

[Rob]: is

[Guido]: stuff is, or even as trippy as some of like the Stranko, psychedelic stuff is. But

[Guido]: what's so cool is the way he depicts the dimensions and the

[Rob]: right

[Guido]: aspects of the dimensions. They're very physical, so even though strange is in this

[Guido]: completely abstracted almost dolly painting world,

[Rob]: yes very dolly

[Guido]: there are like these three dimensional cubes or pyramids or these swirling things,

[Guido]: and he goes in and out of different shapes and Dormamus's just sort of sitting on the

[Guido]: throne in there. But then there's all sorts of like curves and windows, and so it it.

[Guido]: There's a physicalicality to the space which I think is what makes it really really

[Guido]: cool to look at.

[Rob]: mhm

[Rob]: yeah very very much a and i think part of that helps because

[Rob]: i think a battle just between him and strange would not necessarily make the most

[Rob]: sense so it almost is like the villain is the world itself and he has lots of other

[Rob]: it actually reminded me a lot of skeletons minions in the masters of the universe

[Rob]: movie or to

[Guido]: Yeah,

[Rob]: a mom who just like keeps sending them out and then when they fail like he punishes

[Rob]: them and sends them to limbo

[Guido]: he puts them in like a little box and binds them with the bands

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: of Citraac,

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: So yeah, the Crimson Cer juggernaut stuff. So

[Rob]: oh yes i thought that was the same thing but i wasn't one hundred percent sure

[Guido]: no, it is the the, The demon, or of God, or sit? whatever Citerac is that uh, imbused

[Guido]: juggernaut with his powers is the same as the crimson bands of Citarac that show

[Rob]: and

[Guido]: up in Doctor Strange.

[Rob]: i was reading too this might go back to your previous stand bs thing but i was

[Rob]: seeing that dorma was actually mentioned earlier he's mentioned in issue one

[Rob]: fifteen that we just talked about

[Guido]: Yeah, they invoke him a few times.

[Rob]: but that yeah they invoked him and stan said to like paraphrase him all these

[Rob]: people were writing in saying that name is just so cool who is who is the dread

[Rob]: door mamo and then he was like oh well we got to put him on the page so again that

[Rob]: might may not actually have existed but it is interesting they had already used the

[Rob]: name and maybe they thought wow this really is a cool name let's put a cool

[Rob]: character to it and these are really cool character design

[Guido]: It is it is. It's very unusual even if you think about nineteen sixty three, and even

[Guido]: with all of Dc's Silverge stuff, which I'm no expert on, but I can't think of someone

[Guido]: who looks like Dormao. So it was very original at the time.

[Guido]: And then, of course this also introduces Cla. and I think Claa has a a great design.

[Guido]: Also,

[Guido]: it's it's one of

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: those designs that whiles you know, while she's being forced

[Rob]: it

[Guido]: to wear like thah, high boots and heels and pink, it still just looks so cool be

[Guido]: cause there's like stars all over it. But then there's all the black elements and our

[Guido]: hair is just very twisted.

[Rob]: she's very adam is and she there's like a sailor moon kind of vibe that i get from

[Guido]: Yeah is very proanime. Yeah,

[Rob]: her

[Guido]: so it was fun to see

[Rob]: well

[Guido]: this introduction. I don't have much more to say about it.

[Rob]: yeah no

[Rob]: well we'll we'll jump in a little deeper into the dark end of the dark dimension as

[Rob]: we explore multiversity

[Rob]: good

[Rob]: and we as those leading this meeting of the council dear watchers we are asking the

[Rob]: question what if dr strange had been a disciple of dormammu that's from what if

[Rob]: volume on issue number eighteen from december nineteen seventy nine

[Guido]: And so again, this is Earth Seven, nine, twelve, eighteen. So a little background on

[Guido]: O credits Real quick. This is written by Peter Gillis, Pencill by Tom Sutin, inked by

[Guido]: Bruce Patterson, colored by Gnous wine, lettered by Tom Orzkowski edited by Mark

[Guido]: Gruin, Wald, it is, and ▁jim Shooter is credited as the watcher, Of course, but he is

[Guido]: just the editor in chief of the time. So

[Guido]: this issue is. Peter Gillis was very big in the seventies and eighties, So this is

[Guido]: early in his career, but he Ros wrote close to two hundred titles. He wrote on some

[Guido]: of the big titles. He would do fill in little stories on Capsain, America On Halk,

[Guido]: wrote a bunch of what ifs. He then wrote Doctor Strange in The Defenders and then

[Guido]: wrote the end of his. This is Now After The. What if? He wrote the end of his volume,

