Warning! Spoilers ahead for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Sam Raimi’s long-awaited return to the comic book genre, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, has finally hit theaters. While some Marvel fans feel that it falls short as a cohesive narrative, they can all agree that it’s a Raimi movie from head to toe. In a franchise that’s often accused of adhering to a house style, Raimi managed to bring a distinctive authorial voice that overrides the commercial aspects of blockbuster filmmaking.
The most talked-about sequences from the movie have Raimi’s signature stamp all over them. Strange battles an evil version of himself by throwing musical notes across the room, underscored beautifully by the great Danny Elfman. Bruce Campbell is once again cursed to punch himself over and over again with a possessed hand. In the final showdown, the zombified sorcerer embodies the corpse of his multiversal self and flies to the Scarlet Witch’s lair on wings made of the tamed souls of the damned. The Doctor Strange sequel isn’t just another Marvel epic; it’s Raimi’s Raimi-est movie in years.
Another set-piece that’s sparked a lot of discussion is the already-infamous Illuminati massacre. As teased by the trailers, Strange and America Chavez are arrested by the Illuminati on Earth-838 and the would-be Sorcerer Supreme is put on trial in front of the secret society’s top brass. Led by Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier and Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter, who were spoiled in the trailers, the Illuminati consists of Karl Mordo, King of the Inhumans Black Bolt, a Reed Richards variant played by John Krasinski, and a variant of Maria Rambeau who became Captain Marvel.
When the Illuminati was revealed in the trailers, fans thought Marvel had given away the store and spoiled the movie’s biggest surprise. But the Illuminati itself isn’t the real surprise. Audiences went into Multiverse of Madness expecting an array of cameos like this and the second act served them up on a silver platter in a row of chairs. Then, Raimi masterfully subverted their expectations by having the Scarlet Witch show up to kill them all.
And she doesn’t just humanely wipe them out in one fell swoop; she practically tortures them to death. Her attack on Kamar-Taj was supposedly the “reasonable” way to extract America’s power; this is the unreasonable way. She seals Black Bolt’s mouth shut so his superhuman whisper will cave in his own skull; she shreds Mr. Fantastic to ribbons and blows up his head; she bisects Captain Carter with her own vibranium shield; she crushes Captain Marvel under a statue; and, finally, she breaks Professor X’s neck from inside his own mind. Suffice to say, this sequence suitably establishes Wanda’s threat as a villain, which is exactly the point of the scene.
This sequence has been compared to a similar set-piece in Deadpool 2. Right after an upbeat montage of Deadpool assembling his own superhero team – the X-Force – with such familiar faces as Terry Crews and Bill Skarsgård getting full-blown backstories, they embark on their first mission and instantly die, one by one. Only Domino survives, which is suitable because her superpower is luck. The one-by-one gruesome deaths of familiar Marvel characters is a commonality between Deadpool 2 and Doctor Strange 2, but in Deadpool 2, this subversive twist is played for laughs.
There’s plenty of Raimi-esque morbid humor in Multiverse of Madness (“What mouth?”), but the Illuminati massacre is ultimately a visceral, intense, nail-biting horror sequence whose purpose is to show the audience just how ruthless, unstoppable, and omnipotent the Scarlet Witch really is. In this sense, it’s more reminiscent of a different set-piece in a different polarizing blockbuster, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Revenge of the Sith was burdened with connecting the prequel and original trilogies, detailing the foundations of the Empire, the final stages of Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the dark side, and Emperor Palpatine’s rise to power.
When Palpatine first reveals his Sith connections to Anakin, the young Jedi initially rejects the dark side and reports back to Mace Windu, who brings a strike force consisting of three legendary Jedi Masters to arrest the Emperor. Palpatine stands from his chair, ignites his lightsaber, and leaps across his desk. This was the first time that fans got to see Palpatine – the most powerful Sith Lord of all time – in action. Even in Return of the Jedi, he only used Force lightning to torment Luke. In this four-on-one lightsaber duel, George Lucas had to convey the threat posed by Palpatine.
After jumping over his desk, Palpatine effortlessly slaughters Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin. Thanks to the expanded canon padding out their story arcs, these three Jedi Masters have become fan-favorite icons. They’re renowned as three of the sharpest, most powerful, most highly trained Jedi in the history of a galaxy far, far away. But when Palpatine slices and dices them in the space of a few seconds and they all just stand there and take it, it makes them look weak and expendable.
The Illuminati characters have the same problem in Multiverse of Madness. To make the Scarlet Witch look all-powerful, the Doctor Strange sequel had to make iconic Marvel Comics staples like Professor X and Mr. Fantastic feel disposable. Revenge of the Sith uses Palpatine effortlessly killing three legendary Jedi to show how powerful he is and it makes those Jedi look weak by comparison.
Multiverse of Madness uses Wanda’s Illuminati slaughter to establish the obstacle she poses as a villain at the expense of making the Illuminati characters (who managed to defeat Thanos the first time in their universe) look incompetent and unprepared. Captain Carter’s reprisal of Steve Rogers’ “I can do this all day” catchphrase becomes a twisted comedic punchline when she’s cut in half seconds later.