On Instagram, the actress showed her new Marvel costume.
Fans who waited two hours and twenty minutes to see a few mid- and post-credit sequences in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness were rewarded with an intriguing surprise that has significant ramifications for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Clea, portrayed by none other than Charlize Theron, was one of the major mid-credits shocks that we finally got a good look at last night. Yesterday, she released a photo of her makeup and a screenshot of her mid-credits cameo on Instagram, revealing wonderfully crisp purple eye makeup and a superhero costume that seems quite in keeping with the Eternals’ style of costuming; lots of delicate circles and layers of the same color.
What is Clea’s identity?
Clea initially appeared in the Dr. Strange comic The Domain of the Dread Dormammu, published in 1964! After learning that Dormammu has returned to power, Dr. Strange enters the Dark Dimension in order to fight him. Clea arrives while he searches for Dormammu’s lair and guides him to the door.
The Dark Dimension makes its first appearance in The Domain of the Horrifying Dormammu! In Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, when Clea emerges, she tears up a space-time rift that looks to be the same huesor as the Dark Dimension that Doctor Strange traversed in his previous film, when he trapped Dormammu in temporal stasis before defeating him. In addition to being Dormammu’s Dark Dimension neighbor, Clea has a family connection to the ancient demon. Dormammu is really Clea’s uncle in the comics. Umar, the twin sister of Dormummu, was married and gave birth to Clea. The comics versions of Dormammu and Umar were far more humanoid than the Dormammu we saw in the first Doctor Strange film, while Clea has always seemed humanoid despite her Faltine (a strong fire/dimension alien) ancestry.
After Dormammu was conquered from the Dark Dimension, Umar, Clea’s mother, and Clea herself engaged in a power struggle. Clea finally succeeds in becoming the ruler of the Dark Dimension and establishes herself as the dimension’s Sorcerer Supreme, having learnt some arcane skills from Stephen in the meantime. Clea has difficulty remaining in other dimensions for extended periods of time, and must often return to the Dark Dimension for a few spa days to regain her fighting form.
Mr. and Mrs. Strange
One of the most notable aspects about Clea is that in the comics, she and Stephen Strange really get married! Clea and Stephen seem to be one of the unusual couples who really get together and stay together, particularly given that they are both multiversal creatures that prefer to disregard the rules of physics and ordinary moral concerns.
Clea became the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth-616 after Stephen’s recent death in the comics, but not before attempting to resuscitate Stephen. Although Wong offers to assist her in doing some genuinely evil Necromancy, they fail miserably and wind up with a zombieized Thunderstrike at their feet (a minor Thor villain).
What is an Incident?
So what is Clea’s relation to Incursions? When Clea appears in the mid-credits sequence, she warns Stephen of an impending Incursion — a type of collision between worlds in the multiverse, with the Earths of each reality serving as the point of impact — and then leads him through a portal she carved with a knife. Given the disintegration of the Illuminati of Earth-838 at Wanda’s hands in Multiverse of Madness and the Illuminati’s involvement in the comics researching Incursions, it seems that Clea will now play her own role.
Clea’s presence may be indicative of an issue with the Dark Dimension, but the knife she’s wielding is more intriguing. In the comics, Clea is corrupted by the Silver Dagger, a supervillain who wields a weapon that can murder anybody but was designed to kill the Sorcerer Supreme of any realm, plane, or world. We do not know where this rip in space-time generated by Clea’s dagger goes, whether to Loki Season 2 (probable, given that the same screenwriter worked on both Loki and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness) or an altogether other property. We just have rumors and an Instagram photo of Charlize Theron sporting a ferocious appearance.
