Character Highlight: Wong (Doctor Strange)

*Spoilers for Wong appearances in different properties.*

I was never anti-Wong, but it took a little while for me to come around to the Wong love train, mainly because I personally thought the MCU had some growing pains when it came to using him well. But throughout Phase 4, he’s been almost an Agent Coulson-esque throughline connecting various properties, and his assorted appearances have been making me appreciate him more and more.

Sorcerer and servant of Kamar-Taj, once the order’s librarian and currently its Sorcerer Supreme, Wong is both skilled and highly knowledgeable in the mystical arts. When Stephen Strange first shows up in Kamar-Taj, he plays the wisecracking rulebreaker to Wong’s by-the-book seriousness, making jokes about Wong only having one name (“Madonna,” “Beyoncé”) and sneaking forbidden texts from the library. I wasn’t a huge fan of this dynamic because of the way it framed Wong almost entirely in response to Strange.

But even though this basic dynamic has remained in place, it’s gotten more nuanced since the first Doctor Strange movie. Strange can take things seriously and Wong can have fun, and while Strange still likes to push the envelope and give Wong a hard time, he ultimately respects his fellow sorcerer. The scenes in Multiverse of Madness where Strange finally bows to Wong, as Sorcerer Supreme, is really nice. And I appreciate that the spell Strange casts for Peter in No Way Home is at least done with Wong’s knowledge, if not really his blessing.

Even better, we’ve seen a lot more of Wong outside the context of Strange in recent years. From a meta perspective, it’s lovely that he, as the first Actually Asian hero in the MCU (as opposed to Asian American actors in makeup playing aliens, a la Dave Bautista as Drax,) gets to be the one to officially welcome Shang-Chi and Katy into the fold. With his sling ring and ability to make portals, it’s easy to get him from place to place to make cameos, and Wong, Shang-Chi, and Katy doing karaoke together is one of my favorite mid-credit sequences in a while.

Then of course, we have She-Hulk, where Wong makes several very memorable appearances. We learn about the origins of his cage fight with the Abomination in Shang-Chi, we see the way he blurs the lines between legality and sorcerer fiat when he hires Jen to help him put a cease-and-desist on an ex-sorcerer, and he becomes binge-watch buddies with a drunk party girl named Madisynn. The comedy on She-Hulk doesn’t always land for me, but Wong’s straight-man routine really works in that environment—I love him peacing out of Emil Blonsky’s parole hearing after one of the board members points out that he took part in a mystical prison break.

Over time, while he remains very much in a supporting role in the greater MCU, Wong has become more than just a functionary side character. He’s an entertaining character in his own right, noble, badass, and funny, and I’m looking forward to seeing wherever he pops up next.