How X-Men: The Animated Series Influenced Professor X in Doctor Strange 2 Revealed

By Jenna Anderson

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness recently arrived on streaming, giving viewers a whole new opportunity to experience the Marvel Cinematic Universe film. The film's version of the Marvel Comics group The Illuminati might have been its most unexpected element, with the ensemble consisting of a number of surprising Marvel characters. Among them was a new version of Charles Xavier / Professor X (Patrick Stewart), who was from the alternate universe of Earth-838 alongside the other members of The Illuminati.

While this version of Professor X might have been from a new corner of the Marvel multiverse, his wardrobe seemed to be aesthetically inspired by the version from X-Men: The Animated Series, complete with a green suit and a yellow wheelchair. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com's Phase Zero podcast, Multiverse of Madness costume designer Graham Churchyard spoke about those Animated Series influences, and how they stemmed from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.

"We made his suit. Yeah, he was so happy," Churchyard revealed. "That was something from Kevin [Feige's] childhood, The Animated Series, with the kind of bright yellow dodgem car. Do you call them dodgems? Do you call them bumper cars? Kind of a fair ground, ride-looking kind of wheelchair. That was something that was in The Animated Series, and that came up as like, 'Yeah, we're doing this.' So the prop guys built that for real, and we shot that in London with photo doubles. And then when it came to additional [photography], they swapped in Patrick Stewart, to match the edit that they'd already done. They did the edit, so the work with him was then condensed as it were. But yeah, it was a fantastic image, and the green suit and the striped tie and the white shirt. I mean, Kevin was over the moon that we were doing the green suit."

Churchyard also revealed how the Professor X costume had a surprising personal tie to Stewart's real-life history.

"And that was made in London, because there's a tailor shop — We used some fine Yorkshire woolens," Chruchyard added. "I'd worked with Patrick Stewart some years ago, and then we had a little trip down memory lane. And in fact, his mother worked in the woolen trade in Yorkshire in England, so he was really happy that he was wearing something that came from his mother's sort of heritage of working in that industry."

"I did a Zoom fitting with him at his home in LA, [and then] sent some of the guys from Marvel studios down there," Churchyard explained.  I was just chatting to him while they were pinning stuff. That was the whole thing in COVID. We did so many fittings by Zoom."

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now streaming on Disney+.

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