Why Doctor Strange Still Remembers Spider-Man In Multiverse Of Madness

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness indicates that Doctor Strange remembers Peter Parker in a specific way after the ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home. An early scene in Sam Raimi's horror-influenced Doctor Strange sequel hints as to how the sorcerer's memory-wiping spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home worked in eliminating all memory of Peter from the world to stop numerous universes from opening into the MCU. When Doctor Strange meets America Chavez in a café, he mentions a previous Multiverse incident involving Spider-Man, which obviously refers to the events of No Way Home. This also provides some context to how the spell functioned and how he was affected by it.

Moreover, this Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness scene shows that while the world has forgotten about Peter Parker, their knowledge of Spider-Man remains intact. By referencing No Way Home's multiverse story and the existence of Spider-Man, it can be concluded that Doctor Strange remembers Spidey and the general events that they experienced together. What's changed is his knowledge that it's Peter under the mask. Spider-Man: No Way Home was predicated on the public learning Spidey's identity in Spider-Man: Far From Home. With Peter and Doctor Strange's efforts to undo that with the latter's spell, and everything that came out of that, Doctor Strange must also now remember Spider-Man: No Way Home's sequence of events differently. This means that, despite the apparent contradiction, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness actually avoids a potential Spider-Man plot hole.

Doctor Strange Only Forgot Peter Parker

In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker's mid-spell caveats to Doctor Strange's cantation to restore his secret identity led to villains from other universes with knowledge of who Spider-Man is being pulled into the MCU, along with their respective versions of Spidey (with previous Spider-Man actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield returning). Because of the specific nature of how everything came to pass in Spider-Man: No Way Home, it can be determined that Doctor Strange's memory of why everything happened has been drastically altered. He knows Spider-Man exists and is an Avenger, but his memory of how the multiverse breach in the movie was initiated no longer involves Peter's identity being public knowledge or any effort on either of their parts to magically reverse that.

In turn, it can be inferred that Doctor Strange's memories of the transported villains and other Spider-Man variants are also different. His recollection of these events in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness verifies he indeed remembers that it happened. However, the details will have been changed for him to a different spell causing a different event to occur.

Spider-Man: No Way Home ended at a big crossroads for the wall-crawler, with Peter Parker not restoring the memory of MJ (Zendaya) and re-starting his civilian life while continuing to protect people as Spidey. By having Doctor Strange mention a multiverse event with Spider-Man in Multiverse of Madness, this means that he and the wall-crawler might well meet again in Peter Parker's next MCU adventure. What Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness establishes is that Strange will only know him as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man when they cross paths, with both Peter Parker and Stephen Strange recalling Spider-Man: No Way Home very differently.

The Memory Spell Makes Less Sense The Longer You Think About It

Doctor Strange Spider-Man MCU Release Date Changes

While Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness further contextualizes how the Spider-Man: No Way Home memory spell works, the fact is that it was a convoluted and confusing factor to begin with, which is only further exacerbated the longer the spell is examined. This is crucial because the memory spell is what first determined both Spider-Man and Doctor Strange's roles in the Multiverse Saga. Most notably, viewers have pointed out how Electro actually never knew that Spider-Man was Peter Parker. Considering the parameters of Doctor Strange's spell, this means that Electro shouldn't have been in the movie at all. Moreover, the movie also never resolved what happened to the written accounts and other records of Peter being Spider-Man, like Flash Thompson's book, Flashpoint: A Memoir - My Life as Peter Parker's Best Friend. Spider-Man: No Way Home's memory spell was fun, but the fact is that Marvel could definitely have done more to tie up its loose ends.

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