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In high-profile interview with Esquire this week, Benedict Cumberbatch surprisingly revealed that he’s not at all sure he’s playing Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I kind of had my doubts about it, coming into the comics,†the actor said. “I was like, ‘He’s a very dated sexist character.'”
Apparently, the studio has finally sold him on his big-screen vision of Strange as “a character of his time.” And indeed, the arrogant alpha male doctor we first met in 2016 Doctor Strange is pretty quickly transformed into an almost holy figure whose sole interest is in serving the greater good as Sorcerer Supreme.
Which is why it was such a surprise to see Strange seemingly revert to his former rude self in the trailers for the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which the superhero can be seen ushering in the multiverse. villain by casting a dangerous spell aimed at restoring Spider-Man’s secret identity. It seems so out of place that some people have even speculated that this new version of Strange could have tipped over to the dark side.
But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Because this is not the first time that Marvel has shown us the arrogant male hero shot down by the consequences of their own pride.
First there was Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, who in his own vanity believed he could build a high-tech defense barrier to prevent aliens from invading Earth, but failed to detect the potential of said supercharged artificial intelligence to become aware of and activate its creator. Then there was poor old Thor, who had to deal with the consequences of his own epic failures time and time again, from the destruction of Asgard to the death of almost his entire family. It looks like Strange is now being set up as the next overly ambitious and overconfident man to fall from grace. (Let’s not even talk about the goofy Star-Lord or the loser Ant-Man.)
It must be said, spoiling everything is an integral part of the Marvel hero’s DNA. When the comic book publisher became a DC rival in the 1960s, it was because its superheroes had very real, human flaws compared to more old-fashioned Golden Age characters and not tarnished such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Where the Man of Steel’s only real problem was kryptonite, Tony Stark is so prone to getting stuck in the comics that he sometimes rose to the status of an uncontrollable drunkard, a mad scientist who created clones, and even insensitive. supporter of superhero concentration camps.
Even so, it seems Marvel enjoys toxic masculinity stories almost as much as the Hulk enjoys smashing invading alien spaceships. Given the studio’s apparent determination to come back to the theme over and over again, is this really a coincidence?
If superhero movies are the new westerns, then the MCU equivalent must surely be the 1971 Robert Altman revisionist classic McCabe & Mrs Miller, in which the swaggering gamer Warren Beatty meets his fate in the mud of the north. -West Pacific after failing to spot that it long ago reached the end of an extremely lucky streak. It’s a film with no discernible heroes, no one audiences are ready to take root for.
If this is where Marvel Studio is after more than a decade of storytelling, perhaps we should give the superhero mega-saga credit for presenting a more complex picture of human behavior than any. fantastic series on the big screen before it. Plus, if Cumberbatch has truly signed on to play a repackaged, modern version of Doctor Strange, rather than a master of the cavalier pump, he might find that he’s not quite out of the woods just yet.
We also shouldn’t be too surprised if the studio’s sporty toxic men in spandex continue to drive the narrative into increasingly dark territory – especially as upcoming No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the multiverse of the madness already seem clearly in a bad mood. It seems like our own real world leaders just can’t help themselves.
