JP Nunez
When I heard that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was going to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first horror movie, I was ecstatic. I love the MCU, so the idea of Marvel doing a horror film was just about a dream come true. And when I finally got the chance to watch it, it did not disappoint. This movie is an awesome horror/superhero/fantasy mashup that has just about everything fans could’ve asked for, so as of this writing, it’s my third favorite film of the year (behind The Righteous and The Batman).
It has fun characters, cool action, and some legit horror moments, but for my money, the best thing about it is its moral message. Like most superhero movies, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is essentially a story of good versus evil, but it’s not just a generic “be good; don’t be bad” kind of story.
Sure, that’s of course part of it, but the film goes deeper than that. It explores a basic yet crucial moral question that all of us will face at one time or another, and it answers that question in a way that’s a bit surprising but also totally satisfying. It has a timeless message we’d all do well to heed, so let’s dive into this great movie and see just what it can teach us.
Setting the Stage
When Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness begins, we meet up with Doctor Strange (who we later learn is the version from another universe) and a teenage girl named America Chavez who has the power to travel the multiverse, and they’re running away from a mysterious demon that wants to take her power for itself. They’re trying to get to the Book of Vishanti, a mystical text with the power to help them defeat the creature, but Strange soon realizes that their plan won’t work.
He switches gears and begins taking America’s power for himself even though he knows it’ll kill her, and when she protests that they’re friends, he begins to give a line that fans of the MCU have heard before: “In the grand calculus of the multiverse, your sacrifice is worth more than your…” But before he can finish, he’s fatally wounded by the demon, and the scene ends with America traveling to the main MCU universe with Doctor Strange’s corpse.
When I first saw this scene, I was a bit shocked. Unless you’re watching The Boys or Deadpool, you don’t normally expect a superhero to just murder someone in cold blood. Sure, Doctor Strange was acting for the sake of the greater good, but that’s still not how superheroes typically behave. Rather, they’re usually paragons of goodness who do what’s best for everybody they meet, no matter the risk. For example, in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Avengers made sure to get every last person out of Novi Grad, Sokovia before destroying it, and in Avengers: Infinity War, they were adamant that they “don’t trade lives.”
So when we see Doctor Strange acting differently, it’s pretty jarring. Is he making the right choice, or is he going to become the bad guy himself by killing America? At this point in the story, we can’t be sure. The scene is cut short and Strange isn’t able to finish the job, so we’re left with the question lingering in our minds.
And with that, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness sets up the primary moral question it’s going to explore: can we do evil in order that good may come of it? Or, put another way, does the end justify the means? This is a huge question that’s vexed humanity for millennia, and the rest of the film is basically just one long answer to it.
Wanda’s Villainy
The Doctor Strange from the main MCU universe eventually learns that Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, is the one sending demonic minions after America, and once the cat is out of the bag, Wanda goes to kidnap the girl herself. From there, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness essentially becomes a cat-and-mouse game with Strange and America Chavez doing their best to stay away from Wanda, and each of its two main characters goes on a journey that exemplifies the film’s moral theme.
Let’s start with Wanda. Despite what we might think at first, she doesn’t desire America’s power for evil reasons. She’s not just a mustache-twirling villain who wants to rule the multiverse with an iron fist. Rather, she wants America’s power because she wants to be with her children. See, in the TV show WandaVision, she used her magic to inadvertently hold an entire town hostage and create twin sons for herself, but when she realized what she had done and how much she was hurting people, she put an end to that spell.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, she wants her kids back, so she’s been scouring the multiverse for them. Her search has shown her that the boys really do exist in other universes, and she wants to reach them and be their mother once again. Now, in itself, that’s a perfectly good desire, but the problem is with the means she uses to achieve it.
Not only does Wanda want to kill America Chavez to steal the girl’s power, but she’s also willing to murder anyone who gets in her way. Most notably, she lays waste to Kamar-Taj and kills numerous sorcerers there, she massacres the Illuminati in another universe (including particularly brutal kills of Black Bolt and Professor X), and she’s even willing to kill Doctor Strange himself if she has to. On top of that, she also uses a book of dark magic called the Darkhold to explore the multiverse, and as multiple characters in the film say, that book is evil and it corrupts everyone who uses it.
Wanda’s Redemption
Despite all that, Wanda refuses to believe she’s doing anything wrong, but in the end, she finally sees the error of her ways. In her final confrontation with America, the girl sends her to another universe where her kids are real, and she thinks she’s going to get what she wants.
