Characters / MCU: Stephen Strange

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• The Ace:
  • By the time of Infinity War and Endgame, Doctor Strange is easily the top dog of the Marvel universe. Master of the Mystic Arts, head of the Sanctum Sanctorum, and seemingly having fully adjusted to life after the loss of his surgical career. He treats Thor and Loki like particularly annoying houseguests, he's the only superhero capable of going toe-to-toe with Thanos on Titan, and he's the one who manipulates the events to ensure that Thanos is ultimately defeated. The only human superheroes who even come close to matching him in terms of ability to fight Thanos single-handedly are Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch, and Carol's powers come from an Infinity Stone while Wanda's power is from the archdemon Chthon — Stephen Strange is just that good. He's gained the respect of even magic users outside the Masters of the Mystic Arts, like Agatha Harkness, who seems to believe he's the Sorcerer Supreme. Likewise, Wanda/Scarlet Witch treats him with respect and acknowledges him as an equal, recognizing him as the only genuine threat she has to face.
  • In Multiverse of Madness, it's revealed that in every universe in every timeline, he is destined to be the most dangerous being on Earth and the biggest threat to the universe simply because he's Stephen Strange. Even Sacred Timeline Strange himself showcases early in the movie how an Eldritch Abomination that attacks the city is nothing more than a nuisance to him. The only real threat he takes completely seriously is Scarlet Witch.
  • Even back in his days as a neurosurgeon, he was shown to be one of the best at his job. He is able to quickly notice that a patient has been poisoned with antimony instead of suffering from brain death (which none of his coworkers picked up on) and has, along with Christine, invented a new and effective medical procedure. Before his accident, he was scheduled to speak at an American Neurological Association dinner, showing how respected and successful Strange was at his former career.
• Adaptational Jerkass: While he's made nicer than his comic counterpart during his neurosurgeon days, he very much fits here post-Sorcerer tenure:
  • In the comics, Strange becomes much more caring and personable under the Ancient One's tutelage. He becomes best friends with Wong, forms a solid friendship with Wong's lover Sarah, and meets his true love in Clea. Over the course of his time in the comics, he has become genuine friends with those outside of his lore as well as having a genuinely fatherly relationship with the students at the Strange Academy. A big showing of Comic Strange's general kindness and compassion comes when he's on a date with Clea and a little girl trips, losing her balloon. Strange picks the girl up and tells her not to cry as he uses his magic to redirect the wind and blow her balloon back to her. As a thank you, the girl kisses Strange on the cheek, prompting a smile from him.
  • Meanwhile, MCU Strange is still in the antisocial grouch portion of his character. He doesn't really have any friends and is shown to have little interest or tolerance dealing with people in general, especially kids. Wong is more an amicable coworker than a genuinely close friend.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Though he is an Insufferable Genius from the start, Strange at the beginning of his film seems much more approachable than his comic book counterpart, even letting a patient's relative hug him. In the comics, he made it clear that he didn't care about his patients once they were cured. He doesn't properly start acting like Doctor Strange until after his accident.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Downplayed, as he's no pushover, but his comic book counterpart is noticeably more powerful as a winner of the Superpower Lottery. Here, he wins battles more often by trickery than raw power. He also lacks his other iconic relics aside from the Eye of Agamotto and the Cloak of Levitation (Wand of Watoomb, Orb of Agamotto, Book of Vishanti, etc...) and the ability to perform divine invocations. That said, this can be explained by his relative inexperience, and may grow into that level of power later on as he gains more knowledge in the arts. Even with that, here the Eye of Agamotto is just a container for the Time Stone and has no power of its own...at least until Multiverse of Madness shows him using it to reveal an invisible Gargantos, meaning that the Eye does have abilities of its own after all and hasn't been reduced to a meaningless trinket without the Time Stone.
  • Subverted as of No Way Home where he's now much closer to his comic book counterpart in terms of power level. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness further shows him at much higher levels of skill.
• Age Lift: The comic version of Stephen Strange canonically has an enhanced longevity due to passing a test by the Ancient One, which means that it is canon that he was born in 1930. This version is presumably around the same age as his actor.
• Alliterative Name: Stephen Strange.
• Almighty Janitor: He was still a relative novice in the magical arts when he saved the world from a group of rogue mages, and scammed the resident Satanic Archetype into aiding him in said saving.
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home revealed that despite his phenomenal talent and power, Strange was not named the Sorcerer Supreme after the Ancient One's death due to Wong having seniority over him.
• Alternate Self: Doctor Strange has 6 known variants, ranging from heroes to villains and Sorcerers Supreme to zombies. By the end of Multiverse of Madness, the only variant still alive is Doctor Strange Supreme and that's only because he's found a way to cheat death. He also has an unseen variant that exists in Earth-96283.
• Always Someone Better:
  • In Doctor Strange, Dormammu's powers prove to be too much for Strange. Fortunately, Strange takes this into account and finds a way to turn the tables.
  • Thor: Ragnarok shows him being a living lesson in humility to Loki as a sorcerer, with Strange easily manhandling the self-proclaimed God of Mischief through his use of portals.
  • Multiverse of Madness then has him fighting against Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch who outshines him in raw magical power, borderline Reality Warping, and even demonstrates a mastery of the Mirror Dimension no other sorcerer has shown, despite Strange having enough experience to be at the height of his mystical abilities. Even his utilizing the forbidden magic and necromancy of the Darkhold isn’t enough for him to beat her outright.
• Ambiguous Situation: The end of Doctor Strange states that after the Ancient One's death, there currently isn't a Sorcerer Supreme on Earth, implying Strange might take on that mantle later. In Strange's next appearances in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, it's still open if he took on the mantle yet. Then in Avengers: Endgame, he's shown to be leading the other Mystics alongside Wong, but whether he's officially the Sorcerer Supreme or just Master of the NY Sanctum is unclear. WandaVision has Agatha Harkness mention that the Scarlet Witch is stronger than the Sorcerer Supreme, but who bears that title isn't specified. Spider-Man: No Way Home finally confirms that he's not the Sorcerer Supreme; Wong is. Although Strange clearly has the aptitude and claims he'd have gotten the job if not for the minor technicality of having been a victim of the Snap at the time the appointment was made. Given that Strange is very renowned, more than likely Agatha was referring to him and not Wong.
• Amicable Exes: Strange and Christine used to be lovers, and their break-up has apparently led to Christine deciding never to date her colleagues again (going by the fact that she calls this the "Strange Policy"). Despite that, they're on good terms at work and she tries to support him during his spiral into depression after the accident.
• Amnesiac Resonance: Even though he has no memory of Peter Parker, he still subconsciously carries Peter's positive influence and belief in second chances, which led to Strange bonding with America Chavez and giving Wanda Maximoff various chances to redeem herself after she fell under the influence of dark magic. He also seems to carry guilt over pushing Peter away for an honest mistake, as he made an effort to not do the same with America.
• Anti-Hero: He starts off as an arrogant and self-centered Glory Hound who wouldn't do anything too difficult for fear of staining his perfect record. When his Character Development kicks in, he becomes selfless enough to sacrifice his life, even becoming willing to use forbidden unnatural magic to save the day, just like the Ancient One.
• Antiquated Linguistics: By Avengers: Infinity War, he uses formal phrases like "hitherto undreamt of" that earn him mockery from more vulgar heroes like Iron Man.
• Attempted Homewrecker: Strange seems to fit here given that he goes to Christine's wedding and uses her reception as the time to confess he still has feelings for her. Upon her telling him that they never would've lasted, he insists on asking why. After hearing her answer and that she is happy with her new husband, he wishes her well.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite having experienced an alien invasion and living in a world filled with superhumans and gods, Stephen scoffs at the idea of healing through belief and states his disbelief in spirits and chakra. The Ancient One quickly dispels his skepticism by sending him on a trip to the Astral Dimension.
• The Archmage: Strange is destined to succeed the Ancient One as the new Sorcerer Supreme, but he lost the position to Wong due to being a victim of Thanos's Snap for five years. That said, even with Wong now bearing the title and its perks, it's quietly acknowledged that Strange is the true Master of the Mystic Arts.
• Astral Projection: In keeping with his comic book counterpart, one of his key abilities is projecting an astral form out of his body. He uses it to fight enemies as well as a way to rest his body while continuing to study outside the boundaries of the physical plane. He can also project his astral self back into the real world, which he uses to guide Christine on what needs to be done to save his physical body while he's dying, even making his skin translucent for her so she can see where to aim a needle to drain the blood in his pericardial space. And by No Way Home, he can force the astral forms out of other people's bodies just like the Ancient One.
• The Atoner:
  • According to Word of God, the reason he decides to help Peter Parker in No Way Home is that he feels some guilt over how it was his plan to sacrifice Tony Stark in Endgame which led to the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home.
  • The reason he became a doctor was to atone for being unable to save his sister Donna from drowning when they were kids.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Dr. Strange boasts a photographic memory as per his words and can pick up and assimilate knowledge at a very fast rate.
  • The film doesn't draw attention to it, but he displays a consistent ability to diagnose the specifics of serious injuries without needing diagnostic equipment.
• Awesome McCoolname: Peter Parker even assumes it's just his superhero name when they introduce themselves.
• Back from the Dead:
  • Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to create an infinite time loop so that he will continuously resurrect himself after Dormammu smites him countlessly.
  • In Avengers: Endgame, he is one of many characters who are brought back from being dusted by Hulk reversing Thanos's deadly fingersnap from Avengers: Infinity War.
• Badass Boast:
  • Gives an excellent, succinct one to Dormammu.
    Strange: Pain's an old friend.
  • In Infinity War, he all but tells Thanos to give up now or face his wrath. Endgame shows that Thanos really should have followed Strange's advice.
    Thanos: This day extracts a heavy toll. Still, [Ebony Maw] accomplished his mission.
    Strange: You may regret that. He brought you face-to-face with the Master of the Mystic Arts.
  • And again, before siccing the Guardians, Tony Stark, and Spider-Man on the Mad Titan:
    Thanos: The hardest choices require the strongest wills.
    Strange: [drawing up a protective spell] I think you'll find our will equal to yours.
    Thanos: [who thought Strange came alone] "Our"?
  • Delivers a truly unique one during his final confrontation with Wanda in Multiverse of Madness:
    Strange: This time, it's gonna take more than killing me to kill me!
• Badass Bookworm: He's able to kick enough ass to protect the magical world because he knows so much about it. Sorcery requires "study and practice; years of it" and he spends a lot of his time with his nose in a book. He even manages to find a workaround for needing sleep by using his astral form to read while his body rests. Strange mentions offhand that his Photographic Memory allowed him to work towards multiple degrees at once.
• Badass in Distress: In Infinity War, he gets kidnapped and tortured by Ebony Maw in an attempt to steal the Time Stone from him, and has to be rescued by Iron Man and Spider-Man.
• Badass Normal:
  • Even before becoming a sorcerer, Zola's algorithm classified him as such a serious threat that Jasper Sitwell mentioned him by name in the same breath as Bruce Banner. Since an award seen in Doctor Strange dates the film as taking place in 2016, this particular mention happened while Strange was a normal surgeon.
  • Although he's obviously no longer normal by the time of Infinity War, Thanos specifically calls him out on the fact that Strange never used his greatest weapon, the Time Stone, during their Wizard Duel. Thanos had to use all of the Stones he had in his gauntlet at the time against Strange to win — without using a single Infinity Stone, Doctor Strange is just that good.
• Badass Pacifist:
  • Strange really, really doesn't want to kill anyone. He doesn't even want to hurt anyone; he's a doctor and that's against the Hippocratic Oath. However, he's facing down people who wish to sacrifice the world to a dimension-devouring Eldritch Abomination. How does he finally win? By annoying Dormammu into submission. With time on an infinite loop, he's able to stop Dormammu from killing anyone but him, and all he's doing is asking for bargaining rights. He doesn't have to kill Kaecilius, either; he just lets Dormammu take him.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, he easily defeats the Sufficiently Advanced Alien god Loki non-violently with use of portals, dropping him into a bottomless pit for half an hour and then dumping him in Norway before Loki can even touch him.
    Loki: Handle me? Who are you? You think you're some kind of sorcerer? Don't think for one minute, you second-rate...
