I Love You In Every Universe

by Matthew Triplett

 

I have seen Sam Raimi’s 2022 film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, 13 and a half times. I did this for a lot of reasons. I wanted to get closer to world-famous Birdbath editor Sienna Axe by making a podcast about this movie. The plan was to watch the movie every week of the summer of 2022. So the first 4 times I saw this movie, twice in theaters and twice for a podcast, were all for the noble goal of making a friend. And it worked out pretty well (Hi Sienna! Happy Valentine’s Day <3). 

We only ended up recording two episodes of the podcast, we were both too busy. I really had no good reason left to watch this movie. And yet, I was just so curious about what the effect of seeing a movie so often would have on my psyche. And so I persisted. I’ve shown this movie to my friends, to my family, I've watched alone in the dark of midnight, and generally spent a lot of time looking at Benedict Cumberbatch’s face. I watched this movie 9.5 extra times and I have nothing to show for it.

And so, why not turn it into content. 

Welcome to Episode 1 of Matthew’s Multiverse of Madness Compendium: “I Love You in Every Universe.” A medium-depth dive into the whirlwind non-romance between Doctor Stephen Strange and Christine Palmer.

Thesis: The romance between Doctor Strange and Christine sucks!

I have not ever liked this couple, even from the beginning. The first time I saw this movie I audibly groaned when Strange told Christine that he “loves her in every universe.” I wanted to see if other people agreed that this relationship was uncompelling garbage. Here are my scientific findings.

First, I Googled "MCU romances ranked." The Mary Sue Ranks them 16th out of 19 couples. Vulture ranked them 12th out 14 couples. POPSUGAR ranked them 16th out of 18. Men’s Health Magazine (lmao) ranked them 20th out of 21, only ahead of Clint and Laura Barton. And finally, Den of Geek ranked them dead last out of 14 couples.

But all of that’s just five people and their opinions. So I decided to go to Ao3. I figured that couples with a lot of fics written about them have had a bigger impact of society and our collective consciousness. So here are some canon MCU couples and the number of fics written about them.

1. Pepper Potts x Tony Stark: 21,458 Works (WOAH)

2. Michelle Jones x Peter Parker: 7,130 Works

3. Peggy Carter x Steve Rogers: 6,502 Works

4. Jane Foster x Thor: 5,586 Works

5. Wanda Maximoff x Vision: 5,377 Works

6. Laura Barton x Cliff Barton 2,647 Works

How many fics were written about Christine and Dr. Strange? 

229.

No, not 2,290. I didn’t forget a digit. TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE. For a very prominent MCU canon couple. This blew my mind! No one gives a damn about these guys!!

Ok, so the internet and I agree that this couple is bad. Really bad. No one cares about them. But why? These are my opinions in the form of a numerical list:

1. They aren’t dating. Christine and Stephen break up before the first Doctor Strange movie. Doctor Strange 2 opens with Christine getting married to another man. This is a bold creative choice. Having them start as ex-lovers might be interesting in another multiverse, but in practice, it ruins them. By starting every Doctor Strange movie with Strange and Christine apart means that the movie has to establish WHY they are apart. First impressions are key, and the movies show us why Christine and Steve should be apart and rarely focused on why they should be together. Both movies open with Christine telling Stephen why he would be a bad partner.

2. Stephen is a bad partner. Doctor Strange’s core character trait is that he is an arrogant douche, who overcomes his arrogant douche tendencies to help other people sometimes. This is his arc in both movies. In order to have this arc every movie, Stephen needs to start every movie as an arrogant douche. His arrogant douchery is never overcome, but he does heroic things despite it. At his core, he is condescending and a little mean. These are not great traits for a partner or a romantic lead.

"BUT TONY STARK IS AN ARROGANT DOUCHE!" I hear you scream. Well, he’s played by Robert Downey Jr. And…

3. Benedict Cumberbatch is bad in this movie. I think this point will feature every time I talk about Multiverse of Madness. Robert Downey Jr. is charismatic and has great comedic timing. Cumberbatch does is not and does not (in this movie). I think it comes down to the fact that he makes no acting choices and has no fun. He makes maybe three faces and reads almost every line the exact same way. He does not make me laugh once in this movie with a joke. It just seems like he isn’t having any fun. There is a scene where he plays an evil Doctor Strange from another multiverse and that scene is SO MUCH BETTER. He is having so much fun and making crazy wonderful choices. The scene is a stark reminder of how joyless his performance as Stephen Prime actually is. Doctor Strange is not only a jerk in this movie, but he is boring.

4. Christine is too normal. Christine is very normal. She is pretty, smart, professional and often quite heroic and brave in the face of danger. She’s a cool, normal lady! Which is why it’s very realistic that she doesn’t want to date Doctor Strange, who sucks and is boring. 

5. They can’t even make it work canonically. How can the audience invest in a couple that literally can’t work? We see four multiverses with Doctor Strange and Christine pairings in Multiverse of Madness. Christine canonically dumps him in all four. The failure of this relationship is constantly thrown in our face. Christine tells Stephen in the beginning of the movie that “this could never work between us,” and we never see anything that disproves it! Time and time again, the movie reminds us that they aren’t together in any universe.

6. No screentime for the good aspects. The movie spends a lot of time telling us why they should not be together and very little time on why they should be. Here are all the positive, explicitly romantic interactions they have in the movie.

• Christine gives Stephen a Rolex (this is a flashback from before they broke up)

• Flower World!Christine reminds Stephen that she gave him a watch. He used that watch as a key to a secret portal door and Christine thinks that’s cute.

• They work together to fight Wanda (This barely counts in my opinion, like almost not worth mentioning)

• Dr. Strange confesses his love. He tells her that he “Loves her in every universe” She nods awkwardly and says “yeah.”

That’s it, I think.

I think that is the core problem of this relationship. There is simply so much screentime dedicated to why they shouldn’t be together and why Christine is right to not be with Stephen and so little screentime dedicated to why they would be a good couple. There is no reason to believe that they could ever work.

It starts to come across as Stephen just having a creepy obsession with his ex-girlfriend who never really like him that much and really has no reason to.

That, combined with Benedict’s lack of charisma and effort, dooms this romance to death.

But worry not, dear reader. The Christine/Doctor Strange romance is but one of like 10 subplots in this movie and it’s probably the most boring one. We have nowhere to go but up!