[Guido]: too, Era, into Strange Tales and into The Sorcer Supreme That we actually also read

[Guido]: to day. So Gillis is big at Marvel Big in the the Bronze Age Horror Mystical

[Guido]: characters, And then Tom Sutton had pencilled a bunch of Bronze Age about a hundred

[Guido]: issues or so for Marvel and the behind the scenes on This isn't too interesting. But

[Guido]: Peter Gillis told back issue that Doctor Strange was his favorite character barn, and

[Guido]: if he were told that he could write one and only core Marvel character, it would be

[Guido]: The Doctor and he was the one who pushed for Tom Sutton as the artist because he

[Guido]: thought he would do a fantastic Doctor Strange, And Gillis thinks he did not

[Guido]: disappoint.

[Guido]: So that is some background on this issue, so let's start with overall thoughts. What

[Guido]: do you think?

[Rob]: i think it gets overall i thought it got off to a really super promising start it's

[Rob]: a really great recap of his origin story and then the what if moment i think is

[Rob]: very strong and then i think it gets a bit dogged down in

[Rob]: some kind of confusing plots and dr strange is trying to backstab dormammu and

[Rob]: dorma mou's sisters trying to backs' both of them and

[Rob]: then you've got this council of these other characters who aren't really super

[Rob]: defined as you said except for a few that we know and it all gets a little bit

[Rob]: messy and kind of just ends in a big giant fight scene that we could have have seen

[Rob]: an mcu kind of stuff

[Guido]: Yeah, I think there's just yeah. I think there's too much in it. It's dense because

[Guido]: even

[Guido]: he has that entire affair with Umar, and that

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: really ends up meaning nothing like that doesn't really matter for the plot. For a

[Guido]: long time, I thought like Umar was going to turn strange against Dormau. but that is

[Guido]: not what ends up happening. So that's too much plot. And then we even get like the

[Guido]: Origin of the Eye of Agamato in here, and it's like that's not that interesting.

[Guido]: Like, why did you just stop the pace of the action to give us the whole story of the

[Guido]: Eye of Agamato, even though that device is important in this story? Like the history

[Guido]: of that device is not important. So, yeah, I think there's too much in here and some

[Guido]: of it is definitely too dense and and trippy, or or dense in a not good way, like the

[Guido]: whole dormau using Strange as the lens to like focus his powers. And then as that

[Guido]: lends, he gets to choose dormau or eternity, good or evil. Like that doesn't really

[Guido]: make sense. I'm okay with things not making sense if they're really fun, but this is

[Rob]: yeah i i think it could have been more trippy in that regard and you would have not

[Guido]: not so fun.

[Rob]: had these questions of like oh what's happening it it i think is enty enough in

[Rob]: some way the visuals often are but really not the story telling not the writing

[Guido]: Yeah, I, also, it's one of the examples of a what if where. I

[Guido]: wonder if it was conceived as something larger

[Rob]: is is

[Guido]: because it definitely feels like it needed more room to breathe. That either needed

[Guido]: really good editing or it needed a bigger issue

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: or even two issues to tell the story. And

[Rob]: because this unfortunately named council of white magicians not not the best name

[Rob]: there and i think they

[Guido]: though they are not all white magicians, I will say so so yeah,

[Rob]: yes well they they they have the one big battle and then doctor druid and this one

[Rob]: suffering from

[Rob]: who who seen ganges so i didn't even know the two of them screw things up by

[Rob]: starting to chance something else and then that breaks it but then we kind of just

[Rob]: go back you know then we have a little bit more plot and then we basically go back

[Rob]: to them all again and have like the exact same battle a second time i feel like the

[Rob]: movies sometimes do this too where oh they do this big battle and then they think

[Rob]: oh we want more of that but it just feels repetitive

[Guido]: yeah,

[Guido]: agree. A lot of it doesn't pay off,

[Rob]: i do

[Guido]: so

[Rob]: think there's some really great i mean peter delis was talking about tom sudan's

[Rob]: art i do think there is some really great art i think the art is a little better

[Rob]: than the actual writing here there's that really great splash page when strang is

[Rob]: fighting eternity and dorma and he's kind of split in both and you see like the

[Rob]: fire

[Guido]: Mhm,

[Rob]: on one side and the cold of of space on the other side and there's just overall

[Rob]: there's always something swirling the frames are super filled but it never seems

[Rob]: overly busy so i i definitely did love the art

[Guido]: and he has a lot of lines and shading, so it has that very very Bronze Age look that

