Top 10 Things You Missed in Marvel's What If...? Episode 4

We were already impressed that virtually all the main characters, from Doctor Strange to the Ancient One, were voiced by the same actress who played them in the MCU. But there are a couple more performers who played Marvel roles that you may not have noticed. During Dr. Strange’s tragic time travel montage, a news anchor reports Christine had another tragic accident. Leslie Bibb lent her voice to that reporter over a decade after she played a similar role in the first Iron Man. She joined this cast alongside Ike Amadi. Before voicing O’Bengh, he played the role of Aaron Davis in the “Spider-Man: Miles Morales” game. Hopefully this won’t be the last time we hear Bibb or Amadi in an MCU project.

Dr. Strange’s attempts to bring back Christine kicked off a series of twisted and dark occurrences. He may have never tried to rescue the woman he loved if he talked to his comic counterpart. There’s a reality where Strange gets a visit from his brother Victor the day after their dad’s funeral. After the conversation goes south, Victor is unfortunately struck by a car and passes away. But Dr. Strange isn’t willing to let his sibling go. When the sorcerer tries to revive his brother, Victor returns as a vampire. Both storylines saw Strange face severe consequences for trying to defy death. He caused so much pain for others because of his inability to accept his tough losses.

During the intense final battle, Strange attempts to wrap up his evil counterpart with magical bindings. But the sinister sorcerer manages to get out of the trappings and continue the fight. This isn’t the first time Strange has failed to wrap up a big bad in the MCU. In “Infinity War”, Sorcerer tries to bind Thanos multiple times. But to the titan’s strength, Infinity Stones and an embarrassing blunder from Star Lord, the villain breaks out every time. And before Strange took on Thanos, he tried to keep the wicked Kaecilius restrained with a mechanical device. But the villain’s zealots broke him out soon after. Maybe Doctor Strange should stop trying to restrain big bads and keep getting creative with how he stops them.

Before heading to the episode’s climactic confrontation, Wong places a protective spell on his fellow sorcerer. The name of the enchantment is a reference to a hugely significant Trio. In the comics, the Vishanti consist of three absurdly powerful magical beings. They have a long history helping Sorcerer Supremes whenever the mortal magicians get into trouble. The Vishanti have been known to directly interact with Strange and even recruited him for a significant war. Although we haven't seen them in an MCU movie, the fact that upcoming films like “The Eternals” will include huge and powerful deities could open up the door for a live-action take on the Vishanti. Maybe the trio will pay a live-action visit to the Sorcerer Supreme in his next film.

The only way Dr. Strange’s evil variant can gain enough power to alter the timeline is by taking energy from other beings. In a montage that alternates between being a little funny and hugely disturbing, he seemingly strips the life force of other beings to serve his own ends. These dark actions mirror the twisted path Mordo started to walk down in the MCU. Over the course of 2016’s “Doctor Strange”, we saw him become increasingly frustrated with his ally sorcerers. He eventually decides to hunt down magical mortals and take their powers away. While Mordo and the evil Strange would disagree about...a lot, they use similar methods to achieve their sinister goals.

Normally, we’d applaud a person for really getting into reading books. But if the reader is in a library named after Cagliostro, we’d be very worried. The words in those texts gave Dr. Strange the knowledge he needed to complete his transformation to the dark side. One of these books also gave us another Marvel villain. During Dr. Strange’s first movie, it’s revealed that Kaecilius read from one of Calgliosto’s books early on in the narrative. The villain went on to take many lives and nearly brought Dormammu into the main universe. Kaeceilus nearly destroyed the world after we saw him grab a page from one of Cagliostro's books. So, is it that surprising that Strange wrecked reality after reading a library full of them?

There’s a point in the episode where all the magic powers and corrupt acts turn the dapper sorcerer we once knew into a truly warped being. But the resulting creature is downright normal compared to another evil Strange. In the comics, the heroic sorcerer Supreme finds himself at the mercy of a sinister version of himself who wears a disguise and calls himself Necromancer. This villain hails from a place called Counter-Earth. After Mordo takes the Ancient One’s life on this world, Necromancer strikes Mordo down permanently and decides to rule his planet. His appearance and origins made him one of the weirdest takes on the sorcerer of all time. We think we’ll prefer the corrupted Strange from this episode over Necromancer any day.

From the start of the series, the Watcher has served as a constant narrator that has only observed the unfolding events. That’s why it was shocking to see him talking directly about reality directly with Strange. Their surprising conversation is just the most recent time a Watcher stepped off the sidelines to talk to the sorcerer. In a comic universe where superheroes started popping up in the 1600’s, the watcher Uatu decided to clue Strange in on a problem that could have destroyed multiple universes. The two also had a conversation about what the sorcerer was planning to do during the Civil War event. While we love seeing Watchers discuss issues with heroes directly, we wish they would talk to people under better circumstances.

When Strange seeks out Cagliostro’s works, he meets a sorcerer named O’Bengh. This magical man is exceedingly wise and kind throughout the narrative. But despite his good nature, we, like Strange, were a little skeptical of his true identity because of his name. The origins of the sorcerer named Cagliostro are unclear in the comics. But many believed his original name was O’Bengh. No matter what the man’s real moniker truly was, we definitely know he’s slayed people throughout history before taking their appearance and name. We don’t want to think about the possibility that the steadfast O’Bengh could’ve been Calgliostro in disguise. Instead, we’ll just assume the show’s version of the character is actually just a nice librarian.

Seeing Strange stand in front of that many tentacled monster might be the most game-changing image of this “What If?”season yet. In the comics, the Sorcerer Supreme has a long history of doing battle with a creature with similar appendages that’s known as Shuma-Gorath. A many-tentacled creature also appeared in the “What If? ”premiere and fought Captain Carter. Whether the monster is Shuma-Gorath or something else, its presence in two episodes is a ridiculously solid link between the two stories. And since Strange doesn’t have much of a home left, will he see where the monster came from last and attempt to travel to Captain Carter’s reality in a future episode?