🚨Warning: There are MASSIVE spoilers ahead for What If...? Episode 4 on Disney+!🚨
Hi, hello. I hope you recovered from What If...? Episode 3 and are ready to dive into the next episode. So here are all the details I noticed in Episode 4, aka "What If...Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?"
If you're new to these posts, welcome, and I apologize for all of my nerdy yelling! If you're returning after my weekly WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, AND Loki Easter eggs/details posts, thanks so much for coming back!
1. First, in case you need a refresher, in Doctor Strange, Christine refused Stephen's offer to attend his event. In this episode, Christine agrees to join him and that's why she's in the car.
2. After the tragic accident, Stephen's car lands the exact same way it does in Doctor Strange, which is just a cool side-by-side detail that I love.
3. Also, just because I love these side-by-sides, the moment when Stephen manipulates time on an apple is a scene pulled directly from Doctor Strange.
4. When Stephen learns of Christine's death on the news, the newscaster is Christine Everhart, who was seen in Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and she's a reporter for WHiH World News.
5. The Ancient One explains that Christine's death is an "absolute point in time," which is very important for future MCU projects. This means that certain events can't be changed, even in other timelines.
6. Now, if we want to put on our Marvel ~speculation~ caps, I'm thinking Peter Parker's identity being revealed could be an "absolute point," which is why we see the utter chaos of the multiverse happening in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer.
7. Stephen finds the lost library of Cagliostro, and we previously heard of Cagliostro when Stephen read one of his books in Doctor Strange.
8. O'Bengh, who is guarding the Library of Cagliostro, is a character from the Marvel comics. O'Bengh IS Cagliostro in the comics, and he even studied the Darkhold, aka the book Wanda currently has after WandaVision.
9. When Stephen is looking for the book on time manipulation, he goes past books on transmutation, telekinesis, and teleportation, which are all talents both he and Wanda Maximoff have in the Marvel comics.
10. When Stephen opens the time manipulation book, you can spot the symbol for time travel, which was previously seen when Stephen was studying how to use the Eye of Agamotto in Doctor Strange.
11. The first creature that Stephen encounters while trying to gain power is a tentacle monster that is similar to — or the same one as — what Captain Carter encountered in What If...? Episode 1.
12. Also, I'm still running with the theory that this is actually Shuma-Gorath, a mythical one-eyed, multiversal tentacle monster who often clashes with Doctor Strange in the comics.
13. After Stephen is injured by the tentacle monster, O'Bengh tells him "mystic beings do not bargain," which is likely a nod to when Stephen tried to bargain with Dormammu in Doctor Strange.
14. The Ancient One explains how there are two possible timelines occurring in one universe, and I can't help but assume that THIS is what is going to happen in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and that's how we see old Spider-Man villains (and possibly Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire) showing up alongside Tom Holland's Peter.
15. Also because of this, there are two versions of Stephen living in one timeline, which I can't help but side-eye after seeing the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer and all of the out-of-character stuff Stephen does in it.
16. Wong places a "heavy-duty protection spell" on Stephen and calls it "The Guardian Vishanti." In the comics, the Vishanti are a trio of beings who help the Sorcerer Supreme.
17. While there isn't really a Marvel comics counterpart for Evil Strange, it is similar to The Necromancer, who is an evil version of Stephen from Counter-Earth.
18. When Stephen is fighting his evil self, he uses a magical lasso spell, which he also used in Avengers: Infinity War while fighting Thanos.
19. When Evil Strange absorbs Stephen, his magic turns from green to red. In the MCU, red usually symbolizes Chaos Magic, aka what Wanda wields, so I'm assuming it means he's channeling Chaos Magic here.
20. In the end, when Christine disappears, it mirrors when Vision did the same during the WandaVision series finale.
21. And finally, similar to Wanda in WandaVision, Stephen goes through the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — throughout the episode.
