Doctor Strange expands the scope of the Marvel Studios film series. Characters regularly talk about the “multiverse,” a concept tragically central to basically every major mainstream comic book story of the last few decades. And characters frequently take far-out trips to outer realms of sub-reality, into dark macro-micro dimensions beyond space and time. Coming in at the midpoint of the MCU’s Phase 3, Strange marks an important step outward, establishing some core concepts that may point toward the megafranchise’s future.