STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — He’s not Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, and he doesn’t protect the planet from mystical threats, but Staten Island’s own Dr. Strange has saved a few lives — albeit within our own universe.
And now, as Marvel’s “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness’’ opens in theaters on Friday, Dr. Theodore Strange, chairman of medicine at Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH), readies for a more earthly onslaught — the quirky questions, quips and one-liners that will once again head his way.
“There’s no joke you can tell me about the name ‘Strange,’ that I haven’t heard,’' the local Dr. Strange, 62, said with a laugh. Recently, while attending a Staten Island FerryHawks baseball game, he was asked if he has superpowers, like the lead character in the new Marvel movie.
“I have more superpowers,’’ he replied with a laugh. “And I’m the real Dr. Strange.’’
The SIUH Dr. Strange doesn’t work from the Sanctum Santorum in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Rather, our Dr. Strange has an internal medicine and geriatrics practice and performs his own brand of medical wizardry in the Prince’s Bay hospital. He’s cared for his neighbors this way since 1989 — right here in this dimension.
He said he knew little of the Master of the Mystic Arts when he was young, as he never read comic books. But recent Marvel movies have changed all that for him, his patients and family.
“People have brought me statues, and now I have all the comic books,’’ he said. His children even bought him a Dr. Strange costume, and he wore it on Halloween with his wife, Valerie.
Growing up with the name “Strange” had its challenges, he admitted, noting he’s been the butt of countless jokes through the years. He takes it all in stride, musing that songs have even been written about him, as he breaks into the classic tune, “When You’re Strange,’' made famous by The Doors: “People are strange, when you’re a stranger …”
“Honestly, it’s been a lot of fun,’' he said, joking that he once considered naming his children “Notso’' and “Very.”
But the doctor’s family name wasn’t always, well, strange, he said.
It came into being when his grandfather, Theodore Strangi, an Italian citizen, served with the American Army during WWI. Upon the completion of his tour of duty in 1920, his discharge and U.S. citizenship papers had the name misspelled “Strange.”
And so, the road was paved for Staten Island’s Dr. Strange to one day heal and save.
Northwell Health management is so confident that its own Dr. Strange’s medical and professional prowess outmatches the Marvel doc’s super skills, that it put together a video, “The Real Dr. Strange,’' during the media explosion surrounding the 2016 Marvel movie, “Doctor Strange.’'
In the Youtube video, SIUH’s Dr. Strange visits an NYC comic book store. In white lab coat and wearing a stethoscope, he advises a customer of protection much more reliable than the kind action heroes provide.
“Flu shot; have you taken a flu shot this year?’’ he asks, before handing concussion literature to a young athlete nearby. The video concludes with the doctor inviting the superhero (actor Benedict Cumberbatch) to visit the children of Northwell Health hospitals, including SIUH, and come back to “the real magic — medicine.”
But, alas, Cumberbatch never showed.
As for a Cloak of Levitation, our Dr. Strange has none. He likes to keep his feet on the ground — preferably moving at about a four-hour marathon pace. He’s run 28 marathons, and one of his most heroic feats took place during his 25th, the New York City Marathon in 2018, when he saved a woman’s life during the race — and went on to the finish line.
Recognizing that the woman, who had collapsed while running, wasn’t breathing, he started CPR and called for a defibrillator and oxygen from firefighters and other rescue workers — ultimately resulting in the woman breathing again on her own.
He did so without Avengers nearby, only members of the FDNY, NYPD and EMS — the city’s own brand of heroes.
“They were wonderful,’’ Dr. Strange said of the rescue workers at the time, deflecting praise — something the fictional egotistical surgeon in the Marvel comics would surely never do.