[Guido]: a lot of people are drawn to, and was used in a lot of the horror. And then he does

[Guido]: some of the psychedelic stuff, like as Strange falls into that, The whatever the

[Guido]: dimension that eternity would be called the non dimensioned dimension. And and then,

[Guido]: in some pages eternity occupies more than one panel. So yeah, he does some cool stuff

[Guido]: and

[Guido]: dor mam's plan here like that's, the other thing. So if we go into the sort of

[Guido]: divergence point in this, what if I don't totally get it, Because all it is like I

[Guido]: was actually reading the whole origin and thinking, Oh, like that. that's that's

[Guido]: interesting. Okay, where are they going to twist it now? Or how are they going to

[Guido]: make him corrupted? But in fact all it is is that.

[Guido]: Uh, Dormamu just says that he wants Morto to give him what he wants Like. So does

[Guido]: Dormau see this potential future? I guess he's

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: decided he's going to use him in this world. So the point of divergence is first of

[Guido]: all, actually prior to this, Right, because Dormamu has to, there has to be something

[Guido]: different about Dormau for this to be the chain of events and then just this idea

[Guido]: that Morto gives them what he wants and so he stays at a jerk and therefore becomes

[Guido]: corrupt.

[Rob]: it it felt like again they were maybe attempting too much because i think what

[Rob]: would have really been effective is where and that's why i thought this started off

[Rob]: really strong which is moda is going to provide the quick solution to

[Guido]: Right,

[Rob]: strange he heals his hands and strange then leaves and doesn't follow doesn't learn

[Rob]: magic he goes back to being a surgeon but he's then sued for malpractice his career

[Rob]: starts falling apart for other reasons which is all kind of stuff we're going to

[Rob]: see in something else we're going to talk about today but then and then morda's and

[Rob]: says okay well now i'm going to teach you magic and that's how you're gonna get

[Rob]: back at all these people there was that monkey's paw kind of thing and i think if

[Rob]: they had just stuck with that it not overloaded it with adding all these other

[Rob]: magicians in and kept it just been now he's gonna train him in the evil and he that

[Rob]: would have probably been a lot stronger to me and then you get rid of the doctor

[Rob]: strains trying to double cross your mauka stuff

[Guido]: Yeah, I agree. Another good example of that I'm just flipping through is the Doctor

[Guido]: Doom encounter. I

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: actually was really excited when I saw this and was like, Oh, this is going to be

[Guido]: interesting, but all it is is it'. I don't. I have no idea why Gillis did this.

[Rob]: no

[Guido]: It's one page of doom, and the ancient one is assembling this group of white good

[Guido]: healing magicians and comes to doom and tries to bargain with him by saying, I'll

[Guido]: give you back your face if you come join me And he says No, He. He relies only on

[Guido]: himself and that's it. So it's just. I guess it's just meant to be a fun cameo, but I

[Rob]: but then they remove his mask and he's not scarred so i was a little confused by

[Guido]: want more from it.

[Guido]: That's it was it was he was. He was showing him what he could have Is how I took

[Rob]: that

[Rob]: oh that that i that didn't really re read for me there

[Guido]: that.

[Guido]: the ancient one was saying. Look, I can free you from this curse. I'll show you and

[Guido]: takes his mask off and shows them.

[Rob]: yeah and and yeah once we do meet these other magicians most of them get almost no

[Rob]: dialogue i think a at the harkness has about two lines so and yeah i did not know

[Rob]: who most of them were so it i want those pages did not really resonate with me

[Rob]: because they just i didn't i didn't have any connection to those characters

[Guido]: Yeah, Well, and it's brief and then even.

[Guido]: Yeah, like I said in the summary, Even the way that they then give

[Guido]: Strange the eye of Agamoto.

[Guido]: It's it's never clear that that is their plan, and

[Rob]: is

[Guido]: their plan is to divide them. It's inferred, which I don't mind a narrative that you

[Guido]: have to infer a lot

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: from, But I almost feel like there was something cut out of this

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: because it.

[Guido]: It's never made obvious that that's what's going to happen. And then you know.

[Guido]: another absurd sort of thing like that is when the ancient one is going to sacrifice

[Guido]: himself. Too strange. Who's at evil with the eye and

[Guido]: strange through the eye of Agamado, is able to see that the ancient one is actually

[Guido]: good, and

[Rob]: is

[Guido]: that's what then inspires him to choose good when he becomes the lens for Dormau.

