One of five movies officially announced to be coming in Phase 4 at Marvel’s Comic-Con panel on Saturday was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which promises to be an exciting sequel to the 2016 origins film for the Sorcerer Supreme that’ll take a deep dive into the craziness of the Marvel multiverse.
It was confirmed at the event that Elizabeth Olsen would be returning as Scarlet Witch in the movie as well, and we were so blown away by this unexpected team-up that we might have actually overlooked a subtle hint that a major figure from the comics would be appearing, too.
Here’s the exact wording of Kevin Feige’s revelatory statement. Pay extra attention to his final word:
“When you have a strong sorcerer, it also helps when you have a strong witch and the Scarlet Witch is appearing in this movie alongside her.”
Wait, what? Yup, it appears that Feige was hinting that a strong female sorcerer will show up in the sequel. Out of comic book lore, our best guess is that he’s talking about Clea, powerful sorceress and longtime love interest of Strange’s (sorry, Christine Palmer). She’s also the niece of Dormammu.
Of course, we might be reading too much into this as Feige might’ve just flubbed his pronouns. Like when we all thought that his mention of “the mutants” meant the X-Men were getting rebranded, but the producer later clarified he was using the term interchangeably.
However, rumors have suggested Clea will make her MCU debut in the film, so the Marvel Studios president may have been sneaking a clue into his speech for us to find. Introducing her in Doctor Strange 2 would certainly fit with the exponential increase in female leads in the MCU in Phase 4.
In any case, what we know for sure right now is that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will feature Nightmare as its main villain and is due to hit theaters on May 7th, 2021.