Last week, I was re-watching Doctor Strange in anticipation of the new movie Mulitiverse of Madness and I came across a character that I nearly forgot. Who is Dr. Christine Palmer? According to Marvel’s “What if?”, her death leads to the destruction of a universe. That’s a bold statement for a character who only showed up on the big screen for 16 minutes and 32 seconds. I want to like her as a character. She is an ER doctor in a superhero world, which is a pretty interesting angle. Christine’s character is played by Rachel McAdams, a great actress. However, by the end of the movie, I felt like Christine was stuck in the mirror universe of Doctor Strange. She was there, but she affected nothing.
This speaks to a larger issue about non-superhero love interests in Marvel movies. With the exception of Pepper Potts from the Iron Man series, Marvel has been unable to create a long lasting love interest that is actually engaging. Captain America had a promising start with Peggy Carter but by the second movie things went off the rails. I know that Sharon Carter is a comic book character, but Cap kissing her right after visiting her aunt Peggy in the hospital weirdly makes Cap’s love life a family affair.
One of the ways Marvel could have made characters like Christine feel necessary and interesting would be to have her represent a theme in the story. An example of this would be Mary Jane Watson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. She represents sacrifice, the life Peter Parker could have had if he wasn’t Spider-Man. In Doctor Strange, the writers fail to create a believable relationship between Stephen Strange and Christine. It never feels like Strange is sacrificing anything in his personal life when he leaves Christine at the end of the movie.
Love interests don’t necessarily need to be a part of the main story. Their romances can just be fun distractions to understand and relate to the characters better. This is exemplified in DC’s Wonder Woman where Steve and Diana’s relationship alleviates some of the stress from the WW1 scenes and adds depth to both of their characters through their emotional connection. The main reason why I go back to movies like the X-Men series is the interesting and complicated friendships between characters like Professor X and Magneto. Dr. Strange is more focused on exposition and the larger picture of the mechanics of magic to give the characters time to become larger than stereotypical archetypes.
My largest problem with Marvel’s supporting characters is that they are the people who are supposed to keep our heroes feeling human. I think in Dr. Strange, this can be excused as it is still a fun movie. I personally am more invested when I understand the character and usually that’s achieved through dialogue between characters. Although fights are cool, the moments I remember in movies are dialogue-focused and emotional. If the multiverse has infinite possibilities there has to be one universe with a well written christine palmer.