Character Highlight: America Chavez (Doctor Strange)

*Some America-related spoilers.*

America is getting a Character Highlight post instead of a Favorite Characters, not because she isn’t great, but because we haven’t seen that much of her yet. I am 100% prepared to see more of this character in the MCU, more of what she does and what she’s about.

We’re introduced to America Chavez as a young teen with colossal power. Since she was little, she’s had the ability to rip holes between dimensions, creating portals through which to travel the multiverse. However, she’s never had anyone to help her with her powers, and she doesn’t know how to control them. In fact, her first manifestation of her powers caused her moms to get sucked through a portal, and ever since, she’s been hopping across the multiverse trying to find which universe they ended up in.

But even though she was given an incredibly raw deal early in life and has spent much of the intervening years on her own, America hasn’t let her tragedies rob her of her spirit. While some characters in the MCU respond to their own pain by turning it outwards on others, America doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Instead of becoming bitter or cruel, she remains bright and funny, a resourceful young woman with a unique outlook on everywhere she goes.

A few moments from America that I absolutely love. First, there’s the fresh perspective that her multiverse-jumping way of life has given her. When she and Strange wind up in Universe 838, she reveals to him that, in most universes, food is free and it’s weird that people in his have to pay for it. I also adore her complete perplexity at the concept of Spider-Man, someone she’s apparently never encountered in any universe she’s been to. Strange and Wong fumblingly try to explain what he can do and mention that he shoots webs, to which America cries, horrified but fascinated, “Out of his butt?!?”

Unfortunately, America’s power puts her in the crosshairs of someone who covets it for dangerous purposes, so she spends much of the film on the run. This means she’s often frightened and worried as well, scared that this villain will rip her abilities out of her at the cost of her own life and worried about what will happen to the universe if someone with bad intentions get their hands on that much power.

As such, this places America into something of a damsel position for most of the film, the person/thing Strange has to protect. And that’s a bummer, because between that and her lack of confidence over her control of her abilities, that means we have to wait quite a bit to see America really come into her own. But while I wish there were more scenes of America owning her power, what we do get is pretty darn cool. Not only do we see her learn how to take control of her abilities, we then see what she does with that control and how she wields it—not defeating the villain but trying to reach them. And that’s definitely the heart of a hero right there.