When Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters in May 2026, everyone’s going to assume Doctor Doom broke the multiverse. After all, he’s the villain. His name is literally in the title. And with Robert Downey Jr. taking on the role, the marketing machine is already positioning Doom as the ultimate threat to reality itself.
But here’s the kicker: Doom didn’t break the multiverse. Someone else did. Someone who’s been systematically fracturing reality since 2016, making catastrophic decisions disguised as heroic sacrifices, and leaving a trail of multiversal damage that’s now spreading like cracks in a windshield.
And once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.
WHAT BROKE THE MCU MULTIVERSE?
Doctor Strange broke the Marvel multiverse through three key events: (1) Using the Time Stone with Dark Dimension energy in 2016, creating initial spacetime fractures; (2) Giving Thanos the Time Stone in Infinity War, enabling the Time Heist that created five permanent branching timelines; and (3) Casting the memory spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which shattered the protective boundaries between universes and triggered incursions. These incursions—collisions between universes that destroy one or both—are now spreading throughout the multiverse, setting up the conflict in Avengers: Doomsday (2026).
WHAT MCU INCURSIONS REALLY MEAN
Before we prove who broke the multiverse, you need to understand what an incursion actually is—because it’s the central threat of Avengers: Doomsday and the key to understanding how we got here.
In the comics, specifically Jonathan Hickman’s 2015 Secret Wars, incursions systematically eliminated universes one by one. The process was brutal and unavoidable: two universes would collide, and one or both would be completely destroyed. By the time the Beyonders finished their multiversal genocide, reality itself collapsed into Battleworld—a patchwork realm ruled by Doctor Doom, assembled from the fragments of dead universes.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Reed Richards gives us the MCU’s definition: “An Incursion occurs when the boundary between two universes erodes and they collide, destroying one or both entirely.”
Here’s what you need to understand about incursions: They don’t just happen randomly. Something—or someone—has to damage the boundaries between universes first. Think of the multiverse as a series of adjacent rooms with walls between them. Incursions occur when those walls develop cracks, then fractures, then eventually shatter completely, causing the rooms to collapse into each other.
And here’s the critical detail that most people miss: Every major incursion we’ve seen in the MCU was triggered by magic, not technology. The visual signature is always the same—reality fracturing like glass or crystal, spreading outward from the point of magical interference.
Which brings us to the uncomfortable question: If incursions are caused by magic breaking multiversal boundaries, and if the multiverse is now dying from spreading incursions, then who’s been recklessly wielding magic without understanding the consequences?
The answer’s been hiding in plain sight since 2016.
CLEARING THE SUSPECTS: WHY KANG AND DOOM AREN’T GUILTY
Before we prove who did break the multiverse, let’s eliminate who didn’t. Because if you’ve been following MCU theories online, you’ve probably heard several names thrown around as the real culprit. Let’s clear them one by one.
Kang the Conqueror: NOT GUILTY
Kang seemed like the obvious answer for a while. The entire Multiverse Saga was supposedly building toward him as the ultimate threat. But then real-world events intervened: Jonathan Majors was fired by Marvel in 2023, and the character was effectively written out of the MCU’s future plans.
More importantly, Loki Season 2 already resolved Kang’s threat. He Who Remains is dead. Loki holds the timelines together at the end of the Sacred Timeline. The TVA even discusses Kang in past tense—he’s been handled. The multiverse problems after that point can’t be blamed on a villain who’s been removed from the equation.
Kang’s not the one breaking the multiverse in Doomsday. He’s been deleted from the story.
Wanda Maximoff: WRONG SUSPECT
Wanda’s dreamwalking in Multiverse of Madness definitely damaged the multiverse—but she didn’t start the fire. She just poured gasoline on it.
Remember: Wanda only gained access to the Darkhold after the events of WandaVision. She started dreamwalking after Strange’s memory spell already shattered the boundaries. Her Darkhold corruption and multiversal travel made things worse, absolutely—but the walls were already cracked before she touched them.
Think of it this way: If the multiverse were a dam, Wanda didn’t create the cracks in the foundation. She just hit the dam with a sledgehammer after those cracks were already spreading. Symptom, not cause.
