8 Problems With The MCU That Doctor Strange Doesn't Fix

8. Wasting Iconic Comic-Book Characters

It's not always possible to faithfully adapt a comic, and that's fine - but if the cinematic version of a character is intended to be vastly different from the one we see in the source material, why even bother giving them the same name?

Dormammu in Doctor Strange was nothing like the Dormammu from the source material, to the point that it feels silly to call the movie version 'Dormammu'. Why not call him something else and save the true Dormammu for a more effective role in a movie further down the line? Slapping the name of a popular comic-book villain onto a movie villain who could be a completely different character feels like fan-service at its most patronising.

The MCU's done this multiple times before, too - for example, Zemo in Civil War and The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 were those respective characters in name only. Why not use characters that fit with the story you're trying to tell - even if that means creating a brand-new one - instead of twisting a comic-book persona to fit on the big-screen?

This issue aside, Dormammu was one of Doctor Strange's weak links; he never felt imposing, was given nothing to do, and came off like a slightly more colourful version of Galactus from Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. Marvel's source material is rich and vast, so it's a shame to see them lazily slot in characters that aren't relevant or fitting.