    Dr. Strange: Alright, bye-bye. [portals Loki and Thor away]
  • Subverted by the time of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Strange, due to the sheer universe-breaking scale of the miscasting of the Runes of Kof-Kol, has little to no qualms about sending the villains Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Electro back to their home dimensions to die, as it is their original fate, he’s not the one killing them, and in the grand calculus of the Multiverse, their sacrifices mean the safety of his home dimension. Ultimately double-subverted as he comes to agree with Peter's efforts and even ensures that the villains do indeed return to their own worlds with a good chance to survive and make better choices.
  • Subverted again in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as he kills Gargantos by ripping out its eye and later personally (indirectly) kills Sinister Strange in a Wizard Duel. It's clear he sees it as a good thing because of how dangerous and evil Sinister Strange was. That being said, he's reluctant to harm Wanda regardless of how powerful and dangerous she is.
• Bash Brothers: With Wong and Mordo, until the latter chooses to leave the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
• Batman Gambit: By trapping Dormammu in a never-ending time loop, he forced the eldritch being from beyond time and space to give up his invasion of Strange's reality and never come back. His entire arc between Infinity War and Endgame is performing a major one on both Thanos and Tony Stark. Multiverse of Madness sees him doing it again.
  • In Infinity War, he sees one possible future where the Avengers can defeat Thanos, and it involves surrendering the Time Stone to Thanos in exchange for sparing Tony's life, playing on Thanos's bizarre sense of honor and self-deluding nobility. After giving Thanos the Time Stone, and after the Titan snaps his fingers, he just looks at Tony and tells him there was no other way, addressing him personally, with Tony being burdened with the task that somehow it's his destiny to undo Thanos's victory. In Endgame, this leads to Tony building a time machine to transport the Avengers to recoup the Infinity Stones and build a new gauntlet with his Iron Man tech that allows the Avengers to undo the snap when Hulk wields it. But that only turns out to be Part 1.
  • Upon reuniting with Tony in Endgame, Tony initially asks out of camaraderie if this was the one in 14,000,605 chance that everything works out, but Strange still refuses to confirm, stating that saying otherwise would alter the outcome. When Thanos wields the Infinity Gauntlet that Tony made and is about to put the Power Stone back in the Gauntlet, Tony, who had just regained consciousness, looks at Strange who raises his index finger signifying that yes, the one timeline with Thanos's defeat depends on Tony's Heroic Sacrifice, which Strange knew all along that Tony would do.
  • In Multiverse of Madness, Strange uses one of these to great effect: he plays on Baron Mordo's ego to provoke him and create an opening to escape from Mordo's custody, which succeeds and allows Strange to flee from Wanda's rampage along with Christine and America.
• Beard of Sorrow: After his hands are crippled, he is no more capable of using a mechanical razor than a scalpel, and thus lets his facial hair grow in a disheveled manner. However, once he gets some traction in his magical studies, he uses an electric razor to trim it into a dignified beard, signifying he has his confidence back.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Said word-for-word to Peter Parker when he tells him that the spell Parker botched which was supposed to make the world forget he was Spider-Man ended up bringing in everyone from the Multiverse who knows he is Spider-Man.
• Big Brother Instinct: Multiverse of Madness reveals that he failed to rescue his younger sister Donna from drowning in a frozen lake, and her death inspired him to become a doctor.
• Big Brother Is Watching: A benevolent example; once he takes control of New York's Sanctum Sanctorum he dedicates himself to be constantly on the lookout for anything from other worlds that land on Earth and do it harm...and that includes people like Loki.
• Big Good: After his debut movie, he's essentially this for the MCU, even though he's not yet the Sorcerer Supreme; Since then, he's decided to keep watch on any potential threats to Earth, not just from other dimensions, so that he can summon and direct heroes to deal with it. Plus, he's had to take serious time to learn about the infinity stones to allow him to help other heroes deal with the impending threat Thanos poses to the universe by the time of Infinity War, and then enacted the big plan to ensure the one outcome where the heroes win, which means allowing himself to perish during the Snap. By the time he gets unsnapped in Endgame, he continues to ensure Tony sticks to the plan.
• Blue Is Heroic: Strange dons a blue robe as he quickly advances into his sorcery training.
• Body Surf: The climax of Multiverse of Madness has him possessing the decaying body of Defender Strange via Dreamwalking since he is physically trapped in the Earth of Sinister Strange.
• Break the Haughty: He goes through one of these over the course of the movie. At the beginning, Strange is an insufferable man who likes to show off during operation procedures, and who dismisses cases he deems to not be worth his time or has a risk of failure that could taint his reputation. After a car accident that ruins his hands and his career, as well as having several characters calling him out for his Jerkass behavior, he begins to mature up, admit to his flaws and care about people other than himself.
• Brought Down to Badass:
  • By the end of Endgame, he's lost the Time Stone within the Eye of Agamotto, but he is still a Master of the Mystic Arts.
  • In Multiverse of Madness, he gets handcuffed with a power dampener and thus loses his ability to cast spells. It doesn't stop him from kicking 838-Mordo's ass in a brawl.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He is extremely prideful, full of himself, and thinks he is the greatest doctor alive or dead. That being said, he still takes the fact that he is saving lives very seriously. He is horrified when he has to kill someone against his oath as a doctor.
• The Cameo: He has a brief appearance in Thor: Ragnarok in a sequence that integrates the after-credits scene from his own movie.
• Career-Ending Injury: Stephen Strange's exemplary career in surgery is ended due to a car accident damaging the nerves in his hands. His search to cure this leads Strange to the Ancient One who leads him down a very different career path.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • In Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers' list shows Star Trek, meaning that if Star Trek Into Darkness exists, then Doctor Strange is Khan. In the UK version of Winter Soldier said list also included the BBC series Sherlock, whose star is Benedict Cumberbatch.
  • A possible example; in The Avengers, Tony Stark calls Clint Barton "Legolas," implying that The Lord Of The Rings exists. ^note Though Tony could have been referencing the book. If The Hobbit also exists and was filmed, Cumberbatch played Smaug and the Necromancer/Sauron in it.
• Celebrity Superhero: Multiverse of Madness reveals that since the events of Endgame, he has become a public superhero with the world now knowing for certain that sorcerers exist. This is shown by how casually he uses his magic at Christine's wedding, with her husband apparently being a fan. A random bystander asks Strange for a photo in a restaurant, though he refuses. Apparently, Strange is also popular internationally, as the British Dane Whitman name-drops Strange when asking about Sersi's transmutation abilities.
• Chain Pain: Frequently manifests his magic as a chain of energy.
• Character Development:
  • Starts out as a self-centered glory hound who wouldn't do anything too difficult for fear of staining his perfect record to a selfless champion who is willing to endlessly lose against Dormammu in obscurity to spare Earth and the rest of the Multiverse from the fiend.
  • No Way Home has him not only becoming more compassionate and sympathetic to others, but understanding that everyone deserves a second chance.
  • In Multiverse of Madness, he learns not to be so controlling and adhere to doing things his way, especially after Christine of Earth-838 explains that the main reason for their breakup in this universe was also Stephen always wanting to be the one in charge, and the Illuminati reveal how they were forced to execute Strange for turning to the Darkhold in an attempt to defeat Thanos on his own. He refuses to repeat his Defender counterpart's actions and trusts America to wield her own power against Wanda. By the end of the movie, he also comes to terms with the fact that him and Christine are not meant to be and moves on with his life.
• Charm Person: A subtle demonstration is done by Doctor Strange in Ragnarok when Thor visits the Sanctum Sanctorum. Thor has seen Loki kidnapped and has yet to meet Doctor Strange. When he first appears Thor raises his hammer (disguised as an umbrella) in defense. However, Doctor Strange greets him with "Thor Odinson...God of Thunder...You can put down the umbrella" and surprisingly Thor complies. Strange then immediately teleports them to another location to temporarily separate him from Mjölnir while they talk.
• The Chessmaster:
  • In keeping with his comic book counterpart, Strange wins many of his battles, not through skill or strength, but by using his wits and whatever resources he has on hand. Best demonstrated when he forces an Eldritch Abomination — one he has no hope of fighting — into a conditional surrender.
  • Hinted at in Infinity War where he gazes through over 14,000,605 futures to find only a single way to beat Thanos. After battling the Mad Titan, which ends with Strange handing over the Time Stone in order to save Tony Stark's life, he then tells Tony that they've reached the endgame. Later, before fading away to dust from Thanos's universal genocide, he also tells Tony "there was no other way." All this heavily implies that giving the Time Stone and insuring Stark's survival are key to ultimately defeating Thanos, as Strange foresaw. This comes to a head in Endgame which sees the Avengers gathering the Infinity Stones in the past thanks to Tony's assistance, the Ancient One willingly giving the Time Stone away upon learning of Strange doing the same, and finally where Tony gains the Infinity Stones to defeat Thanos by Heroic Sacrifice. Just as Strange was counting on.
• The Chosen One: Played with. The Ancient One states in the trailer: "I've spent so many years, peering through time...looking for you." However, the film itself plays a bit coy with this, merely remarking at points that Strange has an inborn gift for the Mystic Arts, but he isn't yet the most powerful or skilled sorcerer, winning through luck, guile, and sheer stubbornness and at the end of the film, the position of Sorcerer Supreme is left open. It's essentially a magical version of Falling into the Cockpit; he only keeps the Eye of Agamotto on because the Masters are interrupted before he can take it off, and being knocked into the New York Sanctum is what gets him the Cloak of Levitation. During the events of Endgame, it is revealed that the Ancient One knew Strange would become the greatest Master of the Mystic Arts as far back as the first Avengers movie, as all that Banner needs to convince her to give him the Time Stone is to tell her that Strange had set everything up for him to reach her in his timeline.
• Cincinnatus: He can control the Eye of Agamotto, giving him almost godlike powers, yet he returns it to its place after he's done with it, and doesn't claim the position of the Sorcerer Supreme.
• Clothes Make the Superman: The Cloak of Levitation, an enchanted red cloak that protects Strange, lets him levitate and responds to his mental commands. It can also move on its own and is sentient to some extent. In fact, comparing their respective performances in their first fight against Kaecilius, the Cloak was actually more badass than Strange when they first met!
• Color Motif: Both his surgeon scrubs and sorcerer robes are dark blue.
• Composite Character: As Adam Warlock was not in the MCU by the time of Infinity War, Doctor Strange essentially takes his role in Infinity War as The Chessmaster of the Avengers with vast cosmic power and knowledge playing a vast gambit to stop Thanos. Notedly, both Warlock and Strange end up sacrificing their fellow Avengers in a desperate gambit to stop Thanos.
  • In One Moment in Time, where the world forgets Peter's Secret Identity, Doctor Strange consults Tony Stark and Reed Richards for help in making the world forget Peter is Spider-Man. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Strange performs the spell alone - and is less successful than he was in the comic.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Obviously not while studying on a Himalayan mountain or being a superhero, but the scenes from Strange's pre-accident life show he had a very high taste for luxury. In only a few minutes we're shown a large New York highrise apartment, a souped-up Cool Car, and what appears to be a cabinet full of high-end luxury watches. The result of this is that he is basically broke in only a few months after he can no longer work as a high-paid neurosurgeon.
• Cool Car: As said with his Conspicuous Consumption, he drives a grey Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4 when driving to his conference. This serves as the catalyst of the horrific accident that lead to his Career-Ending Injury.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Gets on the receiving end of this against Dormammu, multiple times. Subverted in the fact that getting subjected to this was his goal all along, by trapping Dormammu in a "Groundhog Day" Loop until he gives into Strange's bargain.

• Dark and Troubled Past: Multiverse of Madness reveals that his sister Donna died when they were playing on a frozen lake as children, which she fell into. The way Strange talks about how he was unable to save her, it's clear that her death was the beginning of his Control Freak tendencies and is probably why he became a doctor.
• Dark Is Not Evil: With no other options available to stop Wanda from killing America, Strange turns to using the Darkhold to Dreamwalk into Defender Strange's corpse, even using the Souls of the Damned to his advantage. Despite this, Strange succeeds where Wanda and two of his own variants failed, resisting the Darkhold's corruption and managing to help solve the crisis without losing himself or sacrificing anyone else.
• Deadpan Snarker: Per the Marvel norm, he has quite the haughty and wry persona in regards to things he finds...off.
• Deal with the Devil: Subverted. After the revelation that sorcerers make deals with Dormammu for power, he goes to the Dark Dimension and offers to "bargain" — but it's not for something he wants from Dormammu, but rather something he's going to make Dormammu want from him.