Spider-Man: JUST A CATALYST
Peter Parker didn’t cast the spell—Strange did. Peter interrupted it, yes, but he’s a teenager who didn’t understand what he was asking for. You can’t blame someone for hitting the gas pedal when they don’t know they’re in a car speeding toward a cliff. The person who put the car in drive and started the engine? That’s where the responsibility lies.
But if it’s not Kang, and it’s not Wanda, and Peter’s just a kid making things worse…
Doctor Doom: NOT GUILTY (Yet)
Here’s where it gets interesting. Doctor Doom is positioned as the villain of Avengers: Doomsday. Robert Downey Jr. was announced as Doom at SDCC 2024 to massive fanfare, with the Russo Brothers calling him “one of the most complex comic book characters ever created.” So naturally, everyone assumes Doom broke the multiverse.
But there’s no evidence for that in the MCU timeline. Doom hasn’t appeared yet. He couldn’t have caused the incursions that are already happening.
In the comics, Doom’s relationship with incursions is complicated. During Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars, Doom didn’t cause the incursions—he tried to stop them. The Beyonders were systematically destroying the multiverse by killing Molecule Men across realities, which triggered incursions. Doom attempted to save the multiverse by killing the Molecule Men first, trying to prevent the Beyonders from using them. He accelerated incursions he was trying to stop—a tragic form of manslaughter, not murder.
When the multiverse died anyway, Doom salvaged what he could and created Battleworld from the fragments.
Which raises a crucial question: What if the MCU follows a similar path? What if Doom isn’t breaking the multiverse in Doomsday—what if he’s trying to fix the disaster someone else created?
What if Doom is the one trying to save reality from collapsing… and the Avengers have to decide whether his authoritarian solution is worse than extinction?
We’ll return to Doom later. For now, just remember: The evidence points elsewhere. To someone who’s been breaking multiversal rules since 2016. To someone whose pattern of arrogance and magical recklessness has been escalating for nearly a decade.
To a moment from 2016 where Strange broke his first rule—and reality started cracking.
THE ORIGINAL SIN – DOCTOR STRANGE (2016)
Let’s go back to where it all started: 2016’s Doctor Strange, in the Hong Kong Sanctum, when Stephen Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto for the first time.
Here’s what happens in that scene, step by step:
Strange steals the Eye of Agamotto from the Kamar-Taj library without reading any warnings in the book. He opens it, revealing the Time Stone. And then—despite having just learned magic weeks ago—he starts experimenting with time manipulation on an apple, reversing its decay, then aging it forward.
Wong and Mordo discover him mid-spell and absolutely lose their minds. Wong warns him that temporal manipulations can create branches in time. Unstable dimensional openings. Spatial paradoxes. Time loops.
Strange’s response tells you everything: “They really should put the warnings BEFORE this spell.”
Not quite.
The warnings were there. Strange just didn’t bother reading them. Because Stephen Strange—even as a rookie sorcerer—already believed the rules were suggestions, and warnings were for other people.
But here’s what makes that scene even more damning: Strange isn’t just using the Time Stone. He’s simultaneously harnessing Dark Dimension energy while manipulating time. The Ancient One reveals later in the film that she’s been drawing power from the Dark Dimension for centuries to extend her life—a practice explicitly forbidden because it’s dangerous and corrupting.
Strange watches her do this. He sees the consequences of using forbidden power. He sees Mordo’s horror at discovering his mentor broke her own rules.
And the lesson Strange learns isn’t “don’t break the rules.” It’s “break the rules if you think you have a good reason.”
When Strange uses the Time Stone against Dormammu, creating a time loop that saves Earth, he’s rewarded for rule-breaking. He’s celebrated. He wins. And that victory cements the most dangerous belief in his mind: When he breaks the rules, it works out.
Mordo sees this pattern clearly. He leaves the order entirely, telling Strange directly: “The bill comes due. Always. We have to pay for what we do. But you… you still think there will be no consequences, Strange. No price to pay. We broke the rules. We tampered with forces we don’t understand. And now… now the bill is coming due.”
And if you watch that scene again knowing what we know now, Mordo’s departure becomes prophetic.
But here’s the critical detail everyone overlooks: Those fractures Strange created with the Time Stone? The spatial instabilities Wong warned about? They didn’t heal. They scarred. Like microscopic cracks in a dam, still there, still under pressure, still spreading.
