Tom Holland may have been the star of Spider-Man: No Way Home, but he shared the screen with another MCU big wig: Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange. Each Spidey solo outing has included other Marvel Studios characters: Homecoming had Iron Man and Far From Home Nick Fury alongside Maria Hill. This time, it was the former Sorcerer Supreme’s turn, and it couldn’t have come at a better point.
Peter Parker turned toward the Mystic Arts to try and help solve his identity crisis. While it would have worked, the young hero unintentionally botched the spell, and things went haywire—as a result, other villains from previous films touched down in the MCU; Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Jamie Foxx’s Electro were among those who slipped in.
As a responsible adult, Strange wanted to send them back as soon as possible. Parker, however, wanted to keep them in the MCU long enough to give them a second chance at life when they arrived back in their home universe.
This disagreement led to some of the movie’s most memorable visuals as the resident wizard chases down the wall-crawler. Now, thanks to some new concept art, fans have a glimpse at some ideas within the sequence that didn’t make the cut.
Doctor Strange Multiplies in No Way Home
Artist Phil Langone shared some new storyboard art for ideas that didn't make the final product for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
In the newly posted illustration, Doctor Strange can be seen making multiple copies of himself. Given the translucent blue, it seems that they would have clearly been magical constructs and not false clones of the sorcerer himself.
The image can be seen below:
The Mindless Stephen Stranges
One of the first observations that might come to mind when looking at the storyboard is how eerily similar these Doctor Strange constructs are to the classic Mindless Ones. Those were the minions of Dormammu in the comics, who haven’t entirely made an appearance in the MCU, though they were teased a little at the end of Doctor Strange.
At the end of the day, it’s probably best the idea didn’t make the final product. With everything else going on in the Mirror Dimension, one Stephen Strange seemed like plenty for Spider-Man to take on.
However, if the filmmakers did up using it, it would have created an interesting new power to add to the good doctor’s power set, something that would no doubt prove useful against everything he’ll face in Multiverse of Madness.
But maybe that’s just it—Marvel Studios could have wanted to save such a unique moment for a future movie. But with it now having been revealed publicly, the odds of that being the reasoning is fairly low.
Fans will find out if this storyboard will come to fruition when Benedict Cumberbatch’s next adventure hits screens on May 6, 2022.