• Death Is the Only Option: In Infinity War, after looking through 14 million versions of the future to find the one where the heroes win, he trades Tony Stark's life for the Time Stone and dies as a result. With his last words, he claims that there was no other way, but he's not referring to his own dusting, but to Tony's death.
• Demonic Possession: During the climax of Multiverse of Madness, he is forced to use the Darkhold to "Dreamwalk" or possess the decaying body of Defender Strange to rescue America Chavez from Wanda Maximoff in Mount Wundagore while being physically stranded in the Earth of Sinister Strange.
• Destination Defenestration: He gets tossed into a store window while fighting Gargantos, rendering him unconscious for a good chunk of the fight.
• Determinator:
  • As he puts it, "Pain's an old friend."
  • It extends to more than just being able to take a beating. He spends five hours straight up pleading and begging at the Ancient One's doorstep after she kicks him out for being disrespectful.
  • There's no telling how long he and Dormammu were trapped in the time loop, dying and coming back again and again and again...director commentary confirms that it is a lot longer than what is shown. He remembers all of it. Not once did he lose his resolve or break his spell.
  • He's the only person to fight on roughly equal terms against Thanos in single combat without using the powers of an Infinity Stone. Not only that, but Infinity War makes it exceedingly clear that there is nothing Strange won't do to keep the universe safe. Even when he's being turned to dust by the Snapture, Strange doesn't even flinch.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Towards the end of Doctor Strange, Christine eventually turns him down after the Ancient One dies. Despite Strange apologizing to her and becoming a better person, the damage Strange had done was already too much for their relationship to continue. Before Christine leaves, she gives Strange a Last Kiss on the cheek. In Multiverse of Madness, Strange is invited to Christine's wedding with another man, and he clearly still loves her and wishes they could be together again. However, seeing how desperately wanting a better life at any cost is corrupting others like Wanda or alternate versions of himself, Strange decides to truly make peace with this.
• Didn't Think This Through: In No Way Home, while Peter didn't realize he could try to argue his friends' case for MIT entry and ends up going to Strange hoping that they can undo his secret identity reveal, Strange is quick to bring up a memory wipe spell. And then he proceeds to start casting it without much of a second thought, only explaining that everyone would forget Peter Parker was Spider-Man mid-cast. Not only does this freak out Peter into messing up the spell, but Strange apparently didn't even consider the consequences of this at all, showing he's still a bit arrogant about his use of magic despite Wong's preemptive warnings about the risks involved. No wonder he didn't make Sorcerer Supreme quite yet.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In Ragnarok, he sends Loki to a dimension where he's forever falling...and there's nothing Loki can do about it. And when Loki tries to charge him with knives drawn, Strange quickly intercepts him with another portal.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Coerces Dormammu into an incredibly one-sided deal in exchange for freeing him from the time loop.
• Die or Fly: Strange is subject to this treatment in his first film. The Ancient One strands him on Mount Everest to force him to figure out how to open a portal to get back. He nearly freezes to death before he manages it.
• Disabled Snarker: Getting his hands broken seems to have upped his penchant for sarcasm. Even more so when he gains his newfound confidence in sorcery.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Even though Christine is incredibly supportive, Stephen treats her horribly after the accident destroys his hands.
  Christine: This isn't the end, there are other things that can give your life meaning.
  Stephen: [derisive] Like what? Like you?
  Christine: ...and this is the part where you apologize.
  Stephen: This is the part where you leave.
• Discovering Your Own Dead Body: Early on in the Multiverse of Madness, America shows him Defender Strange's rotting cadaver, which he then buries under a stack of bricks. He also finds out how his Earth-838 counterpart really died through Charles Xavier's telepathy.
• Ditzy Genius: Doctor Strange makes Tony Stark look like a mildly talented mechanic who occasionally spills his ice cream.
  • Despite his obvious intelligence, he wasn't smart enough to realize that texting while driving at night, in the rain, on a mountain road, is a VERY bad idea. While he survives, he suffers the Career-Ending Injury that starts his Trauma Conga Line; blowing his fortune trying to find any way to repair his hands.
  • Better yet, he manages to use the Eye of Agamotto (AKA Infinity Stone of Time) to pseudo-repair a Tome of Eldritch Lore and start performing an obscenely dangerous ritual. Wong and Mordo are torn between awe that a man with only a few months of training was brilliant enough to rewind time and rage that he was dumb enough to nearly summon Dormammu.
  • And when Peter Parker comes to him for a memory spell, Strange begins casting it before explaining critical details, like that it will work on everyone Peter knows and not just the public at large.
• Domain Holder: In Thor Ragnarok, he is implied to have attained this kind of mastery over the Sanctum Sanctorum, as he can warp and weave Thor and himself in and out of multiple rooms and spaces at will, without Thor's awareness. Of course, that doesn't mean the Domain isn't vulnerable to external attacks such as Mjolnir inside it, or a falling Bruce Banner that tumbles across the galaxy into his staircase.
• Don't Call Me "Sir":
  • Gets pretty ticked off when people refer to him as "Mister," "Master," etc. instead of "Doctor."
  • When he insists Peter need not call him "Sir," Peter immediately switches to First-Name Basis and calls him Stephen.
    Stephen: That feels weird, but I'll allow it.
• Don't Think, Feel: Played With in that Strange initially has trouble with the precise movements required for the spells he's trying to cast due to his hand tremors, only to be shown by the one-handed Master Hamir that the motions are less important than the intent behind them. However, Strange still has to process a lot of knowledge of the Mystic Arts in order to learn how to make his intent manifest as spells.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: After the car accident, Strange has too much pride to welcome sympathy from Christine and openly refuses to be one of her "sob stories." He regrets this later.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Has mastered this by Infinity War, as he attacks Thanos with multiple clones of himself, each of them restraining Thanos with a magical chain. In the comics, this is a spell called the Images of Ikonn.
• Dr. Jerk: Pre-Character Development, Strange is a selfish and condescending glory hog that dismisses patients unless they can help his reputation and lords himself above his coworkers.
• The Dreaded: Members of the Illuminati point out that Doctor Strange and his alternate selves pose the greatest threats to the Multiverse due to their capabilty of inadvertently destroying entire realities.
• Drives Like Crazy: Passes on blind turns, at night, in the rain, while speeding and talking on the phone. This results in a horrific accident and crippling injuries to his hands.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Of a sort — Jasper Sitwell mentions him as being one of Project Insight's targets in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
• Eastward Endeavor: In his first film, seeking a cure for his hands, he goes east and is deeply changed by his experience there. His Jerkass tendencies are washed away by his training with the Ancient One, and he eventually realizes he doesn't need perfect hands to practice magic.
• Elite School Means Elite Brain: He's a gifted neurosurgeon who graduated from Columbia University.
• Embarrassing Last Name: While not exactly embarrassed, he shows a level of frustration by his inability to have a surgical technique named after him.
• Enlightenment Superpowers: He visits a monastery in Nepal in order to heal his damaged hands and has to spend months learning introspection and opening his mind before he can even attempt proper magic. His mentor finally just drops him off on Mount Everest so that he will learn to open a portal before he freezes to death. It works.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first moment on screen is performing surgery like it's a game...only to hand it over to another doctor to save the life of a patient in the ER who's dying due to a bullet in the brain, showing the audience his arrogance and compassion at the same time.
• Expy: Strange shows a lot of similarities to Dr. Gregory House, especially with his mannerisms and his status as a genius doctor who is incredibly hard to work with.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Even at his worst, he chews Dr. West out for almost dooming a gunshot victim he could save.
  • Subverted in Spider-Man: No Way Home. When Peter offers to have the memory of himself wiped from everyone in the MCU, Strange initially hesitates, as he knows that doing such a thing could wreck Peter's life more than it already has been. However, he goes through with casting the spell in order to prevent the universe from collapsing in on itself, although it's clear that he's upset about having to do so.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: He grows longer hair and a messy Beard of Sorrow loop after his hands are ruined in an accident. He cuts his shaggy hair and trims his beard to a well-kept goatee after finding a new purpose as a disciple of the Ancient One.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Gains a third eye on the forehead similar to Sinister Strange's own at the end of Multiverse of Madness, after using the Darkhold to Dreamwalk in the corpse of Defender Strange.
• Face Death with Dignity: In Infinity War, everyone else who gets snapped by Thanos, aside from Wanda, dies with varying degrees of pain, horror, and confusion on their faces. Except Strange, who simply locks eyes with Tony and calmly tells him, "There was no other way." Justified, because he had already seen this as well as his resurrection in the future scenario where the heroes emerged victorious and he trusted Tony would guide them there.
• Failure Gambit: Out of all the Avengers, Strange perhaps best knows the value of losing the battle to win the war.
  • In his first film, he traps Dormammu and himself in a Stable Time Loop where Dormammu can kill him thousands of times...but never for good, nor can Dormammu escape, and ultimately forces the Eldritch Abomination to leave Earth in exchange for nothing more than him letting Dormammu go.
    Dormammu: You will never win!
    Strange: No. But I can lose again...and again...and again...and again, forever. And that makes you my prisoner.
  • In Infinity War, having seen the only version of future out of 14 million where the heroes win, Doctor Strange gives Thanos the Time Stone and thus enables him to wipe out half the universe, including Doctor Strange himself. In Endgame, circumstances align so that the Avengers can reverse the effects of the Decimation five years later.
• Fatal Flaw: Arrogance. Even after being humbled under the Ancient One's tutelage, Strange is still prone to being very cocky and overestimates his own abilities as a result, which causes him to impulsively make bad decisions.
  • In the events of his first film, he almost summons Dormammu because he was so confident that he can use the Time Stone to restore a ripped page and didn't even read the warnings beforehand.
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, he immediately casts a spell that will make the whole world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. The spell ends up getting botched and unleashing a number of people into their universe because he didn't care to explain to Peter the mechanics of the spell beforehand.
  • Multiverse of Madness shows that this has made him quite insistent to do things his way and be the one in charge. He gets over this when he learns to trust others more and accept that some things were just not meant to be.
    • Fear of Failure. Ultimately a lot of Strange's pre-development Dr. Jerk behavior and unwillingness to try to save patients he's not certain enough he can help comes down to a deeply rooted fear that he will fail. On the other hand, it's also what drives Strange to be the Determinator that he is and makes him so focused in his pursuit of knowledge both as a doctor and in the Mystic Arts. Allowing himself to lose to Dormammu over and over again marks when Strange gets over this tendency.
• Fingore: Strange's hands are crushed in his car accident, which costs him his medical career. He has rather prominent scars on the backs of his fingers from where orthopedic surgeons had to operate and then drill in splints to immobilize his hands.
• First-Name Basis: When Strange meets Wong, he asks the latter to call him by his first name. He later zig-zags with this for Peter Parker, as he requests the kid to call him either "Stephen" or "Sir" depending on how much respect he has for him.
• Foil:
  • To Tony Stark: they both start out as being brilliant, self-centered, reckless men who care about pleasure and success until a life-changing accident brings them down a few pegs; they also both have adjectives for surnames that start with "S". The difference is Tony (as Iron Man) uses technology while Strange uses Magic. Additionally, Stark gets the chance to stroke his own ego for good by becoming a beloved superhero, while Strange learns humility by fighting battles kept away from the public eye. By the time of their meeting and enforced partnership during Infinity War, they are effectively each other's Red Oni (Stark) and Blue Oni (Strange), which their costumes reflect: Stark's Iron Man armor being "hot rod red" with gold accents, and Strange's robes being blue against the red Cloak of Levitation. It's not a coincidence that Tony finds himself constantly annoyed by Strange's inability to be intimidated by his presence.
  • To Thor: they both started as arrogant hedonists who suffer a fall from grace caused by their own actions. They find a new calling as magical/mystical heroes for Earth. The difference? Thor is a Norse deity who lives to uphold Asgard's Proud Warrior Race Guy customs until he gets banished to Earth to learn humility. Strange, on the other hand, is an ordinary mortal man who trained as a doctor (a saver of lives) and then learns about the existence of powerful, magical creatures outside of his dimension. Strange himself Lampshades this when he meets Thor himself in Ragnarok.
• Forgot About His Powers: Subverted in Infinity War. He doesn't use the Eye of Agamotto at all during the fight against Thanos on Titan — but this is because he removed the Time Stone from it beforehand. Because he saw the future with the Eye, he figured that the Time Stone wouldn't do him any good (much like how in The Avengers, one Infinity Stone-powered artifact was capable of negating another, and Thanos has four at this point), and considering the Failure Gambit he's playing, he likely removed the Time Stone to nudge the timestream towards the one possibility where the heroes win.
