Who is Charlize Theron playing the MCU? Doctor Strange 2 has crossed over with Fast and Furious – in a manner of speaking – with Charlize Theron jumping in at the end of the fantasy movie. She’s not on-screen for long, but it’s enough to leave a lasting impression.
Theron, who knows her way around action movies, jumps in during the Doctor Strange 2 post-credits scene to grab the former Sorcerer Supreme by the hand and take him on a multiversal journey. It’s quick and effective at getting our minds racing for what’s next. Towards the top of lingering questions is what MCU character is Charlize Theron portraying, and what do we know about them?
Have no fear, we can answer that first one for you in-depth. That second question is a little more open. Marvel Studios has already deviated from the comics with their introduction, leaving little precedent for what the Doctor Strange 3 release date might bring. Still, the multiverse has answers to your queries, and we’ve gathered them all together right here.
Who is Charlize Theron playing in Doctor Strange 2?
In Doctor Strange 2, Charlize Theron is playing Clea, an old ally of the Master of the Mystic Arts from the comics. In the Doctor Strange 2 post-credits scene, Theron appears in bright purple armour through a portal to our hero. She tells him all his dimension-hopping has made a right mess, and offers to help him fix it. They jump back through the cosmic gateway together, to a location unknown.
Clea is from the Dark Dimension, a realm overseen by Dormammu, the time-and-space-distorting cosmic antagonist we saw in 2016’s Doctor Strange. She’s Dormammu’s niece, and in the comics, became intrigued by Doctor Strange when he paid a visit to the Dark Dimension. The MCU is side-stepping all that by having her come to him – or that’s how she meets the Earth-616 version of him, anyway.
The history of the Dark Dimension is long and overwrought. It’s part of a region called the Archipelago of Anguish and Redemption and contains energy that allows rulers to conquer other timelines. Dormammu, and his sister Umar, ended up there after being exiled by their magical race, the Faltine, due to their appetites for tangible matter.
Luckily for them, the Dark Dimension is all about ingesting dimensional energy whole. It’s a bit like the Void from Loki, only less of an insatiable dog and more of a hellscape. Anyway – Clea is the daughter of Umar, and blindly follows Dormammu’s word. That is, until Strange shows up on a mission from the Ancient One, and Clea tries to assist him against Dormammu. She’s punished for going against her uncle, but circumstances allow Strange to bargain for her safety.
They strike up an alliance from there on, and eventually, she becomes the Sorcerer Supreme herself. This is after a brief spell on the Dark Dimension’s throne. Where this will all figure into the MCU is a mystery, since Theron’s depiction is already quite different from the source material. Maybe it’s all a trap by a recovered Dormammu to lure Doctor Strange back? The possibilities are wide open.
What are Charlize Theron’s powers in the MCU?
To start with, Clea only has one power in the Marvel comics – flying. She becomes proficient in magic, though, and can use many of the tricks Doctor Strange has access to. Astral projection, teleportation, energy shields and projectiles, as well as molecular rearrangement are all part of her arsenal.
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Again, we’ll have to wait and see how much of that makes it onto the big screen. From the brief appearance we’ve got, it seems like Clea knows her way around portals and magic and traversing the multiverse, but it could all be for show. Questions for Doctor Strange 3 to answer, and unfortunately, no spells will make that wait any shorter.