But instead, the boys reject her. They see her choking America and attacking their universe’s Wanda, so they’re terrified of her. They think she’s a monster, and at one point they even start throwing things at her in a meager attempt to fight her off.
Once Wanda sees that, she realizes that she really has become a monster. She realizes that while her desire for children was good, the means she was using to obtain it was terribly wrong. She’s become a villain, so no matter how much she wants to be with her kids, she’s no longer fit to be a mother. This realization horrifies her, so she ends her quest to find her children, and she destroys the Darkhold in every universe to prevent anybody from ever being tempted by it again.
Once she does that, it’s not hard to see how Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness answers its main moral question: the end doesn’t justify the means, so we can’t do evil to accomplish good. No matter how pure our goal may be, if we’re using evil means to attain it, we’re still doing evil, so we’ll become the villains in our own story just like Wanda became the villain in hers.
And in case there’s any doubt about that, Wanda’s destruction of every Darkhold in the multiverse seals the deal for us. She realizes that the evil book will corrupt everybody who uses it, no matter how good their intentions may be, and that’s our smoking gun. If there were any chance that someone could use the Darkhold without being tainted by it, she probably wouldn’t have taken such a drastic measure. But she did, and that tells us once again that it’s never okay to do evil to achieve a good end.
Doctor Strange’s Story
Next, let’s turn to Doctor Strange. Like Wanda, he has good intentions as well, but unlike her, he doesn’t try to achieve them through evil means…at least not at first. See, one of the big questions that runs throughout Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is whether the main MCU universe’s Doctor Strange will ever turn to the “dark side.” Every other version of him that we meet in this film eventually tried to use evil means to achieve a good end, so we’re constantly wondering whether this Strange will do the same.
And for most of the story, it looks like he won’t. He remains firm in his rejection of evil until the third act, but when that third act comes, he too gives in to the same temptation as his multiversal counterparts. He uses the Dakhold to possess the Doctor Strange corpse that came into the main MCU universe with America Chavez (the one from the opening scene), and he goes to rescue the girl. His plan ultimately works, but in the final scene of the film, we see that his turn to the dark side has exacted a heavy toll.
At first, he’s just walking down the streets of New York like nothing is wrong, but then the music slowly starts to become more sinister, and Strange falls to the ground in pain. He screams and writhes in agony, and the final shot shows a third eye opening up on his forehead, a sign that the Darkhold has corrupted him as well (as we learned from one of the other Doctor Stranges).
I have to be honest, when I saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in the theater, this turn of events disappointed me at first. While it gave us some really cool horror visuals, I wanted this Doctor Strange to be better. I wanted him to be the one who would finally resist the Darkhold and remain steadfast in his commitment to goodness. However, when that final scene hit, I instantly fell in love with the course the narrative took.
See, my problem wasn’t that I was disappointed with Strange’s decision per se. Rather, I wanted the movie to stick to the message that it’s not okay to do evil to accomplish good, but when Strange turned to the Darkhold for help, it felt like the film was backtracking on that message. It felt like Strange was going to be vindicated for using evil to save America Chavez, so I was disappointed that the story wasn’t going to stick the thematic landing.
But the way the movie ended changed all that. Even though Doctor Strange ultimately gave in and used evil to accomplish good, he paid a steep price for it, and that makes all the difference. When he became visibly corrupted by the Darkhold, the story turned from a vindication of his method into a grim cautionary tale, so when all is said and done, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness tells us in no uncertain terms that we should never use evil means to achieve a good end.
The Price We Pay
In particular, it highlights a key part of this truth that a lesser movie would’ve simply ignored. Usually, when a film tells a cautionary tale, it lets us know that its characters are doing something wrong because they don’t succeed, and it would’ve been very easy for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to do the same.
It could’ve turned out that Strange needed to find yet another way, apart from the Darkhold, to rescue America, thereby showing that he was wrong to use the forbidden book, but it didn’t. Instead, his plan worked, and in a somewhat paradoxical way, that makes the movie’s message even better.
See, in the real world, evil means often work on a purely practical level. For example, when the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian populations during World War II, that was literally a war crime, but it forced Japan to surrender. From a purely pragmatic perspective, it got the job done, just like Doctor Strange’s plan to use the Darkhold to rescue America.
So I love the fact that this movie didn’t go the simplistic route and say that doing evil to accomplish good doesn’t work. Because that’s just not true. It often does work, so that’s not the problem with it. Rather, the problem is that using evil means to achieve a good end corrupts us and turns us into bad people, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness does an excellent job of exemplifying that important truth.
