7 Times Comic Book Movies Had Crossovers Before Marvel

6. Doctor Strange Is Active In Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Universe

Like any big Marvel character, when he makes his big screen debut later this year, the Benedict Cumberbatch rendition of Doctor Strange will arrive well set-up; he was first teased in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where a throwaway line revealed him as one of Hydra's persons of interest.

However, that wasn't the first big screen allusion to the Sorcerer Supreme; the character had been mentioned before in a parallel Marvel universe ten years earlier. In Spider-Man 2, when J. Jonah Jameson (played in the most perfect casting ever by J.K. Simmons) is trying to come up with a headline name for the newly-evil Otto Octavius, his assistant suggests Dr. Strange, to which Jameson gives some rare approval, only to dismiss because "it's taken."

It's a clear-if-slight nod to the character, who also operates out of New York City (his Sanctum Sanctorum is in Greenwich village) and thus would be on Jameson's radar (although this does raise the question why he makes a fuss about a teenage vigilante over a freaking magician).

Sony didn't actually have the rights to the character, meaning this was a rather cheeky appearance they probably got away with because nobody really cared about Doctor Strange at that point - it wasn't until a year after the film's release that Marvel first announced their early plans to expand into the movie business. That's not the only unofficial crossover between Spider-Man and another legally disparate Marvel franchise, either...