Doctor Druid might have a brilliant name, but he’s no Stephen Strange.
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby back in 1961, Druid was the spiritual and literal precursor to Marvel’s most famous Sorcerer Supreme. Tellingly enough however, the Ancient One only pursued Druid in case Strange decided to opt out of the occult, so he’s literally the second choice sorcerer of the Marvel Universe.
In any case, he lent his talents to the Avengers on more than one occasion, gaining full membership and quickly establishing himself as the team’s go-to occult specialist. All wasn’t as it seemed though, and it wasn’t long until it was revealed that he had actually been taken over by Terminatrix during his time as the group's chairman, meaning that - for a while at least - a villain was in direct control of the Avengers.
While this isn’t a criticism of Druid’s character so much as it is a highlight of one of his lesser moments, there’s no getting around the fact that he’s always been in Stephen’s shadow, having been mind-controlled more times than Strange has had actual Avengers call-ups.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
