Doctor Strange: 7 MCU Connections You Might Have Missed

6. Iron Man 2's Armour Injury

Justin Hammer Gun.jpg
Marvel Studios

This one stems from a phone conversation Strange is having mere seconds before his near-fatal car accident.

His assistant, on the other end of the phone, runs down a couple of potential cases for the good Doctor to take a look at; among them, a girl with a brain implant who gets struck by lightning (more on her later), and a man who had his spine crushed while testing 'experimental armour'.

It's that last victim who's the subject here, since it seems to be a nod to somebody who has sustained a severe injury while sporting an Iron Man-type suit. The most obvious candidate is Rhodey in Civil War, but that throws up all sorts of issues. How can his armour be classed as 'experimental' at this point? It very clearly works. Why would Strange be offered the chance to treat Rhodey, when Tony Stark does it himself at the end of Civil War?

Rather, this seems to be a reference to Iron Man 2, and a scene in which Justin Hammer attempts - and fails - to construct a fully-functioning Iron Man suit.

The scene in question shows a brief glimpse of an unfortunate armour test-pilot who twists the top half of his body while the bottom half stays stationary. While not a reference that impacts the MCU in any meaningful way, it's a nice little nod that ties the whole universe just a little bit closer together.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!