The Eye of Agamotto is the relic that held the Time Stone, and few objects in the MCU have changed jobs as often. It has been a training aid, a prize and a puzzle. The puzzle is back because “Avengers: Doomsday” arrives on December 18th, and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is not on Disney’s cast list for it.
Here is the Eye’s whole life on screen, in story order. Each stop changes what the next film can do with it. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Doctor Strange”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, “Avengers: Endgame”, “What If…?”, “Loki”, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”.
It has been a training aid, a prize and a puzzle.”
The Eye starts as a stored relic. In “Doctor Strange” it sits in Kamar-Taj under the watch of the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Stephen Strange is a surgeon with ruined hands who finds a book that begins “First, open the Eye of Agamotto.” He tests it on an apple, which gets bitten down to a core as time runs forward. The film spells out the danger: “Temporal manipulations can create branches in time.” Bam Smack Pow says Wong (Benedict Wong) and Mordo both warned him about split timelines and time loops. The warning does not stick.
Hong Kong is where the Eye pays off. Kaecilius and his zealots have wrecked the Sanctum and the Dark Dimension is already spilling out. Strange uses the Eye to reverse time and the destroyed street rebuilds itself. Then he goes after Dormammu with an opening line of “I’ve come to bargain.” Dormammu kills him, the loop resets, and it keeps resetting until Dormammu agrees to leave Earth alone. CinemaBlend reports that director Scott Derrickson told Empire an early draft had Strange say they had been through it “a thousand times.”
The win costs him an ally. Mordo walks away from the Masters after one last warning: “We broke our rules, just like her.” Strange leaves the Eye at Kamar-Taj. Wong says he can wear it “once you’ve mastered its powers.” Until then it is “best not to walk the streets wearing an infinity stone.” That is how the MCU reveals that the Eye holds the Time Stone.
In “Avengers: Infinity War” the Eye is around his neck and it is the target. When Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) suggests getting rid of it, the Masters answer that they “swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.” Thanos sends the Black Order to New York for it, and Strange ends up on a ship headed for Titan. There he goes forward in time to see “all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.” He counts 14,000,605 futures. The heroes win in one.
Thanos wins the fight that follows. He rips the Eye off Strange’s neck and crushes it in his hand. Then he calls it “a fake.” The real Stone is still Strange’s to give. He gives it up to save Tony, and his offer is “Spare his life… and I will give you the stone.” Thanos takes it, which gives him five of the six. Tony asks why, and Strange answers “We’re in the endgame now.” In Wakanda, Thanos puts the Time Stone to work. Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) destroys the Mind Stone in Vision’s head. Thanos turns time back and takes it anyway.
In “Avengers: Endgame” the Stones are gone. Thanos puts it plainly: “Reduced to atoms.” The heroes answer with a time heist. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) goes to New York for the Time Stone. The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) refuses. Her answer is “If I give up the Time Stone to help your reality, I’m dooming my own.”
Banner tells her Strange gave it to Thanos. ComicBook.com reports that she decides Strange must have had a reason, and co-director Joe Russo calls that “the turning point of the scene.” Banner promises that every Stone will be returned and she gives him the Time Stone. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is the one sent to do it, according to SlashFilm. One shot in the final battle still shows the Eye on Strange’s neck, which CinemaBlend flags as an error.
The Eye keeps working in other timelines. In “What If…?” a Strange who lost Christine Palmer instead of his hands uses it to relive the night she died. The Ancient One warns him that her death is a fixed point, but he ignores her. In “Loki” the Stones turn cheap. A TVA desk drawer is full of Infinity Stones, and a worker says some staff “use them as paperweights.”
By “Spider-Man: No Way Home” the Stone is gone but Strange still wears the Eye. Peter Parker asks him to go back in time and undo the reveal of his identity. Strange tells him “I don’t have the Time Stone anymore.” In “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” the Eye is still around his neck. CinemaBlend asked director Sam Raimi why. “The Eye of Agamotto still has magical properties even without the Time Stone”, he said.
The Stone itself comes back as an accusation. Strange tells Wanda her reasons sound like the enemy’s. She asks “Is it the one you used when you gave Thanos the Time Stone?” His answer is “That was a war, and I did what I had to do.” In the comics the Eye reveals the truth. A third eye can open on Strange’s forehead when he uses it, as Bustle and Geek Culture explain, and the film ends on that mark. Bustle quotes screenwriter Michael Waldron on the ending: “Is Stephen embracing that darkness?”
Where does that leave Strange? Bam Smack Pow says his last scene sends him into the Dark Dimension with Clea (Charlize Theron) to fix an incursion. Den of Geek reads the trailer for “Avengers: Doomsday” as an incursion story. In Disney’s synopsis, “beloved heroes from three distinct universes” are on “a deadly collision course” and face a threat “unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.” Whether Strange is among them is not confirmed. Disney’s cast list for the film does not include Cumberbatch. Comic Basics notes that Marvel has not officially confirmed his role.
His own words point both ways. Popverse reported that in a January 2025 Variety interview he said Strange would sit out “Doomsday” and be central to “Avengers: Secret Wars” instead. A week later at Sundance he told Business Insider that he “got that wrong” and added “I am in the next one.” Dark Horizons took that to mean “Doomsday”. ComicBook.com reports that Omelete asked whether Kevin Feige was keeping Strange’s “Doomsday” role secret. He answered “That’s exactly it.” A Jeep tie-in ad released on November 6th ends with orange portals like the ones Strange makes. T-Break relays IGN’s view that this is fan speculation.
Put the chapters side by side and the Eye looks like a bill collector. Strange broke time’s rules with it in the first film. Mordo warned him that the price would come. Wanda’s complaint is that Strange broke the rules and still got called a hero. The Stone is gone from this timeline and the necklace is what is left. “Doomsday” is about universes colliding. The Eye is where the MCU first showed what it costs to bend time. If Strange wears it into the film, that history walks in with him.
What Do You Think? Is the Eye of Agamotto just a necklace now, or does it still carry real power? Did Strange give Thanos the Stone for the right reason, or is Wanda’s charge fair? And should “Avengers: Doomsday” bring Strange back at all, or save him for “Avengers: Secret Wars”?
Catch up properly: every MCU movie and show in chronological order on the MCU+ Universe Tree.
See you on the next binge!
