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