Doctor I Strange Dreams I of the Multiverse

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ first full trailer began with Stephen looking at a ghastly house and speaking of a recurring dream. “Every night,” he narrates while facing this dilapidated building, “I dream the same dream.  And then, the nightmare begins.”  As trailers go, it was a clever hook.  As someone who has his fair share of weird, wild, and/or horrifying dreams, I was eager to see where this was going (and if this was even in the movie as Marvel has pulled the ol’ trailer bait and switch more than once).  Well, I saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and now I have context for this quote!  That’s what this piece explores.  It will have the lightest of spoilers as I’ll discuss a line of exposition in the first 10-15 minutes of the film but won’t do much with it beyond that.  Outside of that line, no other major or minor plot points or any twists will be discussed or even alluded to.  The broken-up title for this piece is my (maybe?) clever way of saying this piece is about Doctor Strange and it’s about strange dreams I’ve had and it’s about Doctor Strange’s dreams and it’s about the multiverse. 

Considering Dr. Christine Palmer and the Ever-Expanding Size of the MCU

This weekend, in anticipation of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I returned to a favorite tradition of mine – marathoning old movies before I see the new one!  The size of the Marvel Cinematic Universe means the last time I watched every movie was my marathon for Avengers: Endgame.  Now, saner (and healthier!) parts have prevailed.  Instead of ruining my life by trying to watch the twenty-eight different films and nineteen different TV series with thirty-six seasons between them that make up the MCU (at the time of this writing), I’ve just chosen to watch Doctor Strange (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), WandaVision (2021), and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).  Rewatching Doctor Strange a question struck me: whatever happened to Dr. Christine Palmer?

Spending New Year’s with the Daleks and Seeing the Infinite Power of a Moment

I was so excited for Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils (and OH MY GOSH) but with the way my brain naturally works plus BBC America’s Doctor Who marathon up to the premiere, I’ve been thinking about Legend of the Sea Devils as deeply as the special which immediately preceded it, Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks.  And because I’ve still SO MANY FEELINGS I want to process about Legend of the Sea Devils before I’d write about it, I decided to write about Eve of the Daleks.  After the insanely intense (and, at times, confusing/convoluted) nature of Doctor Who: Flux, Eve of the Daleks was a nice pallet cleanser.  Granted it still had me worrying for the safety of our new characters the whole time and the emotional ground it covered was more intense than Flux, but it was a fun, self-contained, single episode story.  For me, part of its deep resonance came in how it invited me to consider the power of a moment.

Stream-of-Consciousness Loki Theorizing About the TVA and Variants

Am I doing this?  Am I writing a second post about Loki after the second episode?  Is this going to be a thing I do?  I don’t know what the future holds but for now…yeah, it totally is.  But it’s summer vacation!  I SURVIVED a year of pandemic teaching!  Now I can catch my breath, work on the book, and enjoy life…which includes watching, thinking, and (it would appear) writing about Loki.  Also, speculating and theorizing is part of the fun with new episodes dropping weekly!  The ideas in this post began with a comment Gemma (of Book Beach Bunny) left on my first post about Loki.  Then Krysta (of Pages Unbound) left a comment on that piece, too, which added more fuel to my contemplative fire.  Then Jeff and I spent like an hour on the phone after we both watched the second episode this morning considering everything we saw and discussing it in light of Gemma and Krysta’s comments.  Soooo…voila!  Here’s a new post.  But do you see what happened?!?  All these ideas began with comment thread discussions so maybe this post will lead to new ideas to obsess over until the next episode comes out!  Also this will have MAJOR SPOILERS for episode two of Loki so read on only if a) you’ve seen it or b) are ok with MAJOR SPOILERS.

Loki and Questions of the MCU’s Multiverse

I just watched the first episode of Loki and decided to sit down and write about it.  This NEVER happens for me!  Normally I’ve too many thoughts to order as I write or life is too busy to go from reading/viewing to writing to posting or both.  Either way, here we are :).  I didn’t go into Loki planning to write about it.  But as I watched several serious questions began swirling around in my head.  And I figured, “What the Hel?  Just write.”  So here we are.  If you’ve not seen it, I won’t discuss any major surprises but I’ll be exploring the basic plot setup and the questions it’s presentation of the multiverse gives us.  Coolio?  Coolio.  Let’s jump into all the first episode of Loki gives us to consider about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s concept of the multiverse, shall we?

Fitting Spider-Man and the Spider-Verse Inside the Multiverse

This post marks a personal milestone!  For someone who loves Spider-Man as much as I do, I haven’t really explored Peter Parker’s current exploits since returning to comic reading.  I’ve followed his adventures with Deadpool, read a lot of Miles Morales, and flirted with vow renewals…but no Amazing stories.  THAT CHANGES NOW!  I’ve taken my first real steps into the world Dan Slott’s created for Peter Parker over the last ten years with his “Spider-Verse” storyline.  To make this occasion as special as it should be, I figured I’d read Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos and see if there was any connection between Spidey’s multiverse jumping and what actual scientists are exploring in regard to multiverse theories.