• Friend to All Children: Ebony Maw's quip about Strange being "popular with children" is proven true since the latter manages to swiftly form strong bonds with Peter Parker and America Chavez. He refuses to sacrifice America and weeps at the prospect of forgetting Peter.
  Strange: Peter, the people who love you they... we... won't remember you.
• The Gadfly: In Thor: Ragnarok, he uses his powers to mess with Thor and Loki.
• Genius Bruiser: He's both a brilliant doctor and a powerful Master of the Mystic Arts.
• The Gift:
  • Strange has a knack for the Mystic Arts, and it's not just his photographic memory, he picks it up effortlessly.
  • Do you know how all of the wielders of the Infinity Stones have a horrible fate? Strange somehow manages to use the Time Stone without any ill effect, or at least not yet anyway; as Mordo is adamant that manipulating time will have dire consequences.
• Glass Cannon: Even though Strange has become a tremendously powerful sorcerer, he is still human.
• Glory Hound: A downplayed example, as the most questionable thing he does to keep his perfect record and reputation is refusing to treat patients he believes he won't be able to heal, who probably get transferred to other available doctors.
• Goatee of Intellect: Doctor Strange has a circle beard and was once a renowned neurosurgeon until he permanently damaged the nerves of his hands in a car accident. He then studied relentlessly in the mystic arts and became the master of New York's Sanctum Sanctorum after participating in the fight against the supernatural.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Originally, he opted to leave the Eye of Agamotto because he wasn't ready to properly wield it, and he felt it was too dangerous. But after recognizing the coming threat to the Universe and Thanos's crusade for the stones, things were too dire for him not to have it with him as a potential last resort even though he never uses it against Thanos.
  • With America Chavez captured by Wanda while Dr Strange and 838-Christine are stranded in his Sinister counterpart’s dimension, Strange has no choice but to use the Darkhold to Dreamwalk into his Defender counterpart’s dead body since it's the only way it can stop the Scarlet Witch and rescue America, their only way back to their respective homes.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: He is a hero and wears a goatee that indicates his mysterious nature.
• Gracefully Demoted: Due to him blipping for five years, Wong became the new Sorcerer Supreme. Though he does snark about it, he also doesn't seem too upset about the situation.
• Guile Hero: Doctor Strange's style of world-saving. His reluctance at outright killing people because of his Hippocratic Oath, the generally more proficient and powerful enemies he's faced, and the many, many options the mystic arts offer, give Strange the option and a big incentive to outsmart his opponents through unconventional tactics and intelligent plays instead of overpowering them. He never threatens Dormammu but uses time magic over which the former has control over to simply annoy him enough to make a deal, and his greatest action against Thanos in Infinity War is to give him the Time Stone in expectation of a later gambit.
  • Despite being one of the most powerful magic users in the MCU, Strange's main opponents outclass him in raw power by several orders of magnitude (Dormammu, Thanos with several Infinity Stones, and Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch), so he resorts to trickery or long-term planning to win.
• Hand Blast: In Infinity War, Doctor Strange is briefly shown summoning a snake of energy from his hand that bounces off from some rocks to attack Thanos. It may be an unnamed Bolts of Balthakk spell Strange is using.
• Handicapped Badass: Despite his original goal being to fix his hands, he never actually accomplishes that during the movie. But his magic doesn't require steady hands (or technically hands at all) so he still remains a badass.
• Headbutting Heroes: With Iron Man in Infinity War over disagreements on how to fight Thanos, though their similar personalities certainly don't help. Strange makes it clear to Stark that if he had to choose between saving him, Spider-Man and the Time Stone, he would pick the latter over the two. Subverted at the end, when Strange sacrifices the Time Stone to save Stark. Double Subverted in Endgame when hit turns out that Strange needed him alive so that Tony could sacrifice himself to kill Thanos.
• Heel Realization:
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, upon seeing the Lizard return to his human form and Otto Octavius willing to risk his life to protect Strange from Green Goblin, he realizes that Spider-Man was right about the universe-displaced villains deserving a chance to be helped. More subtly, he also realizes that he had forgotten who he once was and lost sight of helping people in need, which is more important than sacrificing them for the greater good.
  • In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, after learning about his counterparts’ unethically and morally extreme and narrow-minded decisions, which got them killed and/or led to tragedy in their respective universes, Strange realized he needed to let go of his Control Freak tendencies and lack of trust in others, as they can have serious consequences.
• Hero Antagonist: Becomes this in Spider-Man: No Way Home as his goal to send the villains home to protect his universe even if it results in their deaths puts him in conflict with Peter, who wants to try and save them. However, neither really want to fight each other and while understanding of Peter's reasons, Strange isn't wrong that the villains and the unstable spell which brought them to the MCU are dangerous.
• Heroic BSoD: He suffers a minor one when he had no choice but to kill one of Kaecilius's mooks, snapping at the Ancient One and Mordo. Strange may (mostly) be an egotistical and abrasive jackass, but he takes his oath as a doctor very seriously, and sure enough, he doesn't take a single life in all subsequent appearances, relying on his expertise as a Guile Hero to get things done.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Subjects himself to an infinite one to imprison Dormammu in a time loop that will only end if he gives up or if the villain agrees to his bargain. Strange wins. Whereas before he was afraid of doing anything that would jeopardize his record, he's willing to die in order to stop Dormammu.
  • Does it again in Infinity War. Having used the Time Stone to see only one future out of millions of possibilities where the heroes are victorious over Thanos, he willingly hands over the Time Stone to Thanos, stating that it was the only way they could win. Strange is then one of the casualties when Thanos uses the completed Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half the universe, something he knew of when looking into the future.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: In Infinity War, he comments on how he doesn't get anything for regularly saving the world from magical threats to the point where he can barely afford to go out and buy sandwiches from the deli.
• Hidden Depths: An Exploited Trope. As mentioned above, HYDRA saw him as capable of becoming a potential threat back when he was only a surgeon, and they would have killed him ahead of time with Project Insight had it not been for Captain America's efforts. Years later, Mordo suspects that he is a natural at Mystic Arts.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Insufferable glory hound he was, Strange was still a doctor who desired to help people even if his own ego got in the way.
• High-Class Harpsichord: His soaring, majestic leitmotif is often performed by a harpsichord, most prominently in the track "Go For Baroque," befitting his status as a much more refined and esoteric hero than the Avengers and their allies.
• Hollywood Atheist: Strange dips into this trope during his conversation with the Ancient One by gratuitously describing humanity as a series of chemical processes on a floating globe in a cold, uncaring universe while she's trying to convince him magic exists. The Big Bad later echoes this view of the world later just to rub it in.
• Honor Before Reason: In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Strange decides to go out of his way to try and help Peter with his exposed identity, despite having little reason to do so, and how dangerous it is.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Instead of going to almost any of his other allies for help, he once again defers to his pragmatism and goes straight to Wanda believing she can help him with America thanks to her powers of witchcraft being similar to the runes on the monsters chasing her. Turns out Wanda is the very person who's been sending them, and Strange accidentally tells her where America is. This is after she had enslaved an entire town of people and lost not just Vision a second time, but her children. While Strange had no way of knowing she'd acquired the Darkhold or even become the Scarlet Witch, it was not a wise decision to head straight to her when she was evidently not in a right state of mind.
• Hypocrite: Subverted. He admonishes Wanda for using the Darkhold and wreaking havoc on the Multiverse, only to acquire an alternate Darkhold in another universe at the climax of Multiverse of Madness in order to Dreamwalk and save America. Wanda calls him out on it and Strange even acknowledges he's just like his other variants to 838-Christine, but the key difference is that Strange only turned to the book of dark magic as a last resort and does not use it for himself or to hurt anybody. He doesn't even kill Wanda using it. He does what he has to strictly in order to save America, and encourages her to believe in herself, which leads to Wanda waking up and destroying every version of the Darkhold once and for all.

• I Choose to Stay: At the end of his first film, Strange decides to keep studying the Mystic Arts in order to become a sorcerer and superhero instead of returning to his surgeon career like he originally planned, inspired by Christine's advice about new beginnings and his last conversation with the Ancient One.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • When Stark questions him as to why he surrendered the Time Stone to Thanos, Strange replies that it is the only way to defeat him. This takes on a darker meaning in Endgame where it's revealed that Strange knew all along that Tony would have to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to ultimately stop Thanos. In any case, it came at the cost of him failing his oath to protect the Time Stone, which is no more as of Endgame.
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has him saying this word-for-word to Wanda when he attempts to justify his actions in Infinity War as the best method to protect the world.
• I Hate Past Me: Strange is not proud of his insensitive and jerkass behavior from before he began to study the mystic arts. He sincerely apologizes to those he's wronged and is determined to be a better man.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Stephen mentions to Sinister Strange that his sister Donna died in a childhood accident when the two of them were playing on a frozen lake and she broke through the ice. He feels guilty for not being able to save her and doesn't talk to others about it.
• Idiot Ball: Despite being otherwise clever and vastly intelligent, Strange has two moments of this in his first film:
  • While driving down a mountain road, Strange speeds in terrible weather conditions and is generally more focused on his clients rather than looking at the road. The result: Strange crashes his car, breaks his fingers, and ruins his career as a surgeon.
  • In Nepal, when three thugs corner him and demand his watch, he responds by punching one of them with his injured hands. It does him no good.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • In his first film, he is stabbed by Kaecilius's magical spear in the New York Sanctum and has to teleport to Christine for emergency surgery.
  • Later in the same film, one of the many, many ways Dormammu kills him is by throwing a volley of spears through his body.
• Important Haircut: The clean-shaven Strange grows a messy Beard of Sorrow after his accident, and he loses his ability to wield a scalpel let alone a straight razor. He trims back to a well-kept goatee after finding a new purpose as a sorcerer.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: According to the Ancient One, fear of failure is what drives him to excel.
• Incompletely Trained: In his debut movie, Strange has to save the world and take a position guarding one of its two remaining Cosmic Keystones while still nothing but a talented beginner. In fact, he only demonstrates six magical techniques over the course of the movie; his Sling Ring, Astral Projection, a whip made of concussive light, sigils that act as shields/brass knuckles (which he flubs half the time), accessing the Mirror Dimension and using the Eye of Agamotto to screw with time — and the last is really cheating as it's the Infinity Stone of Time. Though admittedly, everyone is freaked out that he's brilliant enough to use it so skillfully while still being inexperienced enough not to know that the dire warnings are written in books after the rituals no one should perform.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • It's Doctor Strange. This is Lampshaded; Interestingly he only insists on his title when he feels he's due some measure of respect. Strange is even more of an arrogant ass than Stark, but he genuinely loves being a doctor, considers the Hippocratic Oath to be sacred, and is traumatized by killing one of Kaecilius's goons in self-defense. After he begins his studies with the Ancient One, he allows her to call him "Mister Strange" and with Wong, he instead asks to be called "Stephen."
  • It is "Master of the Mystic Arts," not "wizard," thank you very much. At least Bucky recognizes Strange is not a wizard.
• Instant Expert: Played With, Strange does struggle a lot at first, but when he does finally get the basics he progresses extremely quickly. This is explained in that he is an incredibly smart man with a perfect memory, it is also shown that one of the first things he learned after mastering the basics was to astral project so that he could study even while he slept.
• Instant Costume Change: By Infinity War, he's capable of shifting immediately from street clothes to robes at a moment's notice, with the Cloak flying in to complete the transition.
• Instant Knots: Against Thanos, Strange summons bright red bands that instantly go grab and wrap themselves around Thanos's gauntlet. It may be an unnamed version of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak spell.
• Instant Runes: He creates glowing symbols in geometric patterns as a focusing mechanism for his spells.
• Insufferable Genius: Strange starts off as a brilliant surgeon who also happens to be arrogant, pompous, and stubborn. He would show off in the operating theatre and decline cases he considered uninteresting or that were too likely to be failures and damage his reputation. He later grew out of it due to being dealt a heavy dose of Break the Haughty.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He forms two of them. The first one is with Peter Parker and the second one is with America Chavez.
• It's All About Me: He had a colossal ego and the Ancient One even tells him at one point that the simplest lesson he needs to learn is that it's not about him. As with his Insufferable Genius tendencies, he developed out of it, to the point he's willing to die over and over in order to save Earth. Christine says this almost word for word when accusing Strange of this mindset. She's very much correct at this point.