You can see where Strange learned his fatal lesson. The Ancient One drew forbidden power for centuries. She broke the rules constantly. And she justified it every time because her intentions were noble—protecting Earth, training sorcerers, maintaining the Sanctums.
Strange learned his master’s lesson too well.
The difference is this: The Ancient One understood the price. She knew every day that the bill would eventually come due. Strange? He genuinely believes he’s the exception. That when he breaks the rules, it’s different. It’s justified. It’s heroic.
That conviction—that arrogance—is what destroys the multiverse.
THE MAGIC-MULTIVERSE CONNECTION
Now let’s talk about the weapon Strange used to break everything: magic itself.
Here’s the critical mechanism most people don’t understand—but once you do, everything clicks: In the MCU, magic isn’t some separate power system—it’s literally pulling energy from other dimensions across the multiverse. The Ancient One explains this directly in Doctor Strange: “We harness energy drawn from other dimensions of the Multiverse to cast spells.”
Every spell a sorcerer casts creates a connection to another universe. Most of the time, these connections are brief and harmless—like opening a door, grabbing what you need, and closing it immediately. The multiverse can handle that.
But dark magic—particularly the Darkhold—forces those connections to stay open. It’s like jamming the door open and letting energy bleed continuously between universes. That sustained connection destabilizes the boundaries. And dreamwalking, which involves literally bouncing your consciousness between universes, creates fractures every single time.
Every spell Strange casts makes the multiverse a little more fragile.
This is why Earth-838’s Illuminati executed their version of Doctor Strange. Not because he was evil. Not because he wanted to destroy his universe. But because he used the Darkhold to defeat Thanos—and in doing so, triggered an incursion that would have destroyed his entire reality.
Reed Richards delivers the verdict: “Your alternate self created the Incursion that caused the annihilation of another universe.”
And here’s where the Illuminati made their terrifying conclusion.
They don’t say “be careful with the Darkhold.” They don’t say “don’t use dark magic.” Their conclusion is far more damning: “Stephen Strange, you are the greatest threat this universe has ever known. Even though you didn’t mean to, even though you were trying to help. We’re the Illuminati. We make the hard decisions. And we’ve decided you have to die.”
Their logic? Doctor Strange—in every universe—is the biggest threat to the multiverse.
Not Wanda. Not Thanos. Strange.
Because Strange keeps reaching for magical solutions without fully understanding the multiversal consequences. The pattern holds across realities: give Strange enough power and enough pressure, and he’ll break the universe trying to save it.
That’s why Clea’s appearance in the Multiverse of Madness post-credits scene matters. She tells Strange directly: “You caused an incursion and we’re going to fix it.” Not “an incursion happened.” Not “someone caused an incursion.” You caused it.
She also reveals something crucial: “There is a way to fix incursions.” Meaning the damage isn’t necessarily permanent—if you have the right knowledge and power to repair it. Which brings us to the man who might actually be capable of fixing Strange’s catastrophic mistakes.
Doctor Doom.
In the comics, Doom is uniquely positioned to address multiversal collapse because he masters both magic and technology at the highest levels. He’s a sorcerer second only to Strange himself, but he’s also potentially smarter than Reed Richards. That combination—mystic arts plus scientific genius plus the resources of an entire nation—makes him the most complete version of Doom we’ve ever seen heading into the MCU.
And this is why the magic-multiverse connection matters for Doomsday: Because every major incursion we’ve seen was triggered by magic, not technology alone. Strange’s Time Stone use combined with Dark Dimension energy. The memory spell channeling multiversal power. Wanda’s Darkhold dreamwalking. They all stressed the boundaries between universes through magical means.
If Doom is going to fix the collapsing multiverse, he’ll need to understand both the mystical damage and the scientific principles underlying reality itself. Marketing and set photos suggest the MCU is emphasizing Doom’s sorcery more than any previous adaptation. That’s not an accident—it’s essential to the story they’re telling.
The multiverse is dying because a sorcerer kept breaking the rules. The only one who might be able to save it is someone who understands magic as deeply as Strange, but approaches it with the cold calculation Strange has never possessed.
And Strange was about to make it infinitely worse.
