Did You Catch This 'Captain Marvel' Easter Egg In 'Doctor Strange'?

Doctor Strange hit theaters this past weekend, and as is the case with any Marvel Studios movie, there were plenty of Easter eggs and references to the rest of the franchises and the comic books that inspired them. But there was one particular Easter egg that you definitely heard, but which may not have actually registered as an Easter egg, and it has to do with Captain Marvel.

In order to discuss this Easter egg, we have to talk about a scene that might be considered a minor spoiler by some, so we're going to dive into the details about this Captain Marvel Easter egg in Doctor Strange after the jump.

In the first act of Doctor Strange, expert surgeon Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is driving to some kind of gala in one of his fancy sports cars. It's raining as he speeds around a curvy mountainside road with plenty of blind spots, making it difficult to pass cars. But Strange just drives at high speeds like an a**hole, because that's what he is.

Making his driving even more reckless, he's taking calls from his assistant to determine which patient will get his expert attention next. Like Hugh Laurie as Dr. House, he doesn't take anything that doesn't sound interesting or worthy of his talents, and that includes one particular patient that Entertainment Weekly asked Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson about during an interview.

The patient in question is a woman in her 20s who was struck by lightning. That doesn't sound very interesting at first, but Strange perks up when he hears that the injury was complicated by the fact that she had an electronic implant in her brain to help quell her schizophrenia. When asked if this was a reference to Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, Derrickson referenced the 2001 thriller Don't Say a Word:

Remember that Brittany Murphy movie where she goes 'I'll never tell...'

Marvel Comics fans might be thinking to themselves that this doesn't sound like how Captain Marvel got her powers anyway, and they'd be right. In the comics, the character of Carol Danvers is the love interest of a character who was already known as Captain Marvel. He was a Kree warrior called Mar-Vell who was in disguise on Earth. However, Carol's life changed when she was caught in an explosive blast caused by a Kree superweapon called the Psyche-Magnetron, causing her DNA to merge with Mar-Vell's and giving her the powers of Captain Marvel.

However, you might also remember that Captain Marvel co-writer Nicole Perlman mentioned a couple months ago that the origin story she was working on with co-writer Meg LaFauve would not likely incorporate an alien element like that, due to the similarity of that origin story to Green Lantern. So what if the powers of Captain Marvel are something that lies dormant inside one of her personalities, and her getting struck by lightning finally unleashes those powers? That's just speculation on my part, but that's one way things could go.

We'll be waiting awhile to find out since Captain Marvel doesn't arrive until March 8, 2019.

Header image via Boss Logic