'Doctor Strange 2': Everything to Remember Before Watching

First things first, let's look at the movie that introduced us to the cloak-wearing, magnificently goateed Doctor Strange.

Key takeaways:

• Dr. Stephen Strange was a brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon before a car crash severely injured his hands
• Rival surgeon Nicodemus West (Michael Stuhlbarg) operates on Strange's hands, but fails to fully restore them
• Strange learns to be a master of the mystic arts at Kamar-Taj, a secret compound in Kathmandu, Nepal
• Sorcerer Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) helps train Stephen before becoming disillusioned with their master's contradicting morals and renounces his life as a sorcerer
• Strange and Christine Palmer, an emergency surgeon, were lovers before Strange disappeared to Kamar-Taj. They're still friends after he becomes a superhero

This is the movie where Doctor Strange makes his biggest ever superhero play.

Key takeaways:

• Doctor Strange uses the Time Stone to view millions of possible versions of the future to find the single iteration where the Avengers beat Thanos

• Still, Wanda Maximoff is forced to destroy her love, Vision (Paul Bettany), and the Mind Stone in order to prevent Thanos from securing it (to poor Wanda's even greater despair, Thanos later reverses time and kills Vision again)

Strange's master plan is enacted in the final Avengers movie, but the cost is dear.

Key takeaways:

• Doctor Strange disappears for five years when Thanos wipes out half of all life in the universe in what's known as the Blip
• Strange returns when Tony Stark uses the Infinity Gauntlet to bring everyone back and destroy Thanos. However, Tony dies in the process -- a fate Strange had already witnessed
  

The idea of the multiverse is a big feature of the latest Spider-Man movie, in which Doctor Strange plays a huge role.

Key takeaways:

• When Peter Parker asks Doctor Strange to cast a spell that makes everyone forget Spider-Man, it goes wrong and breaks open the multiverse
• In order to protect the multiverse, Doctor Strange casts a spell that erases Peter Parker from everyone's memory

WandaVision is a miniseries on Disney Plus. It explores Wanda's growing powers and what happened to her after Vision died in Infinity War.

Key takeaways:

• After the events of Endgame, Wanda travels to a lot in Westview where she and Vision had planned to live together. In her grief over Vision's death, she manifests a new version of Vision and a Hex that traps the entire town
• Inside the Hex, Wanda has twins Billy and Tommy who quickly age up to 10 years old
• The twins and Vision disappear when Wanda decides to collapse the Hex and finally free the tortured residents
• When Wanda goes into hiding, she hears the twins cry for help as she studies the Darkhold, a collection of evil spells

Marvel's What If...? is an animated anthology series that explores alternative timelines in the multiverse. Basically, it shows what would happen if different characters became heroes or gained another hero's powers.

Key takeaway:

• In one universe, agent Peggy Carter receives the serum that turned Steve Rogers into a super-soldier. She becomes Captain Carter