THE MEMORY SPELL – BREAKING THE WALLS
Now let’s talk about December 2024, inside the New York Sanctum, when Doctor Strange agrees to cast a spell that will make the entire world forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
Here’s the scene: Peter comes to Strange, desperate after Mysterio’s identity reveal destroyed his life. He asks Strange for help. And Strange—without hesitation, without consulting Wong, without considering the consequences—says: “Oh, it’s just a standard spell of forgetting.”
Wong walks in mid-preparation and immediately recognizes what Strange is attempting. His warning is explicit: “That spell travels the dark borders between known and unknown reality. It’s too dangerous.”
Think about that phrase: “the dark borders between known and unknown reality.” Wong is literally describing the boundaries between universes—the walls that separate one reality from another. The same walls that, when damaged, cause incursions.
Strange dismisses the concern: “We’ve used it for a lot less. Do you remember the full moon party in Kamar-Taj?”
Stay with me here, because this is where it gets wild.
The spell Strange is casting isn’t actually a simple memory spell. It’s reality manipulation on a planetary scale across time. To make everyone forget Peter is Spider-Man, the spell has to reach backward through time and alter or erase every piece of documentation—every video, every photo, every news article, every social media post, every government record. It has to change reality itself.
That’s not memory alteration. That’s rewriting history across an entire planet.
And Strange thinks it’s “standard.”
He begins the spell. But Peter—realizing his friends and family will forget too—starts interrupting: “Wait, what about MJ? What about Ned? What about my Aunt May?”
Each interruption changes the spell’s parameters while it’s being cast. The spell fractures. Reality itself starts cracking. Purple tears appear in the fabric of space.
If you’re keeping track, Strange just broke three multiversal rules in under five minutes: He cast a reality-altering spell without fully understanding it. He did it while someone kept changing the parameters mid-incantation. And he did it by channeling energy directly from “the dark borders between known and unknown reality”—the exact boundaries that protect universes from each other.
The spell collapses. Multiversal trespassers start pouring through: Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Electro, Sandman, Lizard. Two alternate Spider-Men. Even a piece of the Venom symbiote.
But here’s what’s critical: The villains appearing aren’t the real damage. They’re the symptom. The real catastrophe is what happened to the boundaries themselves.
The protective walls separating Earth-616 from the rest of the multiverse didn’t just crack. They shattered.
Wong’s “dark borders between known and unknown reality”? Gone. The boundary that prevented universes from bleeding into each other? Compromised. Strange managed to contain the immediate spell inside the Macchina di Kadavus—that ancient relic box—temporarily holding the fractures at bay.
But then Green Goblin destroys the containment device during the final battle. The original spell unleashes fully. Reality tears open, showing purple rifts with bright white figures of various villains from different universes trying to break through.
Strange has no choice. He casts a second spell—this one making everyone in the entire multiverse forget Peter Parker entirely. The spell closes the immediate tears. It sends the villains home. It ends the visible crisis.
But it doesn’t rebuild the walls. The structural damage remains. The boundaries between universes are permanently weakened. And that damage is irreversible.
That’s why Wanda can dreamwalk so easily in Multiverse of Madness—the walls were already broken. That’s why Clea shows up telling Strange he caused an incursion. That’s why the multiverse is now on a collision course toward Doomsday.
The memory spell didn’t just bring villains to Earth-616. It shattered the multiversal architecture that kept reality stable.
THE ENDGAME DOMINO EFFECT – FIVE TIMELINES THAT CAN’T BE FIXED
But that spell wasn’t Strange’s only catastrophic mistake. To understand how deep the damage goes, we need to rewind to Titan—the moment Strange gave Thanos the Time Stone.
That single decision set off a chain reaction that would fracture reality in ways no one predicted. Because giving Thanos the Stone led to the Snap. The Snap led to Tony Stark inventing time travel five years later. And time travel led to the Time Heist—the mission that created permanent cracks in the multiverse that can never be fully sealed.
Here’s what most people miss: The Ancient One warned about this. When Bruce Banner asked for the Time Stone in 2012, she showed him exactly what happens when you remove an Infinity Stone from its timeline—you create a branched reality. Banner promised they’d return the stones, preventing those branches.
But that’s not how it worked.