  The Ancient One: Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.
  Dr Strange: Which is?
  The Ancient One: It's not about you.
• It Was a Gift: In his first film, he wears watches — a gift from his Old Flame, Christine Palmer. The inscription on the backside of the watch says: "Time will tell how much I love you, Christine." His refusal to give up the watches to attackers in Kathmandu leads to him meeting Mordo, who introduces him to the Ancient One.
• Ivy League for Everyone: He went to and graduated from Columbia University.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Before becoming a superhero, Stephen was incredibly arrogant and insufferable — even more than Tony Stark. Even when he starts his training, it takes time for him to drop his condescending attitude. By the end of the film, however, he puts all of his pride behind him to do what's right and even apologizes for being an ass to Christine.
  • This aspect of his personality serves as an interesting foil to Peter's more openly heroic and loving nature in No Way Home. Doctor Strange sees the fate of the multiversal villains as inevitable and unlike other times in his career, he doesn't really bother to think of an alternative that could save them. Peter meanwhile sees them as the lost souls they are and wants to at least try to spare them from their fates. However, Strange isn't trying to be callous or cruel, he simply doesn't want to mess with the natural order (any more than he already has). And as Peter discovers the hard way, his optimism of saving the bad guys has dire consequences for him and his loved ones, something Strange himself warned would happen. Their conflict in the movie stems from Peter's emotional side vs. Strange's logical side. That being said, Strange takes no pleasure in resigning even more people to a grim fate. In the end, when Peter makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Multiverse, Strange is in tears warning him, "Everyone who knows and loves you, we...we'd have no memory of you." He's been acerbic to Peter for most of the movie, but he loves the kid.
  • Multiverse of Madness shows Strange being very blunt with Wanda and treating her with all the hostility he can muster, but it's not to be cruel, it's a desperate attempt to get her to see reality for what it is (that and Wanda is trying to kill America Chavez, a 14-year-old girl, in order to kidnap one of her variants' sons). At the same time, he becomes very protective and empathetic towards America and goes to great lengths to protect her. And in the end, he does treat Wanda with sympathy and acknowledges that she did the right thing in the end.
• Keeping the Handicap: Initially, Strange intends to learn magic to heal his permanently damaged hands and work as a surgeon again, just like Jonathan Pangborn who used his magic to walk again despite a complete spinal cord injury. However, in the end, Strange decides against it and leaves his hands as they are.
• Killing Your Alternate Self: He was forced to kill Sinister Strange due to the latter being a complete psychopath hell-bent on killing him.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Several of the magic he performs require martial art movements and relics that are shaped like weapons.
• Levitating Lotus Position: The usual variation. On Titan, Doctor Strange is seen floating cross-legged (not in the lotus position, though) while he's using the Eye of Agamotto to peer into the different possible futures.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Due to being trapped in the Mirror Dimension at the Grand Canyon for 12 hours, he was unaware that Peter lost his only remaining family at the hands of Green Goblin, and probably won't ever find out because his memories of Peter got erased afterwards.
• Logical Weakness: While the Ancient One showed Strange that using magic does not necessarily rely on his hands, it requires making flourished sweeps of the arms. Thus, stopping and restraining Strange's limbs prevents him from using magic, as Ebony Maw achieved with telekinetically-manipulated cables.
• Ludicrous Precision: In Infinity War, he looks through 14,000,605 versions of the future in a few minutes time, somehow kept exact count, and gleaned enough information from them to know which single future to act on. It makes sense, though, when you remember that Strange has a photographic memory and was manipulating the Time Stone, so the time it would've taken to view that many outcomes would've been condensed to a few minutes.
• Made of Iron:
  • In Doctor Strange, he gets beaten up by the Zealots, stabbed practically right in the heart by Kaecilius, has to undergo defibrillation after his heart stops, willingly undergoes it again to beat his opponent in astral combat, gets sewn up...and all this before the actual climax.
  • In No Way Home, he manages to take one of the Green Goblin's Pumpkin Bombs in the face with himself no worse for wear.
• Manchild: Pre-Character Development, he's incredibly flippant, cocky, dismissive, and impatient with a juvenile sense of humor and a tendency to impulsively break rules without considering the consequences of his actions. The end of his first film has him mature considerably, but he still does retain some childish traits like his sense of humor and impulsiveness in his later appearances.
• Manly Tears:
  • He cries after the Ancient One dies and he says goodbye to Christine.
  • He cries a bit more in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where in the end, he has to cast a spell to make everyone, including himself, forget about Peter Parker in general, not just him being Spider-Man.
  • In Multiverse of Madness, he's visibly upset when he's forced to view the memory of his Christine giving him his infamous watch. He also sheds a few when reflecting on the death of his little sister Donna.
• The Many Deaths of You:
  • In his first film, Strange is killed by Dormammu countless times with an energy blast, impaling, meteors, tentacles, etc. In the end, Dormammu gets sick of it and agrees to leave Earth alone.
  • In Infinity War, Strange finds a new and exciting way to die when he turns into dust.
• Me's a Crowd: In Infinity War, Strange demonstrates an ability to create many doubles, all of which attack and tie up Thanos. This may be an unnamed use of the Images of Ikonn.
• Military Maverick: Stephen Strange has developed a streak of bending or flat-out breaking the rules during his stay as an apprentice at Kamar-Taj. He uses a sling-ring to steal books from the library so that he could learn astral projection way before he was supposed to (earning a Promotion, Not Punishment moment from the Ancient One) and then later makes off with the Eye of Agamotto and tries using it in an experimental bit of sorcery. He is harshly scolded by Wong and Mordo for this, as using time-based sorcery is in direct violation of natural law, the very thing that the Masters of the Mystic Arts are meant to enforce. Later on, Stephen does this twice, both times working in their favor. The first time he uses it to reverse the Hong Kong Sanctum's destruction, and the second time he uses it to trap Dormammu in a "Groundhog Day" Loop until he concedes defeat.
• Mind Over Matter: Has displayed a level of telekinesis in Infinity War by dispersing a giant dust cloud that Ebony's ship caused over the streets in New York and again upon his return in Endgame he spends most of the final battle with Thanos forces mystically redirecting a river threatening to flood the battlefield.
• Minored in Ass-Kicking: Strange's greatest strength is his mind, but it isn't just his intelligence. It's his will, determination, analytical ability, his ability to learn quickly, his hardworking mind, his patience, and his ability to hold onto his sanity. These go a long way to defeating opponents he would otherwise lose to. Not only does this allow him to win in his intro movie, but in Infinity War, he manages the patience and determination to live through over 14 million timelines without going insane and he holds on to his rationality. Hell, even the fact that he managed to keep count of all of them is impressive all by itself.
• Mirror Character:
  • Iron Man and Doctor Strange both started as famous arrogant selfish people who turned into antiheroes, and their origin films have similar plot points. They share a strong mutual dislike of the other, primarily because they're both Insufferable Genius Deadpan Snarkers who are evenly matched in both capacities.
  • Both Loki and Doctor Strange have an affinity to magic, go through Break the Haughty, hear similar phrases "This isn't \ it's not about you" and "Open your eye(s)" from a female character and see visions of the Multiverse (the Ancient One forces it on Stephen in his first film, and Loki sees the Sacred Timeline and hears voices of various MCU characters when he helps Sylvie to enchant Alioth).
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness sets him up as one to Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, as both of them are magic wielders who struggle with having to live a life without those they love. The difference is that Wanda gives into her obsession with getting to live a life with her children and goes to increasingly evil lengths to do so while Stephen realizes he shouldn't dwell on losing out on a life with Christine and remains heroic.
• Mr. Fanservice: In his first film, Strange is shirtless when he shaves off his Beard of Sorrow.
• Mr. Vice Guy: With actions such as keeping the broken wristwatch, his adherence to the Hippocratic Oath even when an enemy tried to kill him and his overall growing heroism as a Sorcerer, Stephen was always a good person deep down. However, his pride and arrogance have hindered him a lot early on: thinking about his next high-profile patient took his attention away from the road and led to the car crash. Dismissing the Ancient One's teachings as pseudoscience gets her to kick him out of the temple. Getting angry at Christine for pitying him damages their relationship too much, and they don't get together again.
• Multiple-Choice Future: He uses the Eye of Agamotto to peer into the future to find an outcome where they come out winning against Thanos, sifting through over fourteen million probable futures and only finding one with such an outcome.
• Mundane Utility:
  • He uses his Sling Ring to steal books from Kamar-Taj's library, and in The Stinger, uses magic to refill Thor's drink.
  • A line in Infinity War suggests he occasionally uses magic just to move his hair about (assuming he's not being snarky).
  • He uses his telekinesis to tie his necktie in Multiverse of Madness.
• Must Make Amends: He is quick to make amends for his mistakes, especially if he realizes how they hurt the people he cares about.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He immediately has a guilty look on his face after pushing his ex-lover and friend, Christine Palmer, away by rejecting her comfort and taking his frustrations out on her in his despair over his damaged hands. However, he refuses to apologize.
• My Greatest Failure: Multiverse of Madness reveals that much like his comic book counterpart, he had a younger sister Donna, who drowned as a child when she fell through a frozen lake. His tremendous guilt over his inability to save her is what inspired him to become a doctor, so he could save the lives of others to atone for it. Sinister Strange even somberly mentions it's an event no variant of Strange likes to remember.
• Narcissist: Back when he was a neurosurgeon, Stephen was insufferably conceited and full of himself, looking down on and sometimes outright mistreating most of the people around him, which was only worsened when the car accident crippled both of his hands. Going to Kamar-Taj and learning sorcery under the Ancient One's tutelage gave Strange the humility he needed. He ended up learning the most important lesson from the Ancient One: "It's not about you."
• Nerves of Steel: Well, minus the ones in his hands of course. Doctor Strange might not be the strongest person in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he is almost certainly the bravest.
  • As a surgeon, he can calmly extract a bullet lodged between a person's skull and spine with his own two hands and no mechanical assistance. As a sorcerer, he enters the Dark Dimension and proceeds to outwit the nigh-omnipotent tyrant of that realm. And how does he do that? By setting himself up to be killed over and over again for the rest of time if that's what it takes.
  • Facing down the Mad Titan himself, Thanos, (who, at that point in time, had four Infinity Stones in the Gauntlet) in a one-on-one. Even while turning to dust, Strange just calmly gives Tony some words of advice. After dying thousands of times at the hands of Dormammu, being turned to dust is probably the equivalent of a mild flu.
  • Endgame reveals that back in 2012, he continued to perform surgery even though his hospital was in the middle of the battle zone of the Chitauri invasion.
• Never My Fault:
  • After his accident, he blames the doctors for ruining him for trying to fix his hands, apparently not even bothering with the fact that his reckless driving is the very reason he ended up being hospitalized in the first place.
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Stephen places blame on Peter Parker for botching a spell that was supposed to make the world forget he was Spider-Man. This is in spite of the fact that Strange himself was the one who decided to try casting the spell in the first place, tried to cast it as quick as possible without making sure Peter was dead set about what he wanted, and knew more about what the consequences of casting it would be than Peter.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: In No Way Home, Strange agrees to help Peter out of a tight spot by casting a spell that would wipe the collective minds of the world of Peter's true identity. Wong warns that the spell is dangerous, but Strange proceeds anyway. However, Peter realizes that his friends and family will forget him too and starts talking, making Stephen lose his concentration and mess the spell up, pulling several villains from across the Multiverse into their reality.
• No Body Left Behind: Is disintegrated along with half the universe after Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet in Infinity War.
• Not So Stoic: He is visibly touched by Peter's selflessness, and despite trying to hide it, he is deeply saddened with the kid's Heroic Sacrifice in choosing to be erased from everyone's memory, including Strange's own, to help him save the Multiverse.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Strange takes great pains to remind people that he very much is that kind of doctor and has several different degrees to prove it. His most well-known and accomplished specialty is neurosurgery, but it's implied by the movie his talent, skill, and knowledge base allows him to handle a wide-range of techniques and disciplines. That doesn't mean he will treat you if you only have a minor ailment, as shown in No Way Home.
• Not What I Signed on For: His initial reaction after the Ancient One tries to title him "Master" of the New York sanctum. He rejects the title calling himself "Doctor" and cites the Hippocratic Oath. He realizes that the title carries the expectation of him defending the sanctum at all costs and he flat out says he's not going to do that again. Earlier Strange had even stated that he merely wanted to heal his hands, not save the world against mystic threats.
