Doctor Stephen Strange wasn't always the most powerful MCU hero we know today.
Before taking on the mantle to become the next Sorcerer Supreme in charge of the multiverse, he was one of the world’s top neurosurgeons who were overconfident and quite boastful in his work.
The question is, how did Doctor Strange get his powers and what exactly are they? Here's all you need to know about how the Sorcerer Supreme's powers work.
Doctor Strange's Origins Explained
When introduced to the origins of Dr. Stephen Strange before his powers, he is one of the world’s top neurosurgeons. Smart, confident, and extremely arrogant.
However, after a terrible accident, he loses full use of his hands which inhibits him from being able to continue his work in surgery.
After this trauma, It doesn’t take long for him to go broke as he spends all his resources looking for different treatments, operations, or experimental procedures that allow him full dexterity of his hands once more.
Unfortunately, no single procedure seemed to work.
Through word of mouth, he then hears about the mystical powers of someone called the Ancient One, an ageless being who can cure any ailment.
After traveling to the Himalayas searching for the ancient one, he comes across them and after first being denied access to learning the mystic arts, the Ancient one finally takes him on as a student allowing Doctor Strange to slowly become the next Sorcerer Supreme.
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Doctor Strange’s Powers
Due to his photographic memory and intelligence, he was able to study for his master's and his Ph.D. simultaneously.
Through this speed of learning, Doctor Strange can master the mystic arts quickly and summon different spells with expertise.
Pulling on different magical entities, he can use his sorcery skills to astral project, teleport, and summon objects to him.
As well as these, he can manipulate energy to use as force blasts and forcefields for protection.
Strange can use spells to restrain his opponents and has adept knowledge of astral projections (as he did with Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home) where he could rest his body while separating his spirit from his physical form.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we often see him conjure different shields that act as a forcefield as well as weapons to be able to fight against mystical and physical threats.
As seen in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, he can create illusions of himself (perks of being a master in alternate universes) and even transport massive amounts of items and people to any dimension he aims to transport them to.
Relics Doctor Strange Uses
Despite not technically being a superpower per se, all sorcerers generally have a relic that allows them to pull on its power and generate other abilities on top of their sorcery skills.
In the first Doctor Strange film, we see that the cloak of levitation chooses him as its master which then gives Doctor Strange the ability to fly. But surely, that wouldn't be the only superpower he'd get from his relics?
The Eye of Agamotto
The Eye of Agamotto is one of the more powerful relics created by the great sorcerer Agamotto himself.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we see that the Eye of Agamotto, given to him by The Ancient One, is actually powered by one of the Infinity stones - the Time Stone.
It’s through harnessing the power of the time stone that we see Doctor Strange perform local time travel to objects (such as making an apple rot) to performing infinite time loops, trapping Dormammu in a “time prison” in which Strange is willing to sacrifice himself time and time again for the good of humanity until Dormammu yields.
We later see in the Avengers: Infinity War film that Doctor Strange can use The Eye of Agamotto to see every perceivable outcome of the universe’s future, and then take the appropriate actions to ensure that The Avengers triumph over Thanos.
The twist to this is that he cannot allow anyone else to know what needs to be done to ensure the events take place organically.
This includes surrendering the time stone to Thanos as well as being able to allow half of the living universe to die for 5 years.
Through a combination of his genius intellect and deep knowledge of the mystic arts, Dr. Stephen Strange is an extremely powerful individual who can outsmart and outpower most of his opponents.
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Doctor Strange's Manipulation of the Multiverse
As seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Doctor Strange saw the memories of his alternate version before he even met America Chavez through a process called 'Dream-Walk.'
Let's not forget, given his god-like powers, he might as well be declared as the most overpowered magic-wielder or Sorcerer in the MCU.
Considering he had managed to use the Darkhold to possess a deceased body of himself in an alternate universe to fight the Scarlet Witch.
He is also able to erase the memories of any living being in accordance with the spell he casts. It was just unfortunate he had to redo the spell over and over at a time when Peter Parker wanted to change his fate.
The most recent power he used came from the Doctor Strange sequel, in which he gained a physical Third Eye on his forehead.
This was because in order to defeat his corrupted alternate version, he had to utilize the chaos magic of the Darkhold to his advantage, which manifested the Third Eye in the post-credit scene of Multiverse of Madness.
Now, the Third Eye remains a mystery for how it will make Doctor Strange stronger than he already is, but a Doctor Strange 3 should showcase it some more, especially since the post-stinger implied he'll be returning to the Multiverse to 'fix' what he started.
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