Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ released its fourth episode, titled – ” What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart And Not His Hands?” The fourth episode of this animated anthology series revolves around the life of The Sorcerer Supreme AKA Dr. Stephen Strange. While similar to the other stories, this episode is different from the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) character’s origin film; this short story gives us a look at a completely different Strange. This episode has a lot of brilliant Easter Eggs and blink-and-miss references – so may that we are quite sure that we will have to write a separate article for the crazy amount of Marvel comics creatures featured in this episode. For now, let us check out the 7 noticeable Easter Eggs, references and call backs in What If…? Episode 4:
Different Origin Story
Unlike the original ‘Doctor Strange’ film, this episode of the ‘What If…?’ series gives us a different origin story all together – He didn’t lose his hands, but his heart. “Kinda” ironic, since he lost his heart after he lost his hands in the live action MCU movie and still didn’t go crazy like he did in this episode. Well, Christine didn’t die in this film, so that makes sense. Still, a nice reference to the Dr. Strange origin story from the MCU.
An Absolute Point In Time
Christine dying is what made Stephen Strange the Sorcerer Supreme in this Universe. So trying to keep her alive is an impossibility – at least impossible without destroying the Universe in the process. So we guess other “Absolute Points In Time” should include Peter Parker losing his Uncle Ben, Tony Stark getting hit by his own weapons and Tony Stark snapping his fingers to kill Thanos and his army within the MCU. We have no doubt that this concept will come up again within the MCU and very likely in either ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ or ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’.
A Watcher In The Background
The Jeffrey Wright voiced character is pretty much the only character who is consistent within this MCU animated anthology series. He is pretty much always in the background – silently watching, never interfering. However, once Doctor Strange got enough power, he was able to sense the Watcher himself. The “DARK” Stephen Strange even spoke with the Watcher towards the end of the episode – which gives us hope that the Watcher could make an appearance in one of the live-action MCU projects.
Cagliastro & O-Bengh
While Cagliastro and O-Bengh are two different characters (in this episode apparently), they are the same person according to Marvel lore. And not as nice as this O-Bengh either. Who knows, we might actually get a Cagliastro/ O-Bengh namedrop/ reference/ appearance in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 2022’.
X-Men, F4 & An Iron Fist
We did mention that there were a lot of Marvel comic books creatures make an appearance within this episode – so we will talk about three important creatures that made a quick appearance among the 10+ creatures – especially since they make important references to X-Men, Fantastic Four and The Iron Fist.
Stephen is trying to devour many mystical creatures to gain the power to reverse an absolute point in time and we get a look at a creature which was shown in the first episode during this process – the tentacle monster, Shuma-Gorath. Other creature include the Goblin Force (The supposed opposite to the Phoenix Force from the X-Men Universe), Two Headed Thing (A shape shifting mystical creature that got beaten by the Fantastic Four within the comics) and Shou-Lao (The Immortal Dragon which has to be defeated so as to create the Immortal Iron Fist).
Two Timelines In One Universe
Nothing much to say here – except for the fact that Marvel is trying to go through more Time travel and multiple universe concepts in one web series so as to show more of the same in the upcoming movies ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and/ or ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’. Possibly in other Marvel projects as well.
Breaking The Fourth Wall
This is not anything new, but The Watcher has been talking to us his whole time. But the Watcher also broke his code of silence to address Doctor Strange at the end of this episode which reminds us that The Watcher is an MCU character himself. And he has been breaking the fourth wall regularly to talk to us. We have a feeling that Deadpool might be able to talk to the Watcher also – once he properly crosses over to this universe.
Extra: Iron Man Reference
A very small Iron man reference was made in this episode, but we only see it in the form of an end credit which showed that Leslie Bibb is voicing the reporter, Christine Everhart. We have actually seen Christine Everhart on screen (who was portrayed by Leslie Bibb) in the very first ‘Iron Man’ movie.
Check out the first four episodes of Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ on Disney+ Hotstar.