[Guido]: So it's like it's like a lot of esoteric stuff that's just not well developed. And

[Guido]: then why is he in morto'sfit, At the end,

[Rob]: that is such a strange thing cause yeah on the very last panel we have the watcher

[Rob]: coming back on panel doing his his summation narration and then we see strange as

[Rob]: dressed in baron morda's outfit i'd have no idea

[Guido]: I mean, I guess it's because he wore the strange outfit

[Guido]: while he was evil, and so he wants to distinguish himself, But like then

[Rob]: yes as evil

[Rob]: but bere

[Guido]: they should have just

[Guido]: right. They should have just done a new design exactly. He should just been some

[Guido]: other strange that we closed out with like

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: some fun, unique design. you have gotten to do. So

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: this earth, seventy nine, twelve Eighteen has never been revisited before You want to

[Guido]: go back to it.

[Rob]: i don't think so because like so many other what ifs that it does end kind of back

[Rob]: to the status quo more or less where he is the good sorcerer or supreme

[Rob]: i don't see why we would want to go back to this earth when earth six one six is

[Rob]: kind of accomplishing the same thing

[Guido]: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I do not need to go back for sure.

[Rob]: well i'm gonna throw on my beren moorea costume and summon up some pondering

[Rob]: possibilities

[Rob]: so gto we have a comic and a t v show this week to discuss how did you come up with

[Rob]: this list of possibilities

[Guido]: Well, it was. It was harder than usual because of not having the deep, long time

[Guido]: knowledge of strange, and so

[Guido]: I was looking for strange being corrupted or evil. Ideally with Drmau's

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: involvement. Since so much of the plot in this alternate universe and it was hard to

[Guido]: find. he. He goes up against Dormau a bit, but doesn't again encounter anything that

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: looks like the that we saw and strange,

[Guido]: you know, dies and comes back and makes tough choices, But he doesn't quite become

[Guido]: evil in the way that I think he' evil. In what if he never corrupted to that extent,

[Guido]: and certainly never by his own uh, character trait motivations, which I was also

[Guido]: looking to see like Okay, Does any onee ever read lean into his uh selfishness as a

[Guido]: as a plot device, I even looked up through againn Secret Wars, because he, you know,

[Guido]: makes a deal for his entire soul to get the The Book of Blood or, or whatever it's

[Guido]: called, so that he can try to stop these incursions during the Hickman run, but none

[Guido]: of it felt like a close enough echo, so

[Guido]: instead. I

[Guido]: found a good Dormu Strange battle that seemed linked in more ways than one. And then

[Guido]: you actually suggested the Whatff episode. So let's start with a comic.

[Rob]: yes so that is doctor strange sorcerer supreme volume one issue one from november

[Rob]: nineteen eighty eight and this story is called love is the spell the spell is death

[Guido]: And it's written by Peter Gillis, So that was an important connection here. pencilled

[Guido]: by Richard Case, inked by Randy Emmbern, colored by Bob Sharon, lettered by Dannis

[Guido]: Tang, and edited by Karl Potts, So this is the launch of the Sorcer Supreme title.

[Guido]: Doctor Strange had a solo title called Doctor Strange. It was volume two of Doctor

[Guido]: Strange that ended, Actually,

[Guido]: like the year or two before that, and then and Peter Gillis wrote the end of that.

[Guido]: Then he carried into Strange Tales volume, too, and was the back up stories in that

[Guido]: Peter Gilll is also writing. And then this was the big launch of what most modern

[Guido]: Aracomic fans know of Strange, the Source or Supreme Titlecause. It goes on into well

[Guido]: into the nineties.

[Guido]: So and we read it because he's fighting Dormamou. Dormamu ends up

[Guido]: taking over a part of his soul, while he's like moving through these dark dimensions

[Guido]: trying to fix different things or whatever, And so these first few issues of Sorcer

[Guido]: are supreme. Dormame is actually Doctor Strange, Source or Supreme, and Doctor

[Guido]: Strange is sort of stuck on the astroplane or whatever.

[Rob]: mhm

[Guido]: So how did you enjoy it?

[Rob]: well i i like a lot of the what if there's a lot of plots in this

[Guido]: Yes,

[Rob]: there's a lot going on

[Guido]: there is.

[Rob]: i i think it could have benefited from a little bit of a streamline

[Rob]: but

[Rob]: i i i thought it was okay i think again like there's so many great visuals from

[Rob]: richard ager case here i think i guess maybe that's one of the great things about

[Rob]: doing a doctor strange is you've got these built in visuals and

[Guido]: Yeah. If it looks good, you can get away with a lot more.