• Obi-Wan Moment: In Infinity War, when he is about to disintegrate into dust, he uses his last breaths to calmly reassure Tony Stark that "there was no other way".
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • When Endgame revisits the Battle of New York, Professor Hulk goes looking for Doctor Strange. The Ancient One reveals that he's in the middle of surgery. During the Chitauri invasion.
  • During the roughly 15 minutes between Hulk’s Badass Fingersnap (and his offscreen revival) and Black Panther first appearing through the portal, Strange would’ve had to coordinate his forces on Titan, the forces in Wakanda, the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj, the Asgardian army, the Wasp, and the Ravagers to have them all appear on the battlefield at the same time for their Big Damn Heroes moment. Again, 15 minutes.
  • No Way Home has the good Doctor sense the presence of multiversal beings, discern the situation, then travel into the underground to find the Lizard, beat him into submission, construct a prison to contain the otherworldly threats and then rescue Peter from the Goblin's bombing onslaught with a well-placed portal. All in the time it took for Peter to defeat Doc Ock.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When he realizes Dr. West has prematurely deemed a man brain dead, he immediately rushes to secure the man and perform surgery.
  • When he realizes that Wanda has been corrupted by the Darkhold and that she's the one pursuing America.
• Older Than They Look: Physically, he's only in his 40's. However, he's lived through countless time loops and traveled forward and backwards in time many millions of times over, meaning he's actually lived thousands, possibly millions of years.
• One-Man Army: As one of the most powerful heroes, he's naturally this. He can be seen taking out multiple Sakaarans at once in Endgame.
  • Multiverse of Madness shows him being the only one to take on Wanda on an individual level after she decimated the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj (bare in mind that included mystics from ALL of Earth's sanctorums and Wong, the current Sorcerer Surpreme) and doing a better job against her than all of them combined.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Strange and Tony spend most of Infinity War trading insults, one-upping each other and barely working together. However, after Strange looks into the future, he becomes notably friendlier to Tony, even calling him by his first name. It's the earliest foreshadowing of Tony's fate, as Strange likely grew to respect Tony after seeing him perform his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Out of Job, Into the Plot: His origin story starts with him being no longer able to perform his job due to severe hand injury. He finds a new occupation for himself shortly after.
• Outside-Context Problem: In Ragnarok, he briefly becomes one for both Loki and Thor, who were not expecting any powerful sorcerers on Earth. He traps Loki in a pocket dimension and takes his time to mess around with Thor.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Strange knows very well that he doesn't stand a chance against a godlike entity like Dormammu in a straight fight, so how does he stop him? He lets Dormammu kill him over and over and over again until Dormammu gets so annoyed that he complies to his demands.
• Papa Wolf: Despite his initial disdain for children, Strange starts to become a mentor, a protector, and a father-figure to Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home and to America Chavez in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
• The Perfectionist: A major part of his early jerkassery is his drive to keep a perfect medical record and a flawless reputation. It gets to the point that he refuses to treat patients if he believes he won't be able to cure them. The Ancient One even lampshades his fear of failure and how it drives him to excel.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He lets a relative of the patient whom he operated on hug him.
  • A deleted scene has him bandage up a dog's broken leg on his way to Kamar-Taj.
  • Many of his interactions (especially early on) with Peter in No Way Home can be seen as this, with him being surprisingly warm and welcoming to the boy and willingly offering his aid to him despite the risk it posed. He even lets Peter call him by his first name, something surprisingly few people do.
    Strange: Please, we saved half the universe together, I think we're beyond you calling me "sir."
    Peter: Okay...Stephen.
    Strange: That feels weird, but I'll allow it.
  • Rather than be angry with Ned for using his sling ring, Strange shows seeming approval of his ability to create a portal.
  • He has many with America Chavez in Multiverse of Madness. A big moment, however, is when he sees her memory of when she accidentally opened a portal as a child that sent her mothers to another universe while she herself was sucked into a separate one. A hurt America promptly leaves and tries to brush it off when Strange asks about it. However, Strange insists America didn't kill her mothers and urges her not to ever think that. She isn't convinced but he assures her that her moms survived if they are anything like her. This leads to them growing closer.
• Photographic Memory: Offhandedly mentions having it, which explains how quickly he learned stuff and got multiple degrees at once.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Strange is a big music lover, making a game out of identifying songs by their artist and year of release during surgery and naming a long list of singers with Only One Name while talking with Wong. Strange later gets to weaponize this trope in Multiverse of Madness, where he gets the idea to use his magic to bring a symphony to life and fight one of his evil variants.
• Possessing a Dead Body: Due to him being physically trapped on Sinister Strange's Earth, he is forced to use the Darkhold to Dreamwalk into the corpse of Defender Strange so that he can rescue America Chavez from Wanda Maximoff.
• Pride Before a Fall: He was driving distracted because he was filtering his potential patients on his phone by "what would make me look good." This gets him into a car crash which ends his career.
• Primary-Color Champion: His apprentice outfit is blue, the Cloak of Levitation is red and the Eye of Agamotto is gold. Add on the yellow gloves he is seen wearing in Thor: Ragnarok (like in the comics) and you have all three colors.

• Rage Against the Mentor: Tries this multiple times against the Ancient One, but only manages to succeed after he finds out where her immortality and much of her great power comes from.
• Reality Warper:
  • Against Thanos, Strange transforms a deadly black hole into harmless butterflies.
  • Demonstrates this on a grander scale in Spider-Man: No Way Home, first when he casts the spell to have everyone forget that Peter is Spider-Man, then again later in the film when he hurls Peter into the Mirror Dimension, where his control over the domain is absolute and it's put to glorious effect.
• Real Joke Name: 'Strange' isn't necessarily the best surname to have, and he at one point laments that he'll never be able to have a medical procedure named after him because of it. Also, when he meets Peter Parker in Avengers: Infinity War, Peter assumes that "Dr. Strange" is just his superhero name rather than his being a doctor (in the medical sense) with the last name 'Strange'.
• Reduced to Dust: He was amongst the billions evaporated into ashes by Thanos' Badass Fingersnap in Infinity War.
• Refuge in Audacity: Beating Dormammu by allowing the ageless Eldritch Abomination to kill him so many times that Dormammu gets bored, then desperate, and eventually begs him to be freed.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: According to Christine, he spends money as soon as he earns it. He has a collection of a dozen luxury watches — and the fancy self-winding drawer to put them in — in his big, fancy luxury apartment in New York City, where renting can be thousands of bucks at the low end. He quickly blows through his savings for futile treatment after treatment to fix his hands and, once his funds are gone, tries to put together a "small loan" of $200,000 for yet another treatment.
• Riches to Rags:
  • As a successful surgeon, Stephen leads an exceptionally cozy life, but he also has a reputation for spending money as quickly as he makes it. After the accident, he burns through his money quickly trying to find something that will completely fix his hands, and is seen trying to get a loan to fund yet another experimental (and therefore uninsured) treatment from Japan; as Christine says, he's spending money he doesn't have. By the time he arrives at Kamar-Taj, he is completely ruined, which is driven home when all he has to offer the muggers Mordo saves him from is the watch he's wearing. After that, he at least gains a sanctum of his own, which is still quite fancy on its own right and very much loaded.
  • Continued in Infinity War where Strange and Wong are introduced arguing about how they don't even have enough money to buy lunch. Being a pseudo-religious order of sorcerers dedicated to protecting the world in secret evidently doesn't gain much income, though the fact that Stephen exasperatedly offers to pay for Wong's sandwich means that he's not completely broke and he still has enough to provide for himself and others. And we do see in Endgame that he can afford a nice suit again.
• Ring of Power: His Sling Ring allows him to open an inter-dimensional portal to almost anywhere which makes it very convenient for him when he wants to look for someone else.
• The Rival: At first, he and Tony Stark had some kind of rivalry—same ego, but on the polar ends of Magic Versus Science, and he was willing to let Tony Stark die to protect the Time Stone. Later on, he went out of his way to give up the Time Stone in exchange for Iron Man's life, essentially entrusting Tony to finish things from there after he gets dusted from existence.
• Sarcastic Confession: In his first film, Strange delivers a true while absurdly outlandish-sounding summary of events to Christine at the hospital. She refuses to believe him.
  Strange: Well, a powerful sorcerer who gave himself over to an ancient entity who can bend the very laws of physics, tried very hard to kill me. But I left him chained up in Greenwich Village, and the quickest way back there is through a dimensional gateway that I opened up in the mop closet.
• Scars Are Forever: A close shot of his bare hands in Infinity War as he hands the Time Stone over to Thanos shows that the scars from the numerous surgeries to repair his hands are still very prominent despite several years of healing.
• Science Wizard: A talented and intelligent doctor who's one of the most powerful superheroes thanks to being a Master of the Mystic Arts.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Tries to leave Kamar-Taj twice in the middle of the movie. The first time is when he realizes that he may actually have to fight the horrific interdimensional threats the Ancient One talked about and the second is after he kills one of the Zealots and learns the truth about the Ancient One's immortality.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: At the end of the film, he sets himself up to do this to Dormammu: as long as they're trapped in a time loop in the Dark Dimension, Earth is safe (even if Strange is being repeatedly killed). Luckily for him, Dormammu is easily bored.
• Seen It All: Having been violently killed by Dormammu hundreds if not thousands of times means that Strange barely flinches at cosmic-level threats that would drive any other Avenger to madness. He seems almost bored when dealing with Thor and Loki, and he's practically condescending when talking to Thanos (who has four Infinity Stones at the time) in Infinity War.
• Skeptic No Longer: Strange quickly comes around to the "magic is real" camp after the Ancient One shows him a thing or two.
  Strange: Teach me...
• Sleep Learning: He uses his Astral Projection to read books when he's sleeping.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only has one scene in Thor: Ragnarok, but he leads Thor and Loki to where Odin is, kicking off the rest of the plot.
• Smug Super: His Fatal Flaw of arrogance returns in No Way Home. He agrees to do a highly advanced spell in spite of the clear dangers that it represents if it goes wrong — which it then does — because he thinks that he can handle it.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: In Infinity War, engages in quite a few of them with Tony Stark.
  Strange: [Thanos] could destroy life on a scale hitherto undreamt of.
  Stark: Did you seriously just say "hitherto undreamt of"?
  Strange: Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?
  Stark: [still leaning] Is that what this—
  [the Cloak of Levitation slaps Stark]
  Stark: [puzzled] I'm going to allow that.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: The most basic spells Strange have learned allow him to conjure undisclosed magic and solid light which he can shape into shields, whip towels, a scimitar, and whatnot.
• Squishy Wizard: Doctor Strange is one of the most powerful members of the Masters of the Mystic Arts to have ever existed, but he is still vulnerable to means that can harm any human being.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: To Christine Palmer. He always loved her but his ego and obsessive work drove her away, though they still remain friends. And much to his disappointment, the one thing that remains consistent with every universe he visits is that he and Christine will never be together.
• Starting a New Life: At first, he trained in the Mystic Arts in order to heal his hands and resume his career as a neurosurgeon. However, through Christine's advice before he left to go to Kamar-Taj and his last conversation with the Ancient One before her death, Strange realized that he has a duty as a sorcerer and his obsessive pursuit of his former life is only holding him back, prompting him to continue training and guard the New York Sanctum.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Stephen Strange, is a surgeon (until a forced retirement), and constantly insists that others refer to him as Doctor Strange, rejecting being called Mister or even Master Strange.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: In Multiverse of Madness, Strange casts a spell that makes Pizza Poppa punch himself in the face for three weeks nonstop when the latter threatens to squirt mustard on him and America Chavez.
• Story-Breaker Power: The use of sling-rings to create teleportation portals are not a part of Strange's powerset in the comics or other media, where he's usually able to just teleport at will — in fact the portals are an entirely invented construct made for the MCU so the narrative can actually be somewhat cohesive. Of course, this affects other characters too, not just Strange.
  • He's a Person of Mass Destruction who can fight against Thanos the Mad Titan on even footing after the latter had acquired four Infinity Stones. He ends up getting dusted out of existence by the Snap, but had he not then Endgame would have occurred very differently with much more ease.
• Strategy, Schmategy: He lasts quite a while in his first fight with Kaecilius simply by having no idea what the hell he's doing with the various artifacts that get involved.
