There’s a lot of baggage to unload with that statement, that Marvel lied to us about anything, isn’t there? When taking into account how many of Marvel’s stories have been retconned, restarted, twisted around, changed, and rebooted over the years, in the comics at least, it’s enough to make your head spin. But when talking about Doctor Strange it only gets worse since the extent of his powers tends to fall under the idea that since he works with magic to protect the earth and can actually turn back time and create other interesting and ultimately dangerous effects, there’s not a lot that can’t happen from a writer’s standpoint. This is as intriguing as it is disturbing to be fair since it does give writers a lot of freedom when it comes to penning his story and as such, it’s very possible that Marvel has been lying and pulling the wool over our eyes for years with this character, but whether fans are bound to care or not is the biggest concern. After all, he’s not the only hero in the Marvel universe that has been put through this since just about everyone has been retconned at least once if not multiple times, but the thing is that his power set is the type that could actually end up retconning the Marvel universe if it was allowed to do so. Strange does manage to fight and work with some of the most powerful beings in the universe and has the type of knowledge about reality and the world of his origin that most know nothing about.
If you’re in the mood to care about Marvel lying to you about Doctor Strange then it’s likely that you’re a comic book fan that would love to know what’s going on, since apparently the original character has been dead for some time, since the Secret Wars in fact. This is largely due to the fact that Prime Earth in the comics had to be recreated, which would mean that everything and everyone upon it are carbon copies of their former selves, which is a fancy way of saying that the Marvel universe at one time destroyed itself just to recreate itself in order to continue the interesting emotional rollercoaster that has been a part of the comics for a long, long time. When one really goes into the archives and starts to figure out what the comics have been doing for so long, they’ll probably discover that the retconning and twisting of the stories they enjoy has been happening for decades since at one point or another every story is going to feel stale, used up, and very likely to be discontinued until something can be done. Let’s face it, the stories dry up, interest wanes as the fans grow up and take note of the world around them and diversify their interests. At that point, it becomes necessary for the comics to do something that, to some writers, is both irritating and in some cases even abhorrent. They switch things up and lie to the fans concerning the fates of the heroes and the villains in order to make things more interesting.
It’s not the first time that such a thing has happened, but when wondering if Marvel is flat-out lying to the fans and trying to convince them that certain things never happened, using their characters to deliver the bad and upsetting news, it’s important to remember that it’s not so much a lie as it is an exaggeration of evolution. To explain that, think of human history and how many times people have believed one thing to be true only find some hint or clue that’s shattered their illusions and forced them to realize that the truth isn’t what they thought it was. When this happens history reaches out and slaps a bit of sense into people, even if they choose not to believe it. The truth of Doctor Strange is that the character has been changing and evolving just as much as any hero, and everything that has happened in accordance with the character and his path through the Marvel universe has been altered as has been necessary to explain one storyline after another. It’s a matter of evolution within the story, using carefully placed lies and half-truths, as well as blatant exaggerations, in order to tell a story that will appeal to each generation of fans as the years roll onward. The fact is that trying to reach every generation with the same stories is not entirely possible since what is entertaining to one generation won’t likely be just as entertaining to the next. So really, if there are any lies being told, it’s that Doctor Strange is still the same character as he’s always been since, like many Marvel characters, he’s evolved and changed in a number of different ways thanks to the writers and the necessity of keeping the fans happy.
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