Your Spoiler-Filled Guide to All the Easter Eggs in Doctor Strange

First: the origin. Doctor Strange first appeared in 1963 in a book appropriately entitled Strange Tales. (Not until issue #110 of what had previously been a horror anthology, though, so the character took his name from the book, rather than vice versa.) As with pretty much every Marvel book from the era, Stan Lee gets the byline, though both Lee and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko credit the latter with the concept. Particularly in the early days, the Doctor’s adventures were peppered with hints of Eastern mysticism alongside references to Western mythological figures, all neatly illustrated with Ditko’s psychedelic renderings of “exotic” locales. Neither gentleman harbored any particular counter-cultural ideas (unless one counts Ditko’s Ayn Rand-inspired Objectivist philosophy, which didn’t quite bring him into alignment with the college kids who ate up the Strange adventures), but the books were undoubtedly trippy, if not quite by design.
The movie nods to this early on when Stephen plays “Interstellar Overdrive” by Pink Floyd (fans of the comic book) during Strange’s ill-fated drive. Stan Lee’s cameo also plays with Strange’s early fanbase: he’s on a bus reading Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, an account of the writer’s experiments with mescaline. The film’s visuals are generally an impressive and accurate recreation of some of the psychedelic landscapes of the comics’ many and varied dimensions, planes, and realms.

The Oath
Alongside Ditko and Lee’s early work, Brian K. Vaughan’s 2007 graphic novel The Oath is referenced a fair bit. From that book, focusing on Strange as an actual medical doctor, comes Nicodemus West (played by Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Stuhlbarg), Stephen’s medical rival. In the book, West is sort of a dark mirror to Strange, studying with him at the mystical sanctuary of Kamar-Taj (located in Tibet in the comics, not Nepal) before giving up magic and going down darker path following the death of someone he’d tried to heal.
The operating room scene, during which Christine Palmer operates on the good doctor, also comes from Vaughan’s book, though in the book, Palmer is the Night Nurse, star of a short-lived romance/medical drama comic from the early ’70s who eventually became something like an all-purpose doctor to the superheroes. Doctor Strange’s traditional girlfriend in the comics is Dormammu’s niece, the sorceress Clea. But I digress…
The Eye of Agamotto
On the page, the Eye works somewhat differently: rather than manipulating time, as it does in the movie, it’s a bit more like Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth—it’s primarily associated with seeing past deception, though like any fictional mystical object that’s been around long enough, its powers have varied over time. It can also weaken demons, create a magical shield, and transport a wielder to other dimensions. It used to belong to Agamotto, a former Sorcerer Supreme of Earth who occasionally makes his presence known. The Cloak of Levitation, which literally has a mind of its own in the movie, is a little less rambunctious on the page, but is nonetheless a powerful artifact, the current version of which was won from Dormammu.
As for other mystical artifacts: Mordo wields the “Staff of the Living Tribunal” during his sparring with Stephen. The Living Tribunal is an incredible  being in the Marvel U who polices the cosmic balance or some such. Wong wields the Wand of Watoomb at the film’s climax, another mystical artifact with a long history. It generally enhances a user’s magical abilities.

Ancient One and the Dormammu
As in the film, the comics’ Ancient One is a centuries-old practitioner of magic who has travelled the Earth for ages, defending the world against mystic threats. Unlike the movie, though, the Ancient One of the comics is a stereotypical Asian male in the Fu Manchu mold. There’s something queasy about giving the Chinese-inspired character role to a white actress, but Tilda Swinton’s explicitly Celtic version of the character is nonetheless a highlight of the film. Another problematic character, Wong, has been Strange’s faithful servant, valet, and master of martial arts for decades in the comics. The movie does well by him, making him Strange’s trainer, mentor, and almost-equal in magic.
Dormammu is another long-time adversary to Strange, and an early encounter sees him defeated in a manner similar to that which we see on the screen: unable to defeat Dormammu through physical or mystical power, Strange makes a bargain for the fate of the Earth. In the comics, Strange helps Dormammu contain a threat to the Dark Dimension, extracting a promise to avoid Earth. Dormammu skirts that promise time and time again over the decades. Probably because his name is super-fun to say.

Future Marvels
When Strange is careening toward fate in his car (note, kids, that futzing with your phone while driving is far less likely to leave you the supreme sorcerer of Earth than the film suggests) his assistant suggests a couple of cases that might interest him: one, a Marine Colonel with a spinal injury resulting from the use of “experimental armor” might be James Rhodes, aka War Machine, who was injured in Captain America: Civil War. The other is a bit more of a stretch: he’s also presented with the case of a 20-something woman who was struck by lightning, an injury complicated by a brain implant designed to mitigate schizophrenia. It doesn’t really line up with the comic book origin of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, who got her powers from the explosion of an alien device, but once you start hunting for clues, it’s tough to stop. Don’t be too surprised if this turns out to have been an early reference to the upcoming (2018) movie.
The first closing-credits scene includes a brief conversation between Strange and Thor, who’s come to ask for help in tracking down his father, Odin. When last we left Asgard, Loki had deposed the all-father and was masquerading as Anthony Hopkins. Benedict Cumberbatch is expected to show up in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok (along with Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk), so this was a very unsubtle tease of that.

The second closing-credits scene (surely you stuck around?) involves Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Karl Mordo character. As hinted earlier in the film, he’s gone full-on bad guy, setting him up as a likely villain in a future Strange movie. It makes sense: if you’ve got Ejiofor, keep him around as long as possible. His origin isn’t that different than in the comics: he’s been an adversary of Strange since almost the very beginning, though his rather abrupt disenchantment with the ways of Kamar-Taj and the Ancient One are specific to the movie. In the comics, it’s good old-fashioned jealousy that drive him: he wanted to be Sorcerer Supreme, dammit. He might be dead in the comics, but he’s probably not really all that dead.
Finally, the Eye of Agamotto, and how it ties in to future films: since Thor in 2011, the MCU has been introducing us to Infinity Stones. In the comics, the six gems are powerful on their own, but can be brought together to make a user almost invincible, which will be the almost inevitable story of the Avengers: Infinity War. The movies prior to this one have introduced four: the Tesseract and Loki’s scepter from The Avengers, the Aether from Thor: The Dark World, and the Orb from Guardians of the Galaxy. It looks as if Strange’s Eye is the fifth: the powerful Time Stone, suggesting that the march toward 2018’s Avengers movie continues.
Strange-good? Or Strange-bad?