The next anti-Sherlock.

A couple of years ago, a writer for the Daily Kos wrote rather nastily of Benedict Cumberbatch under the headline "An Anti-Sherlock For Our Generation?" They were, of course, referring to BBC Sherlock, but today that headline showed the first signs of being true . . . and true about Benedict Cumberbatch as well.

My comic-book-reading pal sent me the text "Bennie 'batch as Dr. Strange! Woo hoo!"

Dr. Strange, Marvel comics' most wizardly superhero, and I go way back. Stephen Strange is a bit like Joan Watson . . . a surgeon who lost his ability to do the work, then went and apprenticed to a master of the mystic arts, eventually to become the Sorcerer Supreme.

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere had the story from io9 . . . a rumor that seems a little firmer than most, the Marvel Studios might be casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, and it's a role he'd be fabulous in.

But can you possibly get any more "anti-Sherlock" than a character who completely works with magic, ignoring reason, science, and logic? Well, maybe he's not illogical or unreasonable, but still . . . no magic in the Sherlock Holmes universe. None at all, other than the magic of good storytelling.

It's a bit like those comic actors who suddenly want to play a serial killer to go a different direction than the ones in which they're usually cast. After being Sherlock Holmes, Khan, and Alan Turing, all big brains of logical worlds, a go at the guy who was beyond Dumbledore before we had Dumbledore has to be attractive. And a lead role in a Marvel movie these days? Who could turn that down?

It's all still a rumor right now, of course, but if Benedict Cumberbatch has to play somebody during his off-duty Sherlock time, Dr. Strange is a pretty good choice.