Five Branching Timelines That Can’t Be Fixed
The Time Heist created at least five permanent branching timelines. And returning the Infinity Stones didn’t “fix” them—because you can’t undo conversations, you can’t un-knock-out Star-Lord, and you can’t erase the fact that an entire version of Thanos disappeared from his timeline.
Branch 1 – 2012 New York (Loki’s Escape): Loki escapes with the Tesseract during the chaotic Avengers Tower scene. The TVA eventually prunes this branch, but He Who Remains still dies at the end of Loki Season 2. Loki destroys the Temporal Loom, allowing infinite branching timelines. This timeline persists—and it all traces back to the Time Heist creating the conditions for Loki’s escape.
Branch 2 – 2012 New York (Captain America’s Interference): Present-day Cap tells his past self “Bucky’s alive” and whispers “Hail Hydra” to Hydra agents in the elevator. Returning the Mind Stone doesn’t undo those conversations. In that timeline, past-Cap now knows Bucky survived, knows Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., and has completely different context for everything that follows. The entire plot of The Winter Soldier no longer makes sense in that reality.
Branch 3 – 2014 Morag (The Missing Thanos): War Machine knocks out Star-Lord before he can grab the Power Stone. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that 2014 Thanos sees the future through Nebula’s cybernetic connection, then travels forward to 2023 with his entire army. Thanos dies in the final battle.
And it gets worse.
In the 2014 timeline, Thanos, Gamora, and Nebula simply vanish. No Infinity War. No Snap. Vision, Loki, and Heimdall all live. The Guardians of the Galaxy never form. This timeline is fundamentally, catastrophically different from Earth-616. Returning the Power Stone doesn’t fix the fact that Thanos disappeared.
Branch 4 – 2013 Asgard (Frigga’s Knowledge): Thor has an emotional conversation with his mother, Frigga, where he inadvertently reveals she’s going to die soon. Even after returning the Reality Stone, Frigga retains that knowledge. She knows the Dark Elves are coming. That changes everything about her final day.
Branch 5 – 1940s (Steve’s New Life): Steve Rogers stays in the past to live his entire life with Peggy Carter. He has complete knowledge of Hydra’s infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., knows Bucky is alive and being tortured, knows about 9/11, knows about every major event for the next 70+ years. Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell are both confirmed for Avengers: Doomsday—likely playing this version of Steve and Peggy. That timeline is irreversibly altered by Steve’s presence and foreknowledge.
The Ancient One was right: Removing the stones creates branches. But she was wrong about one thing—returning them doesn’t close those branches. Not when the Avengers had conversations, knocked people out, and changed events during their brief visits.
These five timelines don’t exist in isolation. They’re all connected to Earth-616—the timeline the Avengers came from. And when Gamora from 2014 stays in the 2023 timeline, it proves the boundaries between these realities are permeable. The multiverse became cluttered with timelines bleeding into each other, destabilizing the whole structure.
THE COMPLETE DOMINO EFFECT: FROM TITAN TO DOOMSDAY
Now watch how every domino falls in perfect sequence.
Strange gives Thanos the Time Stone on Titan. The Snap happens. Tony Stark spends five years developing time travel. The Avengers execute the Time Heist. The Time Heist creates five permanent branching timelines. Tony sacrifices himself with the Infinity Stones.
Peter Parker loses his mentor—his “Iron Daddy.”
Grieving and desperate, Peter gives EDITH to Mysterio, who he thinks is a hero. Mysterio betrays Peter and reveals his identity to the world. Peter’s life implodes. In desperation, Peter asks Doctor Strange for help. Strange casts the memory spell. Peter keeps interrupting. The spell fractures. The multiverse boundaries shatter.
Multiversal villains flood into Earth-616. Strange contains them temporarily, but Green Goblin destroys the containment. Strange casts a second spell—everyone forgets Peter Parker entirely. The immediate crisis ends. The villains go home.
But the walls between universes stay broken.
With those protective barriers compromised, Wanda Maximoff can easily dreamwalk between realities in Multiverse of Madness. Strange himself dreamwalks—causing yet another incursion. The fractures keep spreading. Universes begin colliding. Incursions multiply.
And it all connects back to one man making one choice on Titan.
