Marvel Studios is venturing into unknown territory once again with this fall’s Doctor Strange, which follows the story of Stephen Strange, a typical surgeon whose quest to save his injured hands leads him down a road of magic and mysticism. After training with the enigmatic master of the mystic arts, dubbed “The Ancient One”, Stephen begins his path toward taking the mantle of this world’s “Sorcerer Supreme”. From here, Doctor Strange becomes something of a superhero, guarding the world from supernatural threats, albeit far differently from the Avengers or many of the Marvel Universe’s other powered denizens.
While most of the roles of Doctor Strange have been revealed, Mads Mikkelsen of Hannibal fame remains a mystery, even though he’s the main antagonist of the story. Racking your brain with the possibilities? I'll try to narrow it down for you with some possibilities below:
Nightmare
Think Freddy Krueger mixed with DC Comics’ Sandman and you have Nightmare. Created by the forefathers of Marvel themselves, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in Strange Tales #110, Nightmare is something of an impish character who rules over the “Dream Dimension”. His bread and butter is attempting to capture people in their dreams, take them back to his home, and torment them in order to live on the energy from their dreams. So what can Nightmare “do”? Well, and this is the case for a lot of Strange’s villains, pretty much anything. Nightmare is a god in his own dimension and can bend reality to his whim. When he’s able to invade others’ minds by using the dream dimension, he mostly relies on trickery to feed off people.
Nightmare’s an interesting case in that his design hasn’t changed nearly at all since his first appearance in the 1960s. That’s pretty incredible as I can’t think of too many other characters in comics who have gone that long without some sort of artistic change along the way. Along with Doctor Strange, Nightmare has encountered nearly every Marvel hero in some shape or form as he’s a great villain to present heroes with their internal strife brought to life. Nightmare also gives you sort of an inside look into the threats that Strange fights, in that they’re mostly these huge threats that are too big for any one hero to fight on their own. You won’t be seeing much of Doctor Strange stopping bank robberies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe I’d wager. Mikkelsen would make for a good re-design of the character, and considering Mads was able to shift reality in the trailer, it seems like this character would make for a good fit.
Dormammu
Here’s your safe bet. Dormammu, lord of the Dark Dimension, is as close to a “Joker” or “Lex Luthor” that you’re going to get for Doctor Strange (aside from Baron Mordo of course). Dormammu was also created by Lee and Ditko a few issues after Nightmare’s first appearance. Similar to Nightmare, Dormammu is another god-like being, unable to really cross into our dimension, but usually trying to find human conduits to project himself into our reality, which is where Mads Mikkelsen could come into the picture. Dormammu doesn’t exactly look human after all, oh he has a human body but his head is on fire. Think Ghost Rider except his head looks similar to a talking fireball rather than a skull being lit ablaze.
Dormammu represents another of Doctor Strange’s big scary villains, the kind of villains that if they reach landfall into our reality, we’re done. Dormammu has appeared in numerous bits of media including the Spider-Man Animated Series and was even in the video game, Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The Lord of the Dark Dimension would be a good entry point into the crazy threats that Strange has to combat on a regular basis.
Mephisto
If you’re going to go big, why not go as big as possible and have Doctor Strange’s first villain be Marvel’s interpretation of the devil? Originally starting as a Silver Surfer villain in Silver Surfer #3 from Stan Lee and John Buscema, Mephisto is probably the closest thing you’ll get to an actual interpretation of Satan in the Marvel Universe, save for the times when Satan actually showed up in a book or two. There are a lot of devils in the Marvel Universe as a matter of fact, but Mephisto is the one that sticks with people the most. Doctor Strange has fought with the lord of the underworld on numerous occasions, pitting his sorcery against the end all/be all of everything evil. Once again, Mephisto is a villain that is all powerful yet has his own weird set of rules.
Again, this would probably be one of those deals wherein Mephisto is working through a physical host in the real world since we see Mads walking around in the trailer. If this were the case, this would actually be the second time you’ve seen Mephisto as Peter Fonda played him in the Ghost Rider movie a few years back. You may also remember Mephisto as the character responsible for destroying the marriage of Spider-Man and Mary Jane in the comics in a weird deal to save Aunt May. Let’s hope we don’t ever reach that point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Xandu
This choice is certainly obscure. Xandu is a rogue sorcerer who challenges Doctor Strange on a somewhat regular basis for mystical artifacts, usually something called the “Wand of Watoomb”. Once again spawned from the minds of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Xandu originally appeared in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 wherein Strange had to team up with the friendly neighborhood web-head to put a stop to the evil magician’s plots.
There’s not a lot to Xandu when all's said and done, though his motivations of becoming a dark wizard to save the woman that he loves from a bungled magical ceremony is a tad different from the big bad god characters we’ve been discussing so far. Where is Xandu now you may ask? Well he was actually killed by the Punisher in a story arc a few years back, but with magic and all, who can ever really be dead, especially in the Marvel Universe?
Dracula
Hold on a minute, Dracula? Yes, the king of all vampires has long been an established villain in the Marvel Universe. Heck, Drac even had his own book in the 70s for quite awhile titled, The Tomb of Dracula wherein he bounced around, generally being a pain in the ass to most heroes. Strange has actually fought Dracula on several occasions, and even, during one of their battles, created a spell that killed all vampires on the planet including Vlad the Impaler. Of course, Dracula and the rest of the vampires came back as do most comic characters at some point or another.
When Dracula first appeared, he looked far more traditional with a Bela Lugosi style, but he’s since changed with long white hair and red plated armor. Regardless, Mads Mikkelsen as Dracula would be a curve ball for sure, but would really go a long way to show just how entrenched in the world of the supernatural Doctor Strange is.
When all is said and done, Doctor Strange is looking to hit the ground running this November and whoever Mads Mikkelsen is playing, his acting chops make me think it’ll be a threat to be reckoned with. In my heart of hearts though, I was always kind of hoping for Mads to be Doctor Doom. Maybe someday.