[Rob]: maybe the hard yeah and maybe the hard part of doctor strange because he's the

[Rob]: writing because you can really easily be bogged down by magic mumbo jumbo and rules

[Rob]: and stuff like that

[Guido]: Well, it is for sure, overwritten that is, without a doubt, that is really long.

[Guido]: Text box's dialogue boxes, narration. It is like taking a page out of some of the

[Guido]: worst offenss of Chris Claremon's book.

[Guido]: It,

[Guido]: and that really waitights it down in a way. I mean. it's It's really cool. It's

[Guido]: actually kind of a fascinating idea because it starts off with this

[Guido]: televised funeral of Doctor Strange

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: that you're watching, and I even love the editor's note that says you didn't see this

[Guido]: in Secret wars too, But keep reading because it turns out it's fake, but

[Rob]: listen

[Guido]: we never even saw that fakeness. So it's not even like we

[Guido]: that that we learned this and then it's reckoned to have been a faked death. It's

[Guido]: like we didn't even know that that happened,

[Rob]: is

[Guido]: which is really cool

[Guido]: and and the

[Guido]: Ing, for it is interesting. But then there's also just pages upon pages, summarizing

[Guido]: the end of volume two of his run with The Alien that wants to take over.

[Rob]: yes an an

[Guido]: And and then Ca and

[Rob]: alien sorcerer right right there i you lost me on alien sorcerer

[Guido]: I, Doctor Strange encounters Aliens A good amount, and I never like that. It. It

[Guido]: fuses two things that I'm lukewarm on, which is the cosmic and the magic, And so it

[Guido]: really doesn't work. But then you even stopp the narrative to go through clea's

[Guido]: ascent to leave the dark dimension, so it just keeps sort of stalling out like, I

[Guido]: guess, Because it's an issue one. They wanted to reintroduce and make

[Rob]: six

[Guido]: sure people knew where it was, but they should have just leaped in and and hoped for

[Guido]: the best, because I would have preferred the story of just

[Guido]: strange in Dormau and not have it be weighted down by all this other stuff.

[Rob]: yeah you know i'm thinking on a lot of the plot here and this is a weird connection

[Rob]: but you and i are right now rewatching one of our favorite things which is twin

[Rob]: peaks the return and there's actually some similarities in the plot here where in

[Rob]: two imps the return bob the evil spirit has taken over cooper's body and has become

[Rob]: cooper and then cooper's spirit is basically like flying all around and then

[Rob]: inhabits this other body and that's a little bit of what we actually get here where

[Rob]: dorma has taken over stranger's body and then the real strange his essence is

[Rob]: flying around and then what happens is it falls into my favorite part of the entire

[Rob]: comic is that he inhabits a rat

[Guido]: Oh my God, that is. I was waiting for us to discuss that. It is so fun because it

[Guido]: continues into the next issue, so it is so amazing to me that there is strange the

[Guido]: rat,

[Guido]: and yeah, I, I could see that the strange the rat thing and a few other elements

[Guido]: being a little twin Iian, Because even Dormamu talks about how he was hiding behind

[Guido]: stranger's eye patch

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: in his eye socket. That's where he started to like plant his dark seed, so that as

[Guido]: strange was going and doing all this stuff Dormu could slowly take over like that is

[Guido]: just weird in a great way where it's like that makes no sense and is a little

[Rob]: yes and that's a very twin peaks element right there yeah totally yeah

[Guido]: grotesque.

[Guido]: So yeah, there's that's the thing and I thought this about the the What if, also, and

[Guido]: obviously this is. you know, almost ten years after the What if, And so Gils's

[Guido]: writing has has pro, probably strengthened. Most people get stronger over their

[Guido]: career. I'm not a gi's expert at all, but he has really neat interesting ideas. I. I

[Guido]: just think the execution needs a better editoring partner or something. to pace it

[Guido]: out differently, but the ideas are interesting.

[Rob]: but i do love yeah and i mean this ending is dorma is laughing and do you see his

[Rob]: laughter and the narration says and the mental laughter echoes through the air of

[Rob]: the city and through this through the bones of one very scared very sick little rat

[Rob]: shivering in the darkness and we got

[Guido]: I know

[Rob]: this great image of the rat all the way down in corner left and most of the panel

[Rob]: being taken up by this big new york city kind of subway tunnel

[Guido]: the Morloc's tunnel. Actually

[Rob]: the morlocks tunnel yeah

[Guido]: Strange, Says it's the Morlock tunnel, but it's been evacuated thanks to the Mutant

[Guido]: massacre, But yeah and there's cool visuals too, with the Uh, with Dormu as Doctor

[Guido]: Strange, I mean, I think that is

[Rob]: this is

[Guido]: just a great look.

