What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?
When an unforeseen event changes Stephen
Strange's perspective on life, the path he chooses is one filled with even darker magic.
This episode's Nexus Event was nothing Strange was in control of himself (which is probably why he hates the situation so much): in the normal timeline, Dr. Christine Palmer declined Stephen's invitation to an awards dinner, but here she agreed to the date, so she was in the car when he "Paul Walker"ed it; proving that he does have the ability to care about people other than himself, Strange cared more about her than his hands, and went bad places because of it.
The big difference between Good Dr. Strange and Evil Dr. Strange is the head - this figure looks sickly, with sunken cheeks and dark circles under the eyes. The head is a new sculpt, with a bit of a cartoon styling, though it still manages to look like the mis-shaped First 10 Years figure. If they'd gone realistic, they could have saved some time in the future, huh?
Most of the body molds are taken from the original movie figure, with new forearms featuring golden bracers, and a new chest featuring the chest symbol from the comics. That's a nice change,
because that vaguely demonic shape hints at the dark things this Strange is doing.
The colors of this costume are different from normal Strange, too: the regular costume has a blue tunic over black pants and sleeves; this one is a purple tunic over blue. It's a subtle shift that makes him feel slightly "off" without being drastically different. It's like a Player 2 take on the character or something. The chest symbol is also purple, though more at the blue end of the spectrum than the red end like the rest of the shirt. His belt is an orangey yellow, contrasting really well against the rest of suit.
Strange's accessories include his evil alternate cape, and the small green magical effect from the Infinity War toy. The cape is a new design and a new mold, with a taller, more comicbooky collar
and a jagged lower edge that feels like bat wings. The exterior of the cape is black, with the interior being the same maroon-purple as his robes, but with interlocking golden circles on the lining. The cape is designed to flare out behind Strange rather than hanging down like the various movie figures' have all done, but the PVC it's made from is too soft to do that very well. It's a shame they didn't give him an alternate "totally corrupted" head or a tentacle hand to really make the figure weird, though.
He includes one piece of the Watcher Build-A-Figure: the left leg.
When these figures began shipping, we had no idea this would end up being the most important release in the series. Handy, then, that this toy is good enough you won't need to buy another version of him in the future if you don't want to.
-- 12/26/21
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