Besides taking Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his allies into an interdimensional adventure, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is crawling with enemies to challenge the Master of the Mystic Arts. First, Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is back, and it seems like he may have joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the Illuminati. Then, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), going by the moniker Scarlett Witch ever since WandaVision, might also turn from friend to foe. Finally, there are all sorts of monsters crawling from every possible timeline, including zombies, an evil Doctor Strange, and a giant one-eyed squid monster.
While fans believed the monster to be the ancient demon Shuma-Gorath, licensed products, and official marketing pieces actually call the creature Gargantos. There is, in fact, a Gargantos on Marvel Comics, a squid monster with no relation to Doctor Strange. So, which monster is featured in the film? And what can the comics tell us about this new enemy? The answer is more complicated than it seems.
Gargantos and Shuma-Gorath in Marvel Comics
Gargantos has a short Marvel Comics story. Created by Roy Thomas and Marie Severin, the monster first shows up to challenge the underwater hero Namor in 1969’s The Sub-Mariner #13. The beast, however, is no match to Namor and ends up dead after a few pages. So, that’s it.
Gargantos was created as cannon fodder for a bigger villain, just a minor obstacle in a hero’s path to victory. The creature also didn’t possess any significant superpower besides being a giant squid capable of squeezing the life out of its adversaries. So, while the movie version of Gargantos could be teasing that Namor is ready to join the MCU, that seems unlikely.
As for Shuma-Gorath, the second one-eyed squid monster is on another level of villainy. Shuma-Gorath is one of the Old Ones, dark divinities lurking in the shadows of the cosmos before time began to unfold. After conquering hundreds of dimensions, Shuma-Gorath set its eye on Earth-616, the reality protected by the Ancient One and his most powerful disciple, Stephen Strange. The creature was name-dropped a couple of times in Marvel Comics before showing up as the puppet master of several enemies that Stephen fights to save the Ancient One, in a storyline that finally gave Stephen the title of Sorcerer Supreme.
Shuma-Gorath's off-panel voice was first revealed in 1973’ Marvel Premiere #9, by Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner. However, the villain would only show up in his tentacular magnificence a few months later, in Marvel Premiere #10. At first, Shuma-Gorath was a pink squid, but as years went by, the villain would adopt green as his primary color, just like Gargantos. The similarities between the two villains stop in their squid figures, though.
Shuma-Gorath is much more than a colossal monster with superstrength. As an Ancient One, Shuma-Gorath is an arcane master who can use magic lost in time to become an interdimensional conqueror. Shuma-Gorath is virtually unkillable, can control other people’s minds, blast powerful energy beams, and know what’s happening in thousands of dimensions simultaneously. And that’s just while using his squid body! The squid-like feature is just one of the manifestations of Shuma-Gorath, who takes a different shape for every dimension he tries to conquer, with his true self being unable to be even discernible by the human mind. That’s because Shuma-Gorath is a being of pure Chaos energy, the same energy that feeds Wanda Maximoff’s powers. So, with Wanda being a huge part of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the MCU could use Shuma-Gorath to explain further how Chaos magic actually works in the movies.
It’s pretty easy to see that if Marvel Studios decided to pit Stephen Strange against a giant squid monster, Shuma-Gorath would be a formidable adversary. So why did the MCU choose Gargantos, then? And did they really bring an underwater combatant to a movie about the multiverse?
Shuma-Gorath Intellectual Property
Contrary to other heroes and villains the MCU adapts from the comics, Shuma-Gorath is not entirely a Marvel creation. The name “Shuma-Gorath” was first created by Robert E. Howard for Kull, a comic book about a barbarian that preceded even Conan. In 1967, Howard would write a short story inspired by the literary work of H.P. Lovecraft, coming up with an Old One that was bound by mystic books. Howard’s Shuma-Gorath would be brought to life in Doctor Strange’s comics, but the interdimensional conqueror is still a creation of the late author. So, to use Shuma-Gorath in a movie, Marvel Studios would have to ask permission from the owners of Howard’s estate and probably pay a high sum just to mention Shuma-Gorath in the highly-anticipated sequel. As Comicbook revealed, Marvel Studios decided to skip the bureaucracy and just use a different name for the movie version of the Old One.
So, long story short, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness mixes the name of Gargantos with the looks and powers of Shuma-Gorath to create its own version of Stephen Strange recurring enemy. However, the film found a clever way to point fans toward the true identity of Gargantos. As previous trailers reveal, Stephen Strange will fight Gargantos on the streets of New York. As the camera focuses on the giant squid monster, we can see a taxi parked on the curb, on the right side of the screen. The taxi’s license plaque reads “P307.” The Doctor Strange stories that present Shuma-Gorath were reunited in a trade paperback collection named A Separate Reality. In this book, Marvel Premiere #10 – Shuma-Gorath’s first appearance – starts precisely on page 307. That feels like too much of a coincidence not to be an Easter egg. So, while the film uses Gargantos as a name due to intellectual property disputes, director Sam Raimi found a way to tease the truth: the villain we’ll see in the film is really Shuma-Gorath, after all.
We'll know about the film version of the Old One once Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes to theaters on May 6.