[Guido]: That's if it's not a marvel legend, which we will have to ask Friend of the show,

[Guido]: Ethan, and make

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: mine an amalgam. if it is already a Marvel Egen, Because if it's not then we're going

[Guido]: to need a campaign for it cause it's a very cool look.

[Rob]: or or definitely you could probably rip someone's head off and put it on someone

[Guido]: That's true. If there is a dormammo, you could just take

[Rob]: else's body

[Guido]: Dormaer's head and put it on a strange bu dy, But I love even when he's just sitting

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: in the chair and he's like holding the earth in in

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: his hand.

[Guido]: There's there's cool images. The cover, of course, is really neat with Uh dorma and

[Guido]: do fighting Doctor Strange, sort of sucking the life out of him, Dormamo in an outfit

[Guido]: I've never seen before, other than on this cover, that giant purple leotard, But it?

[Rob]: he sometimes sees purple his colors seem to you know got moved from from issue to

[Rob]: issue

[Guido]: Yeah,

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: so it's fun and

[Guido]: let's jump into the next thing we bring in And then we talk about any links to the

[Guido]: We.

[Rob]: yes it seemed like we could not talk about this which is the what if tv show this

[Rob]: is season one episode four from september twenty twenty one and the episode is

[Rob]: entitled what if doctor strange lost his heart instead of his hands

[Guido]: It's written by a C. Bradley, directed by Brian Andrews. This is part of the Disney

[Guido]: Plus series first season, as Rober said, What if and we took this in because of

[Guido]: course it is a story of a corrupted Doctor Strange amassing power and using it for

[Guido]: evil, Not good.

[Rob]: yes i i i i remember being a little lukewarm on this episode the first time i saw

[Rob]: it but actually just rewatching it today i think it's really

[Rob]: pretty strong i think i i'd like the melancholy ending which i often don't like in

[Rob]: kind of these things but i think of all the what ifs that came out i think it was

[Rob]: definitely one of the best and i think because the the what if moment is

[Rob]: not necessarily the clearest because of some of the storytelling they have here but

[Rob]: the overall plot i think does work pretty well but what do you think

[Guido]: I have the opposite experience. I have to say

[Guido]: it When watching it for the first time it was, I think the stando episode. I

[Rob]: hm

[Guido]: think it was the the best episode of the of the series. Watching it this time, I

[Guido]: think, because I've soured on that whole series and it feels

[Guido]: at best bland.

[Guido]: Watching this episode just made me feel like Oh, this is so bland when it could have

[Guido]: been so much more and it's the least blland of the episodes and it's visually really

[Guido]: cool and it is a fun story and it's faithful to the characters, Although I actually

[Guido]: want to talk a little bit more about the character motivation. But yeah, I was. It's

[Guido]: good. It's good and it's definitely one of the best, if not the best of the series.

[Guido]: but I continue to be underwhelmed by that series.

[Rob]: and and really dark i mean i think the darkness really stood out to me i think one

[Rob]: part that's really good that really resonated with me is before we really kind of

[Rob]: get into the plot of dr strange becoming evil and doctor stray is trying to

[Rob]: save rachel mc adams i forgot her character's name and and you

[Guido]: Claire. right,

[Rob]: c

[Guido]: no,

[Rob]: short

[Guido]: cla, as declare as the nurse in Uh, and Defenders night nurse Claire Temple,

[Rob]: it yes that's true that's how memorable the rachel mcadams character is christine

[Rob]: christine is her name

[Guido]: Christine,

[Rob]: christine but

[Rob]: but i that mo that that montage sequence where he's picking her up and he's trying

[Rob]: different things and sometimes she's driving the car and sometimes they go out for

[Rob]: out for pizza and sometimes he doesn't pick her up and every time it ends in her

[Rob]: death it is really striking for an animated show that children are probably

[Rob]: supposed to be a primary audience of and it's just a also great multi verse

[Rob]: storytelling where you can't evade this future and of course then the ancient one

[Rob]: tells us it's because if if christine doesn't die basically the the world is going

[Rob]: to cease to exist so she has to die which has this really interesting tragic

[Rob]: quality to it

[Guido]: Yeah, I like that, and of course I like all the rules It cre it creates and and

[Guido]: builds upon. Uh, you know, they refer to this absolute thing, this this absolute

[Guido]: point in time that can't change, and that's what he wants to change. So I like all

[Guido]: that too.

[Guido]: So the character motivation is something that I notice this time around. I think

[Guido]: because we are doing it in the context of our reading where

[Guido]: I think it.

[Guido]: it's odd.