Here’s the full domino chain: Strange’s Titan decision → Snap → Tony invents time travel → Time Heist creates five branches → Tony’s sacrifice → Peter loses Tony → Peter’s identity revealed → Memory spell shatters multiverse boundaries → Wanda dreamwalks → Strange causes incursion → Multiverse destabilizes → Doomsday.
Every single step was necessary. Every single step led inevitably to the next. Remove any one domino and the chain breaks—but Strange’s decision on Titan was the first domino. He saw 14 million possible futures and chose the one path that required time travel, required branching timelines, required the memory spell.
The Time Heist was always supposed to happen. Strange knew it. He engineered it by giving up the Time Stone.
And now the multiverse is paying the price for that choice. The branches can’t be pruned. The conversations can’t be undone. The barriers can’t be rebuilt. Incursions are spreading like cancer through reality, universes colliding and dying one by one.
Mordo warned Strange in 2016: “The bill comes due. Always.”
The bill came due. And it’s not just Strange paying—it’s every universe in the multiverse.
So what happens when Doom discovers what Strange did?
DOOMSDAY PREDICTION – DOOM FIXES STRANGE’S MESS
Robert Downey Jr. was announced as Doctor Doom at SDCC 2024, with the Russo Brothers returning to direct Avengers: Doomsday. The Russos specifically said they needed “the greatest actor in the world” to play Doom—and they chose RDJ.
The popular theory is that Doom is a Tony Stark variant. Maybe from one of the Time Heist branches. Maybe from the Fantastic Four universe. Maybe a version of Tony who was scarred by the Infinity Stones instead of killed by them. The Russos have released cryptic teaser videos showing Iron Man and Doctor Doom masks back-to-back, literally “two sides of the same coin.”
Whether Doom is literally a Tony variant or not, here’s what he represents: Tony Stark’s core traits—his genius, his ego, his absolute conviction that only he can save the world—taken to their logical extreme. Without the Avengers to ground him. Without Pepper to humanize him. Without the redemptive sacrifice of Endgame.
When Doom discovers what Strange did to the multiverse—when he calculates the cascading damage from the memory spell, traces the fractures back to the Time Heist, realizes incursions are killing universes because one sorcerer kept breaking rules he thought didn’t apply to him—Doom won’t forgive.
But more importantly: Doom will fix it.
In the comics, during Secret Wars, Doom didn’t cause the incursions. He tried to stop them. When the Beyonders began systematically destroying the multiverse, Doom fought them. He killed Molecule Men across realities trying to prevent the collapse. He failed. And when the multiverse died anyway, Doom salvaged what he could—creating Battleworld from the fragments of destroyed realities, ruling over what remained because someone had to.
The MCU will likely follow a similar path. Doom discovers the multiverse is collapsing. He traces the cause back to Strange—not to Kang, not to some cosmic entity, but to a sorcerer who broke the rules repeatedly and catastrophically. Doom concludes the only solution is absolute control. He creates a new sacred timeline. Or he builds Battleworld. Or he consolidates the dying universes into one stable reality that he governs personally.
He believes this is mercy. Ruling over everything is better than watching everything die.
And here’s the twist: He might be right.
What’s the alternative? Let the incursions continue spreading? Watch universes collapse one after another? Hope Strange can fix the mess he created? Doom’s logic is brutal but sound: The multiverse can’t police itself. Someone must take control. If that means tyranny, so be it. Better a dictator than oblivion.
That’s why Strange will likely work with Doom—at least initially. Clea already told him: “You caused an incursion and we’re going to fix it.” Strange has the third eye from the Darkhold, physical proof of his corruption. He knows his choices led to multiversal extinction. When Doom offers a solution—unpleasant, undemocratic, but a solution—what choice does Strange have?
In the comics, Doom, Strange, and Molecule Man confronted the Beyonders together. The MCU will probably echo that dynamic: two brilliant, arrogant men forced to collaborate because the alternative is oblivion.
But here’s where Doomsday becomes fascinating: It won’t be a simple story of heroes versus villain. The central question becomes philosophical: Is freedom worth preserving if it leads to total annihilation? Is Doom’s authoritarian control morally wrong if it’s the only thing preventing multiversal death? Can you fight someone who’s technically trying to save you?
