What If…?: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 4
By Mike McNulty
Cagliostro and his library
When Stephen arrives looking for Cagliostro’s library, he meets a man (Ike Amadi) with two different colored irises. Stephen sarcastically asks him, “Please tell me you are not Cagliostro.” The stranger replies, “I am called O-Bengh.” Thing is, if you know your Marvel Comics lore, O-Bengh and Cagliostro are, indeed, one and the same. He also goes by other names as he’s also hundreds of years old.
In the original comics, O-Bengh/Cagliostro was a powerful sorcerer who lived in India circa 1,000 A.D. He also did have a student whom he taught the mystic arts, a time-travelling Doctor Doom. He’s also the mortal enemy of Dracula – yes, that Dracula – and has tangled with another vampire named Baron Blood, who also happens to be Doctor Strange’s brother, Victor. He’s also obsessed with discovering the secrets to immortality, which tends to involve the use of vampire blood. He’s based on an actual historical figure, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (1743-1785), an Italian Freemason and self-proclaimed magician who was also a suspect in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace – an elaborate confidence scheme which, among other things, framed Marie-Antoinette and played a contributing factor in the French Revolution.
Cagliostro also, once upon a time, had the Darkhold in his possession. That book, if you recall, is the same one featured in WandaVision, used by Agatha Harkness and now in Wanda’s possession. Apparently, this is what Cagliostro used to write his own grimoire, the Book of Cagliostro. And yes, the Book of Cagliostro appeared in the MCU before as the MacGuffin of the Doctor Strange movie. It’s the book in which Kaecilius ripped pages out of in order to summon Dormammu, and the same one Stephen was studying while using the Time Stone on the apple.
As for the location of the Lost Library of Cagliostro? Well, if Cagliostro lived in India during the 11th Century, then Stephen must’ve used the Time Stone to travel back in time to 11th Century India. After all, the location of the library is deep within a jungle, and its architecture looks very Asiatic in appearance. It also explains how Strange spent “centuries” in that library absorbing so many supernatural and interdimensional beings. Speaking of which…