[Guido]: It's odd because the m c U. strange is not

[Guido]: so selfish, and

[Guido]: so I find it interesting. I guess we can imagine when the ancient one splits them off

[Guido]: into two personalities. I guess we can imagine that that is part of why one gets

[Guido]: corrupted.

[Rob]: eight

[Guido]: It's sort of the dark and light, but I just struggle a little with the idea that like

[Guido]: Strange is going to be quite so motivated to do this. At least in the M, c U version.

[Guido]: it actually would have worked in the comics because it's clear you know. the What if

[Guido]: makes it really clear. The What if issue that we read makes it really clear that like

[Guido]: one slight deviation and this guy would have stayed a power hungry, corruptible

[Guido]: corrupted jerk.

[Guido]: But I, I, I just think it was weird because

[Guido]: even though he's seemingly doing it for love like he's ▁ultimately, destroying people

[Guido]: in the universe. And

[Rob]: yes and i think that's part of the problem i mean listen we couldn't even remember

[Rob]: rachel mcadams character's name so

[Rob]: do we really are we really supposed to believe that these characters are so deeply

[Rob]: in love even going back to the do strange movie they don't fully always seem to

[Rob]: have that romantic relationship if this was cap and peggy like you could totally

[Rob]: maybe see some of this motivation but it doesn't really it feels definitely a

[Rob]: little force that he has all the that he's as you said being so selfish that he's

[Rob]: doing this

[Guido]: yeah, so

[Guido]: I don't think it.

[Guido]: Yeah, I don't think it adds to the character or deepens the character exploration,

[Guido]: which a good does.

[Rob]: one

[Guido]: and it does.

[Rob]: one character i think that does though come off well i thought that they that brian

[Rob]: andrews and nac bradley both did well is is how they use a wau in this episode

[Rob]: though

[Guido]: Yeah, I do love that and I love that when strange becomes so powerful, he can see

[Guido]: Uau, and and calls on Youatu for help. I, I love anything that breaks that.

[Rob]: hm

[Guido]: It's not even a fourth wall, but just breaks that barrier. I really love.

[Rob]: and there's that great moment earlier that's actually kind of a chivalry kind of

[Rob]: moment where during the montage of her getting into the car and it just keeps

[Rob]: failing and one time he closes the door and you just see a wau reflection on the

[Rob]: window like ou is just watching this woman die over and over again and like not

[Rob]: doing it not doing anything about it so i really love that they put him into it

[Rob]: throughout the episode and then as you yeah as we were you were saying that end

[Rob]: moment with him saying like i i i can't interfere i'm sorry it's really strong

[Guido]: so, so do you think these two things that

[Rob]: i

[Guido]: we, at the late eighties Doctor Strange Sources, Prim, or the what Tv show watch? do

[Guido]: you think that they were influenced by the What comic that we read?

[Rob]: i don't think the comic was even though strangely enough it was by the writer of

[Rob]: the what if

[Guido]: Yeah, although I think you can see there are them. He's interested and clearly,

[Guido]: Gillis likes the Dormau antagonistic relationship. That's here. Clearly, he likes

[Guido]: exploring like a question of power and using it for good or evil. In

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: this case, in the six one six, he's not

[Rob]: yeah

[Guido]: exploring Strange as using it for evil, but he's exploring Dormau as getting the

[Guido]: exploring Strange as using it for evil, but he's exploring Dormau as getting the

[Guido]: power. So so there are some themes.

[Guido]: power. So so there are some themes.

[Rob]: i i i would though not be surprised at all if the creators of the tv show

[Rob]: went back and read this what if they were of course adapting what if and while the

[Rob]: plot is very different i think there is elements here that selfishness of doctor

[Rob]: strange while in one case it's really just about his hands and in this it's about

[Rob]: love i wouldn't be surprised if they took some kind of seed from the original what

[Rob]: if issue

[Guido]: Yeah, I think that's possible. There are other what. There's another one which we

[Guido]: might get too soon. since the movie iss coming up multiversive badness, But so the

[Guido]: question of a corruptible strange shows up in other places, so yeah, they could have

[Guido]: been inspired by that. There also must be something I don't know. Is this a trope? Do

[Guido]: you think there must be something about

[Guido]: magical characters that makes him feel corruptible? I mean,

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: I'm thinking about like Willow and Buffy. And even though that is an addiction

[Guido]: allegory,

[Guido]: is there something about magic and corruption in a lot of stories? I guess there is

[Rob]: yeah and of course the scarlet witch who

[Guido]: Mhm. Mhm,

[Rob]: also creates this pocket world out of her own selfishness as well on on one