• The Stoic: By the time of Infinity War, Strange is on a level of power and scope so far above the other heroes that absolutely nothing phases him, tossing Thor and Loki, the gods of Asgard, around like they're unruly houseguests and even having a one-on-one conversation with Thanos himself. Even while being disintegrated, he doesn't flinch, yell, or beg.
• Straw Nihilist: Strange dips into this trope during his conversation with the Ancient One by describing humanity as a series of chemical processes on a floating globe in a cold, uncaring universe while she's trying to convince him magic exists. The Big Bad later echoes this view of the world just to rub it in.
• Strong and Skilled: Not quite to the level of Scarlet Witch or Thor, but by the time of Multiverse of Madness, he's clearly become far more capable in combat and experience and much closer to his comic book counterpart in power, as he's shown handing Karl Mordo his ass in hand-to-hand and contending with Scarlet Witch herself in the mystic arts. He's a very far cry from the novice in Kamar-Taj who could barely hold a weapon or conjure a simple portal.
• Take a Third Option: If there are two choices, Stephen can be relied upon to at least try to find a third one. His lateral thinking is arguably his greatest skill and what makes him so dangerous as an opponent. Interestingly, it is something he has to learn through Doctor Strange, as he ignores or doesn't think of other ways of applying his vast surgical knowledge after his hands are injured, like going into teaching.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: 6 feet tall, dark-haired, and possesses one of the biggest sarcastic streaks in the MCU.
• Taught by Experience: While he received his basic training at Kamar-Taj, a majority of Strange's growth comes through fending off Kaecilius and eventually Dormammu. Notably, during his many loops with Dormammu, Strange lasts a fraction of a second longer with each loop.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In Infinity War, he and Tony Stark regularly argue on how to go about defeating Thanos. Much of the conflict comes from their similarities causing them to butt heads with one another.
• Tempting Apple: When he learns about the Time Stone from the book he was not supposed to read, he tests in on an apple. Mordo and Wong arrive shortly after to reprimand him for attempting to break the space-time continuum and the laws of nature.
• Thanatos Gambit: Implied in Infinity War, where he tells Tony that allowing Thanos to kill half of the universe, himself included, is "the only way," implying that this was the only outcome he saw where Thanos would be defeated. By Endgame, it's confirmed that this was the case.
• The Needs of the Many: In Avengers: Infinity War, Strange tells Tony that he's willing to let Tony and Peter die if it means keeping the Time Stone out of Thanos's hands. Ultimately double subverted as when Thanos is about to kill Tony, Strange surrenders it but only because he had looked through millions of possible futures beforehand and foresaw Tony would be the key to victory in the true final battle. Half the universe would be temporarily annihilated, and the survivors would have to endure five years of grief and loss, but it at least gave the Avengers the chance to set everything right.
  • Played straight in Avengers: Endgame when Strange at the climax of the battle signals to Tony that this is the key moment, silently asking him to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the entire universe.
• These Hands Have Killed: After he's forced to kill a Zealot in self-defense, he suffers a minor Heroic BSoD.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Strange insists that he is called Doctor rather than Mister. Played for Laughs with Kaecilius, who asks his name by saying "Mister...?" to which he corrects Kaecilius by saying "Doctor" leading the latter to mistake that for his surname and addresses him as "Mister Doctor." Strange tries again to amend the mistake with "It's Strange!" but that makes it all the more confusing when Kaecilius misinterprets him saying it was a strange name.
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: He doesn't talk to anyone about his sister dying in a childhood accident.
• Thinking Up Portals: His Sling Ring is capable of opening portals to any point on Earth; a key tool of sorcerers in the MCU.
  • In his first film, he has so much trouble just getting started that the Ancient One abandons him on Mount Everest so he can Die or Fly. However, he gets really good at it really fast;
  • Within days he's skilled enough in its use to open portals with enough precision to swipe books from Kamar-Taj's library right under Wong's nose.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, he's graduated to opening portals between points he's not even present at; Loki falls through a street corner into a dimension where he falls endlessly until Strange drops him into the lobby of the New York Sanctum. When the little troll god (who unleashed an army on New York) gets pissy at this treatment, Strange throws one at him with a casual "Bye-bye!"
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, he's able to LARP Portal 1, casually opening them so Spider-Man can Teleport Spam his attacks.
  • Upon being brought back in Avengers: Endgame, he creates several portals of varying sizes and locations to the Avengers' headquarters, including all the way from Titan where he's personally located, to bring nearly the entire universe's heroes to participate in the final battle with Thanos.
• Third Eye: He painfully grows one at the end of "Multiverse of Madness," an implied side effect of Dreamwalking into his own corpse.
• This Is the Part Where...: In his first film, he doesn't cope well with the loss of fine motor function in his hands, and lashes out at his former girlfriend Christine when she argues that he should stop chasing after a miracle cure and accept his disability.
  Christine: This is the part where you apologize.
  Strange: This is the part where you leave.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Claims this to the Ancient One and Mordo after being forced to kill a Zealot, angrily citing his Hippocratic Oath, saying he became a doctor to save lives, not take them. Neither is especially sympathetic, with the Ancient One claiming that it's his towering ego and desire to save himself that made him become a doctor, while Mordo simply calls him a coward for not having the spine to do what must be done. Strange maintains that it is possible to Take a Third Option and accuses Mordo of lacking imagination. By the end of his first film, he does not kill Kaecilius, nor Dormammu. However, in Endgame, he is willing to sacrifice Tony while in Spider-Man: No Way Home, he is fine with sending the villains back to their universes to die, both times doing so to keep his universe safe, suggesting that while he hasn't abandoned this rule, he is more comfortable with sacrificing lives if it saves more.
• Time Abyss: Between dying countless times to Dormammu after weaponizing the "Groundhog Day" Loop, and living through millions of timelines where the Avengers fail to defeat Thanos, Strange has been around for a very, very long time. And those are just the time-stretching shenanigans that we know about.
• Time Master: Thanks to learning how to harness the Eye of Agamotto, Strange gains the ability to control time, capable of rewinding it, pausing it, or creating an infinite loop. By the time we see him in Thor: Ragnarok, he's offhandly compressing time on the fly to speed his dealings with the Asgardians up, much to Thor's confusion.
• Title Drop: In Infinity War, he drops the title for the sequel, much like his Foil Tony Stark did in the previous Avengers movie:
  Doctor Strange: We're in the endgame now.
• Token Wizard: Doctor Strange is the only hero in the MCU's line-up who is versed in magic and sorcery, the closest thing beforehand being Thor, a Human Alien that uses a magical weapon (Mjolnir) and draws power from magic forces to enhanced his natural Super-Strength. In Avengers: Infinity War, he is the only member of his group with any magical associations, the others either being Science Heroes (Tony and Peter) or aliens (Quill, Mantis, Drax and Nebula).
• Took a Level in Badass: After spending the majority of his debut movie Incompletely Trained, he's later become very proficient in the Mystic Arts in less than two years, likely due to the fact that he can learn even when he's sleeping due to his Astral Projection.
  • In Ragnarok, he's much more adept than he was in his debut film — he's able to get the drop on Loki, God of Mischief and someone with at least a thousand years worth of experience. He's even able to spontaneously transport people to different locations just like the Ancient One did with him. (Word of God notes that about a year has passed between the end of Strange's dispatch of Dormammu and his meeting with Thor.)
  • Infinity War showcases the full extent of the magical knowledge he's gained over the past two years during his fight with Thanos, who at this point has four of the six Infinity Stones. He can now partially summon the Mirror Dimension as a shield to protect himself, turn miniature black holes into butterflies, create multiple copies of himself, and even summon what appears to be the film's version of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. Moreover, while the likes of Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Drax, and Mantis kept Thanos from concentrating by using sneak attacks, it was Strange and Stark who were doing the heavy lifting. This is especially impressive considering that Stark had far more experience in fighting than Strange.
  • Taken up a notch once again in No Way Home. Despite not being the Sorcerer Supreme (albeit on a technicality as he was blipped during the succession), he's developed his skills to a grander scale, and the memory spell he uses only went wrong because of Peter (as he's cast the spell successfully before, such as on Wong after their wild party in another world) and he's now the master of the Mirror Dimension, with his skill and control over it surpassing that of the Ancient One's! He's also able to cast a spell that can briefly hold back the tears in space-time caused by the botched memory spell being released.
  • By the time of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he's not only a far more capable hand-to-hand combatant and athlete, but he's gotten even better at utilizing his sorcery and is now able to summon a variety of creatures and manipulate sound in a number of ways, construct even more versatile weaponry and energy constructs, fire more potent energy beams, Dreamwalk, and even has the ability to possess dead bodies and control demons through sheer force of will.
• Took a Level in Kindness: As he trains with the Ancient One, he begins to lose his arrogance, becomes open to others, and is selflessly willing to die many times by Dormammu's hands to save Earth from being devoured.
• Too Much Alike: He and Tony Stark share a strong mutual dislike of the other primarily because they're both Insufferable Geniuses and Deadpan Snarkers who are evenly matched in both capacities.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: His defeat of Dormammu essentially boils down to Strange constantly trolling an Eldritch Abomination until said Abomination is willing to give him anything just to be rid of him.
• The Trickster:
  • In Doctor Strange, he defeats superior sorcerers by outwitting them and bending the rules of magic rather than overpowering them. The way he traps Dormammu and smirks when he says, "Dormammu, I've come to bargain" when he can tell Dormammu is close to giving in, really cements it.
  • In the entirety of his appearance in Thor: Ragnarok, he spends the whole time trolling Thor and Loki. He teleports himself and Thor all over the Sanctum, causing the Asgardian to repeatedly fall over and crash into various things. As for Loki, Strange had him falling through a portal into another dimension as soon as he noticed his presence, only returning him when Thor asked.
    Loki: I have been falling for thirty minutes!
  • In Infinity War, he openly wears the Eye of Agamotto around his neck for anyone to snatch it away, only to be revealed that it has a protective spell that burns Ebony Maw when he tries to take it by force. Later, Thanos successfully takes the Eye, only to smash it and reveal that it was just an illusion all along and that Doctor Strange had the actual Time Stone mystically hidden away in a pocket dimension.
  • In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he manages to get the better of Wanda this way more than once. First when she attacks him at the entrance to Kamar-Taj, he reveals there was an invisible forcefield blocking her way from the beginning. Then a bit later on, he's able to trick her into the Mirror Dimension with an illusion of him at the entrance and when she tries to get to him, she ends up stepping through his (unseen) spatial doorway, with each step she takes pulling her further into it. She eventually breaks out, but his plans still worked.
• Troll: By the time of Ragnarok and Infinity War, he's fully graduated to this, teleporting Loki into a bottomless pit and disorient Thor by teleporting him around the Sanctum Sanctorum. He even messes with Thanos — at one point during their duel on Titan, Thanos tosses a black hole at him, which Strange then promptly transmutes and tosses back in Thanos's face as a swarm of harmless butterflies.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • After waking up in the hospital, he only blames the doctors for ruining his hands instead of, y'know, thanking them for saving his life after a horrible accident he himself caused. Also, considering the amount of damage his hands sustained in the crash, you'd think he'd be happy just to still have them, as amputation was a real possibility.
  • He possesses shades of this in Infinity War when Iron Man and Spider-Man save him from Ebony Maw. His reaction is to accuse them of almost throwing him into space, which Iron Man calls him out on. Despite this, Strange did return the favor by protecting Iron Man and Spider-Man when they landed on Titan.
  • Averted in No Way Home, where saving half the universe together put Peter in his good books enough that Strange agreed to help him with hardly any coaxing, and he's moved to tears out of respect and gratitude at Peter's sacrifice at the end of the movie. Strange also did try to thank Peter for everything he did for him and their world, as well as apologize for how coldly and dismissively he acted towards him during the multiversal crisis, but was too emotional to properly articulate this.
    Peter: Thank you, sir.
    Strange: (holding back tears) Call me Stephen!
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Hinted at in Infinity War. He never explains what his exact plan to defeat Thanos is, offering only vague reassurances that things will work out ("We're in the endgame now" and "There was no other way") when he hands the Time Stone to Thanos in exchange for Tony's life and they realize Thanos has won when people around them, including Strange himself, die by fading to ashes. Invoked and retroactively justified in Endgame. After he and other victims of Thanos's Snap return from the dead and join the final battle, he flat-out tells Tony what was only implied in Infinity War — that any version of events where he explained his plan to Tony and/or the others ended with it failing.
