A Quick Guide to 'Doctor Strange': the Origin, the Characters, and Its Possible Tie to 'Avengers'

So, the Doctor Strange teaser has been released and has a lot of people going “Wait, what’s this?” We’re gonna help you out and run down a couple of quick things about the doctor and his part in the Marvel universe.

Doctor Strange was first created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Stephen Strange, who is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a talented but supremely arrogant surgeon living in New York. His career gets upended when his car is … upended. He goes on a journey seeking to regain his motor skills and comes across his eventual mentor, the Ancient One — that’s the Tilda Swinton character.

The Ancient One tells Strange that there’s a whole magical and mystical world out there, in this dimension and in others. Basically, Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme, Earth’s defender against evil mystical beings.

The Sorcerer Supreme gets to use cool magic stuff — like the Cloak of Levitation and the Eye of Agamotto (remember that name), which can shoot beams, see through illusions, and read minds.

There are other important characters in the Strange comics, but let’s just focus on the ones in the teaser. The character played by Rachel McAdams doesn’t seem to have a big history in Marvel comics, but the others do. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Baron Mordo. In the comics, Mordo is the arch-nemesis of Strange, but he started off as a fellow student of the Ancient One. It seems like we’re going to see their relationship before they become enemies.

Mads Mikkelsen is playing … well, we don’t know yet. There are two characters considered the most likely. He could be the demon, Nightmare, who attacks you in your sleep Freddy Krueger style. Or he could be Dormammu, Strange’s most powerful adversary, the ruler of the Dark Dimension. But there are several other possibilities,and there’s a chance it’s a twist and he’s actually Baron Mordo.

So how does Strange tie into the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Well, we know that the big bad, Thanos, is interested in the Infinity Stones, which he wants to wield so he can control the universe. Remember the Eye of Agamotto? That’s possibly one of the Infinity Stones. Even if it’s not, Strange’s mastery of magical items and other dimensions will be invaluable when the rest of the Marvel heroes take on Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

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