Some Avengers will stand with Doom. Others will oppose him. Strange will be caught in the middle, understanding both sides because he’s the one who created this nightmare in the first place.
And you might find yourself agreeing with him—which is exactly the problem.
This isn’t simple heroism versus villainy. It’s an impossible choice between tyranny and extinction. And no one gets to walk away clean.
THE SORCERER, THE SACRIFICE, AND THE MULTIVERSE
The evidence is overwhelming. Doctor Strange broke the multiverse—not through malice, but through a fatal flaw that’s defined him since 2016: He believes that when he breaks the rules, it’s justified by good intentions.
The first fractures in 2016 when he used the Time Stone. The memory spell that shattered the walls. The Time Heist—enabled by Strange giving Thanos the Stone—creating cascading timeline branches that can never be closed. Every step led to the next catastrophe.
The bill came due. The multiverse is collapsing. Incursions are spreading. Universes are dying.
All because one sorcerer kept reaching for power he didn’t fully understand, kept breaking boundaries he thought he was exempt from, kept believing his intentions justified the damage.
Avengers: Doomsday won’t be a straightforward story of heroes versus villain. Ask yourself: What do you do when the person who broke everything stands beside you, and the person trying to fix it wears Doom’s mask?
The surgeon who couldn’t accept his limitations became the sorcerer who wouldn’t accept reality’s rules. Trying to save everyone, he condemned everything.
And the only way to save what remains might be surrendering to the very tyranny the Avengers swore to prevent.
The multiverse didn’t die from evil. It died from good intentions executed with absolute arrogance. And now everyone—every universe—has to live with the consequences of one man’s belief that the rules didn’t apply to him.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: DOCTOR STRANGE & THE MULTIVERSE
Q: Did Doctor Strange intentionally break the multiverse?
No, Doctor Strange didn’t deliberately destroy the multiverse. His actions stemmed from arrogance and a pattern of breaking rules he believed didn’t apply to him. From using the Time Stone without reading warnings in 2016, to giving it to Thanos in Infinity War (enabling the Time Heist), to casting the memory spell in No Way Home despite explicit warnings—each decision was made with good intentions but catastrophic consequences.
Q: What exactly did the No Way Home memory spell do to the multiverse?
The memory spell traveled “the dark borders between known and unknown reality” (Wong’s description), harnessing energy from across the multiverse to rewrite reality on a planetary scale. When Peter Parker kept changing the spell’s parameters mid-cast, it fractured and shattered the protective boundaries separating Earth-616 from other universes. This created the conditions for incursions—collisions between universes that destroy one or both realities.
Q: How did the Endgame Time Heist cause multiverse problems?
The Time Heist created at least five permanent branching timelines: Loki escaping with the Tesseract (2012), Captain America’s conversations changing Winter Soldier events (2012), Thanos disappearing from his timeline (2014), Thor’s conversation with Frigga (2013), and Steve Rogers living in the past with Peggy (1940s). Despite returning the Infinity Stones, these branches couldn’t be “fixed” because significant events occurred during the heist that fundamentally altered those timelines. These growing branches destabilized the multiverse structure.
Q: Is Doctor Doom a Tony Stark variant in Avengers: Doomsday?
While unconfirmed, popular theories suggest Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom may be a Tony Stark variant from one of the Time Heist branches. However, whether Doom is literally Tony or simply shares his face matters less than what he represents: Tony’s genius and ego taken to their extreme. The Russos’ cryptic teasers showing Iron Man and Doctor Doom masks together suggest “two sides of the same coin.” Either way, Doom will likely be positioned as someone trying to save the multiverse from Strange’s mistakes, not destroy it.
Q: Will Doctor Strange be a villain in Avengers: Doomsday?
Unlikely. Strange will more likely be a conflicted figure caught between the Avengers and Doom, knowing he caused the multiverse collapse but unsure if Doom’s authoritarian solution is worse than letting everything die. In the comics, Strange and Doom worked together during Secret Wars to confront the Beyonders. The MCU will probably echo this dynamic—two brilliant, arrogant men forced to collaborate despite fundamentally opposing philosophies.
What do you think? Is Doctor Strange responsible for the multiverse’s collapse, or is there another culprit we’re missing? Share your theories in the comments below.