WARNING: The following contains spoilers for What If…? Episode 4, “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?,” now streaming on Disney+.
Due to the multiversal and anthological nature of What If…?, it makes sense that many of the episodes are largely disconnected from one another. The only throughline character-wise has been Utatu the Watcher, tasked with witnessing the different realities, but sworn to never interfere. But the fourth episode of the series seems to bring back a major force from the first installment.
The Doctor Strange of What If…?‘s fourth episode — otherwise known as Strange Supreme — encounters a mysterious and powerful source from another dimension that shares a lot of similarities with the creature that appeared in the first episode of the season, which could be quietly positioning it as the true villain of the anthology series.
In the first episode of the season, “What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?,” Peggy Carter’s more pro-active and quick-paced role in World War II leads to a far more desperate Hydra. Without access to the Tessaract, Red Skull’s experiments turn towards opening dimensional rifts and utilizing the beings on the other side for his purposes. Although he succeeds by the end of the episode, a massive swirl of green tentacles stretches into his reality — and quickly grabs hold of him, crushing the villain. The creature also emitted a seemingly psionic wail, seriously affecting all the men present. Luckily, Captain Carter was able to force it back into the portal and out of her reality — albeit at the cost of being flung into the future and away from her world’s Steve Rogers.
The beast Red Skull summoned hasn’t had its identity confirmed, and it could turn out to just be a random interdimensional being. But the design of the green tentacles, the attack against the Howling Commandos, and the intelligence to be problem-solving while trying to breach Captain Carter’s reality all suggest it’s a far more insidious force — potentially even Shuma-Gorath, who has been rumored to appear at the center of the upcoming Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. It appears that no matter what the creature is, though, it has a larger role to play in the MCU — as it shows up during the course of the show’s fourth episode.
In a reality where Stephen Strange was in a happy relationship with Christine Palmer during the fateful night that he was driven off the side of the road, it was her that Strange lost instead of his hands. In his grief and in search of answers, he ended up on the path to becoming a sorcerer — recreating many of the events of Doctor Strange in the Sacred Timeline of the MCU. However, his lingering pain over her loss motivated him to try and reverse it — even going against advice from an echo of the Ancient One about how Christine’s death is an Absolute Moment and thusly cannot be changed without effectively breaking the reality and dooming the universe. Determined to change her fate, Strange traveled to the distant past and found the Lost Library of Cagliostro — and the spell books hidden within.
Using them, Strange discovered a method to stop the Absolute Point. But to do so, he’d need to take on a massive amount of power. He tried bargaining with interdimensional beings at first — resulting in another appearance of the green tentacles. But they quickly attack Strange and injure him. Strange then spends untold years calling upon and absorbing more and more mystical creatures, gaining attributes and power from them. Finally strong enough, he confronts the green tentacles again — and this time slices off a few, absorbing them to increase his power immensely. This also elicits a monstrous change in Strange, whose body shifts and morphs from the effort. He takes on attributes from the tentacles in later fights, his hand morphing during the confrontation against Doctor Strange.
It’s notable that seemingly the same creature — making two different appearances in the two episodes that introduce pathways between realities — is considered a powerful source by someone like Strange Supreme. That even an absurdly powerful sorcerer like him could still only claim a few tentacles speaks to the sheer power it must possess. All of this suggests it has far greater importance than just as some creature hanging out between dimensions. If it is something like Shuma-Gorath (or any number of other terrifying interdimensional characters), then it could become a big enough threat to necessitate a team of multiversal heroes — something that also been hinted to come about during the course of What If…?.
What If …? is available to stream on Disney+, with new episodes streaming every Wednesday.
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