  Tony: Hey, you said one out of 14 million, we'd win, yeah? Tell me this is it.
  Strange: If I tell you what happens, it won't happen.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Strange and Wong snark at each other endlessly, even (or especially) after Wong becomes the Sorcerer Supreme, but they're all but inseparable and very loyal to each other.
  • Has this with Spider-Man in No Way Home. Although Strange is quite upset with Peter for messing up his spell and causing a multiversal-scale crisis (as well as further preventing an easy solution to the problem by clashing against him), he genuinely cares about Peter's wellbeing, and is clearly devastated at the prospect of losing his memories of the kid to prevent the universe from collapsing in on itself.
• Weak, but Skilled: In terms of sheer power level, Strange isn't as strong as the other heavy hitters like Thanos, Captain Marvel, or Thor, but he doesn't really need to be. His Wizard Duel with Thanos in Infinity War in particular is a masterclass in watching a weaker sorcerer constantly adjusting his strategy and tactics to target the weaknesses and diminish the strengths of a more powerful one.
  • Demonstrated wonderfully in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Wanda has grown exponentially formidable since she took possession of the Darkhold, but for all her incredible power, her sanity is clearly dwindling. Stephen, meanwhile, may not have the same level of raw power (though his strength levels have definitely increased), but he's able to evade, disorient, and in the end even indirectly defeat her because he's simply more resourceful and clever, using his magic in ways she would never think to.
• Welcome to Corneria: Invoked, in order to force an Eldritch Abomination to give up his plan of consuming the Earth.
  Strange: Dormammu, I've come to bargain.
• What Have I Become?:
  • It's subtle but upon witnessing Peter's selflessness and belief in saving everyone he can Spider-Man: No Way Home, Strange comes to realize that sacrificing innocent people would make him no better than the bad guys he fights against.
  • His various counterparts' actions and fates in the multiverse also makes Strange realize the dangers of continuing his obsession with being in control of everything and his lack of faith in others, especially his friends.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He's not too happy to find out Peter wanted him to cast a spell to make everyone forget he's Spider-Man mainly so he, his girlfriend and best friend could get into MIT. He's even less thrilled when finding out Peter hadn't even contacted the university to plead their case.
  Strange: I'm sorry...Are you telling me that you didn't even think to plead your case with them first before you asked me to brainwash the entire world?!
  Peter: Well, I mean when you put it like that...
• What You Are in the Dark: At the very end of the film, Strange's hand hovers over his broken watch, the same one given to him by Christine, and contemplates using magic to repair it or possibly even turn back time to before his accident, which would not only give him back his old life but a second chance with her. In the end, however, he realizes using magic for such petty reasons wouldn't be worth the consequences and decides to leave it as is.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Dormammu could consider Strange to be this as he's the only mortal to have ever gotten the better of him (that we know of) and kept true to his word. We'd have to see more of him to gauge this, however, but it's entirely possible (especially considering their long-standing history in the comics).
  • While not to the same level as Iron Man, it's clear Thanos held great respect for Strange and was willing to spare Tony's life at his request. Strange forcing Thanos' hand several times in their brief duel likely contributes to this.
  • Wanda likely sees Strange as this, as she's very respectful of him even when angered and seems to hold him in high regard. He's also the only sorcerer to have ever gotten the better of her, more than once in fact.
• Writing Around Trademarks: In Infinity War, he uses an attack against Thanos that appears to be the Crimson Bands of Cytorrakk, an artifact and entity more closely associated in the comics with the X-Men (particularly the Juggernaut), which Marvel did not have the film rights to at the time. The movie gets around this by simply not naming the spell.
• You Are in Command Now: While he doesn't become the Sorcerer Supreme, he does become the Master of the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City. WandaVision implies Strange is recognized as the Sorcerer Supreme, and Agatha Harkness mentions Wanda is more powerful than him. Spider-Man: No Way Home reveals that Wong has taken the title as Sorcerer Supreme, although Strange claims this is only a technicality since he was gone for five years because of the Blip while Wong wasn't.
• You Are Not Ready: Does this to himself when he leaves the position of Sorcerer Supreme vacant, even though he has the potential for it. No Way Home reveals that Wong is the Sorcerer Supreme due to being alive during the Blip. While Stephen is disappointed, he isn't bitter about it either.

The Cloak of Levitation

Appearances: Doctor Strange | Thor: Ragnarok | Avengers: Infinity War | Avengers: Endgame | What If...? | Spider-Man: No Way Home | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness | Marvel Zombies

A cloak that enables its user to levitate. It possesses a mind of its own and proves itself as more of an ally than a tool to Strange.

• Adaptation Expansion: The Cloak has always been associated with Doctor Strange in the comics, but it never had sentience and a cheeky personality of its own.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the comics, Strange only received the Cloak of Levitation from the Ancient One after defeating Dormammu for the first time. Here, the Cloak chooses Strange as its master as Stephen is just beginning to combat the threat of Dormammu and his followers, and actively assists him in doing so.
• Adaptational Sapience: Unlike the comics, where it can respond to commands and the will of its wearer, the Cloak here is a sentient being with a will of its own.
• Alternate Self:
  • In What If...Doctor Strange Lost his Heart Instead of his Hands?, the Cloak of Levitation helps assist the Good Doctor Strange in trying to defeat his evil Supreme variant. Unfortunately, the cloak ends up being ripped apart by Supreme when it attempts to save its master from a particularly powerful attack.
  • In the What If...Zombies?! timeline, both Strange and Wong had become zombies, with the Cloak having joined the surviving heroes. It apparently has some sort of bond with Peter Parker in this timeline as it works with him often and allows Peter to wear it. When they encounter Scott Lang, who is a head in a jar, the Cloak takes responsibility of moving Scott around.
  • Earth-838 has its own version, although the only time we see it appears to be inert, leaving its status questionable. The Sacred Timeline Cloak also seems to get a patch of a piece of it.
• Ambiguous Situation: The Cloak is certainly sentient. However, it's still a piece of magical cloth. So it's unclear if it fades to dust along with Strange when Thanos snaps his fingers because it was on Strange's person at the time (when people are dusted their clothes go with them) or if it's considered its own living thing and just happened to be one of Thanos's victims.
• Ancient Artifact: Like all relics, it's rather old.
• Artifact of Hope: Implied. The Cloak is described as being rather picky and would prefer its own wielder. That said, the only people we ever see wearing the Cloak of Levitation (and variants) include Sacred Timeline Doctor Strange (who, while perfectly capable of doing questionable things, is still ultimately a force for good), Doctor Strange Supreme's benevolent counterpart, Ned Leeds (albeit only briefly to save him from falling to his death), Zombie Hunter Spider-Man and Survivor Scott Lang's severed head, all of whom default to the side of the angels. Every other version of Doctor Strange without their own Cloak of Levitation either prioritize their own selfish desires over the good of others (Strange Supreme and Sinister Strange), use extreme methods when there are other solutions available (Defender Strange and Supreme Strange), or are no longer themselves at all (Zombie Strange).
• Badass Cape: Literally. The Cloak is a bright red cape that can stylishly flow regardless of physics, and neatly wraps itself on Strange's shoulder. It is just as if not more badass than Strange, really — during its introductory fight, it deals with Strange's enemies better than he does.
• Blue Is Heroic: After taking some damage in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Cloak is repaired with a blue patch.
• Boring, but Practical: Its power is to float. Not very flashy compared to the Eye of Agamotto being an Infinity Stone that can rewind time, but it does Strange probably the most good.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Strange originally acquires the Cloak by being thrown through its glass case.
• Cloak of Defense: Its first on-screen action is saving Strange's life from Kaecilius.
• Clothing Damage: In Multiverse of Madness, a magical blast from Wanda that Strange leaps in front of to protect America leaves the Cloak with a large hole in the back. The Earth-838 version of Christine Palmer repairs it with a large blue patch that likely was taken from the 838 Cloak as a flashback to 838 Strange's death showed it was blue.
• Cloth Fu: In this case, the cloth is sentient and can attack on its own. Notably slapping them or wrapping itself around them to hinder them.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: If you believe the Cloak is a living being, then in What If...Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?, it was killed by Strange Supreme.
• Early-Bird Cameo: When Strange is exploring the New York Sanctum, he passes the cloak by as it lies crumpled in the corner of the room, and it flies up as if he piqued its interest.
• Empathic Weapon: It's sentient, smart, and very expressive despite having no human qualities.
• Expy: The Visual Effect Supervisor of Doctor Strange stated that the team looked at the Carpet from Aladdin, another magical highly-sentient floating piece of cloth, when hashing out the characterization of the Cloak and its relationship to Strange.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The cloak hangs from the left shoulder, which is also where the bands of quilting on the back radiate from, leaving the right arm free for spellcasting.
• Funny Background Event: While Strange is drawing a portal to the hospital, it can be seen in the background smacking around Kaecilius's goon.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: It can block close-range attacks with impressive speed, detach itself from its user to protect them, has a working knowledge of the New York Sanctum's artifacts, and if it weren't for its seemingly mundane gift of flight, Strange would have died a few minutes into the Mirror Dimension chase.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, the cloak gives Ebony Maw more trouble than Doctor Strange himself, not to mention Wong, Iron Man, or Spider-Man. It even single-handedly prevented Thanos from using the Infinity Gauntlet on Titan.
  • It also continues fighting Gargantos and protecting America Chavez even when Stephen is knocked out in Multiverse of Madness.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: After Strange has a few tears after Christine ends their relationship and gives him a Last Kiss, it wipes them off his face.
• Just in Time: Does it twice, each time saving Strange from death in the nick of time.
• Killer Rabbit: How dangerous could a floating piece of clothing be? Just ask that Zealot how he was beaten into the floorboards for over a minute, or ask Drax how he was humiliated by it.
• Living Clothes: The cape has a mind of its own, which is occasionally showcased and put to good use. Strange has basically a partner in battle who can assist him unexpectedly because almost no one can predict that a cloak could be sentient. For instance in Infinity War, the Cloak stalls Ebony Maw by making the unconscious Dr. Strange fly away with it, at least allowing Spider-Man to lend a hand.
• Mundane Utility: It doesn't need any stand, and it puts itself on.
• Mystical High Collar: A red one is part of the cloak.
• My Suit Is Also Super: It can easily block Kaecilius's blade of magic, and has powers of its own.
• No Body Left Behind: It disintegrates along with Stephen after Thanos snaps his fingers.
• Not Quite Flight: It lets the wearer levitate.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: It clearly knows it, and rather than arrest the fall completely, it simply slows Strange's fall.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: It's rather picky, and Strange can only wear it because it agrees.
• Power Floats: The cloak allows Strange to float in the air.
• Primary-Color Champion: In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the red cloak receives a blue patch following its damage in battle.
• Red Is Heroic: The cloak is red in color and has a heroic personality.
• Sapient Steed: The writers have compared Strange's relationship with the Cloak to an inexperienced rider and an experienced horse: the rider may be the one nominally in charge, but the horse is the one who knows what's up.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: Was just sitting around in a display case until Strange showed up.
• Silent Snarker:
  • It's clearly exasperated with Strange's undertraining-caused antics and expresses it very well despite being unable to speak.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, the cloak is clearly annoyed at Tony Stark and Peter Parker, even shrugging in a huff and practically sighing when they become too engrossed in a personal argument.
• The Speechless: As a cloak, it's unable to speak.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Occasionally upstages Strange himself. Several fans have come away noting that their favorite character from the movie actually turned out to be a piece of fabric.
• Tranquil Fury: Gives this impression when beating one of Kaecilius's henchmen due to the whole "lack of a face and voice" thing.
• Tsundere: If Strange is doing something stupid, it's quick to let him know of its disapproval and even physically restrains him (by the neck, of course, given how it's attached). But when he's upset, the Cloak can be surprisingly gentle and affectionate.
• Undying Loyalty: As soon as its glass casing is shattered, it sticks by Strange through thick and thin. It even accompanies him into the Dark Dimension and endures repeated destruction at Dormammu's hands to help Strange enact his gambit.
  Tony Stark: Wow, you are a seriously loyal piece of outerwear, aren't you?
• Wrecked Weapon: In What If...Doctor Strange Lost his Heart Instead of his Hands?, Doctor Strange Supreme completely obliterates his good counterpart's cloak when it tries to restrain him, showing just how powerful (and more importantly, just how ruthless) he has become.