Doctor Strange 2 Teaser Reveals Major Marvel Character Cut From Avengers: Infinity War

Judgment is upon the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “This universe is only one of an infinite number,” says the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) in Doctor Strange — and they’re all safeguarded by the Living Tribunal. In a new promo for Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the dimension-traversing teen America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) opens a portal revealing the glowy-eyed, three-faced visage of one of the most powerful cosmic beings in the vast Marvel Multiverse. Doctor Strange 2 sees Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and Sorcerer Supreme Wong (Benedict Wong) navigating these strange new realities subject to the judgment of the Living Tribunal. 

Watch the new teaser below.

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Created by writer Stan Lee and artists Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe in the pages of 1967’s Strange Tales #157, an anthology series at the time starring Doctor Strange and Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Living Tribunal’s judgment threatens the total destruction of the Marvel universe. In writer Roy Thomas’ “The Sands of Death,” the three-visaged accuser sentences Earth to oblivion after the Master of the Mystic Arts unwittingly upsets the cosmic balance of the universe. 

In the comics, the Tribunal’s faces represent Equity, Revenge, and Necessity. 

After Strange learns of the infinite Multiverse in 2016’s Doctor Strange, Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) mentions a magic relic: the Staff of the Living Tribunal. In 2019, Avengers: Infinity War writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed they scripted a scene with the Living Tribunal when Strange battles Thanos (Josh Brolin) on the planet Titan. 

“[Producer Kevin Feige] wanted to make sure we didn’t lose the sort of psychedelic aspect of the ‘Starlin-verse,’ where people travel inside their eyeballs and things like that. And so we stuck the Living Tribunal in the movie,” Markus revealed at San Diego Comic-Con ’19. “So as Thanos and Doctor Strange came to blows, Doctor Strange blew Thanos’ mind and sent him through the mindscape.” 

Added McFeely, “The idea was that [Thanos is] sort of zipping through the universe, being presented with all of his many, many crimes. So bodies are being thrown at him, he lands and things turn into bodies, hands are grasping at him, and it’s just really kind of grim. And at the end he gets dumped in front of the Living Tribunal, who judges him guilty.”

Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Xochitl Gomez, Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens only in theaters on May 6. Tickets are now on sale.