[Rob]: division at least so yeah i think maybe it's because w

[Rob]: magic isn't always black and white as well or or just the idea that you know

[Rob]: superpowers often come with

[Rob]: their own drawbacks you know the x men that's obviously the x men thing right you

[Rob]: know you can do these amazing things you have these powers but you also you know

[Rob]: cyclops has to wear glasses all the time and roe can't touch someone with magic it

[Rob]: is almost a little bit more of that monkey's paw thing where hey you're getting

[Rob]: this thing and you're not giving anything back but maybe that you're what you're

[Rob]: giving back is in fact your soul

[Guido]: also, or another way that that same thing could be happening? Is

[Guido]: it cracking your sense of reality Because you have access to other dimensions or you

[Guido]: have access to

[Guido]: just knowledge or even capability that is beyond human understanding or awareness?

[Guido]: Perhaps that'. the way the darkness seeps in also is the cracks.

[Rob]: yeah and that's a classic you know we didn't really talk about hp lovecraft though

[Rob]: there's certainly some love crafty in imagery and these comics end into what if tv

[Rob]: episode and that is such

[Guido]: Yeah, I think thevpis more than the comics, in this case,

[Rob]: oh yeah mo he really basically is kathulos the end when he appears and he's got the

[Rob]: giant wings but that is such a core thing to lovecraft is that cosmic energy or

[Rob]: magic or whatnot we as humans are our psyches can't take it our minds will crack

[Rob]: under the pressure and that's kind of going off of what you were just saying where

[Rob]: once we're exposed to these other possibilities our brains can't handle it

[Guido]: so we're a few weeks away from Doctor Strange, Multis of madness. Do you think

[Guido]: anything we explored today is going tofluence

[Guido]: or be related to anything we' going to see?

[Rob]: i'd really love to see dorma mu come back as a character because i think

[Rob]: he got the short end of the stick in the original doctor strange movie he's

[Rob]: basically just a cameo he's not and really the cali was not really a strong villain

[Rob]: so i'd love to see a dorma mou that hues a little closer to the ones that we read

[Rob]: today where he's a little bit more human and megamall and

[Rob]: so that that would be great if he could come back or another kind of cosmic entity

[Rob]: like him as well like umar or something like that so i don't know if that will

[Rob]: happen in the movie but that would definitely be something i'd be interested in

[Guido]: I think Uar, or nightmare or Clea are all going to be a part of it. I think

[Guido]: definitely broadening the dark Dimension aspect

[Rob]: listen

[Guido]: is going to be a huge part of the movie. So those elements of what we read today are

[Guido]: going to be in there. I also think there's going to be something of a corruptible

[Guido]: strange, and I think the seeds were planted with no way home,

[Guido]: so there's going to be something about

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: a strange that abuses his power, or a strange that

[Guido]: Um stops having the moral inhibition that the hero strain should have. So

[Guido]: Yeah, I think that'll be a a part of it, a a pretty big part of it. So I, I know, a

[Guido]: lot of people also speculate that we might even see the exact strange from the What

[Guido]: if episode because he

[Rob]: yes

[Guido]: doesn't die at the end. He just sort of gets crystallized in the remnants of the

[Guido]: universeities now destroyed. So

[Rob]: but we then see him in i think the finale of the what if

[Rob]: animated show as well but yes i think that would be very interesting to see a

[Guido]: yeah, I vaguely remember that.

[Rob]: character crossover from animated into live action

[Guido]: Well, we'll see that with Captain Carter, but more

[Rob]: yeah it's

[Guido]: on that when she shows up and we got to talk about it, but I've every uh confidence,

[Guido]: no inside information, but every confidence that she's there,

[Guido]: So Yeah, it's been fun to explore Doctor Strange, and will get more into Doctor

[Guido]: Strange, hopefully in the coming weeks, and then certainly we'll be talking about

[Guido]: multi verse of madness when that's out. So I have

[Rob]: k i'm looking forward to sam ramey that's one thing i'm looking forward to and

[Rob]: bruce campbell

[Guido]: and Bruce Gambll. Yeah,

[Guido]: so I have been your watcher, Geto.

[Rob]: and i have been your watcher rob thank you dear watchers for listening

[Guido]: The reading list is in the show notes. You can follow us on Twitter at deer watchers

[Rob]: and please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcast and send us a

[Rob]: screenshot of your review and will send you a sticker we'll be back soon with

[Rob]: another trip through the multiverse

[Guido]: in the meantime, In the wordsvu, are to keep pondering the possibilities.