Why Shuma Gorath Has A New Name In Multiverse Of Madness

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The Lovecraftian Marvel Entity, Shuma Gorath, appeared in the MCU's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but under a different name. The long-awaited sequel to 2016's Doctor Strange delved deep into the multiverse after the concept was teased in Loki and featured as a key plot point in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Doctor Strange 2 not only featured multiple variants of Doctor Strange himself (Benedict Cumberbatch) but also introduced some multiversal entities from Marvel Comics, including the infamous Shuma Gorath, Marvel's tentacled demon.

In the source material, Gorath is known as one of the "Great Old Ones," a collection of sinister multiversal beings that predate the universe itself, all of which are based on different Lovecraftian creatures. A few of the Old Ones, including Gorath, chose to settle on Earth a million years ago to feast on primitive humans until they were banished by a sorcerer called Sise-Neg. Throughout the rest of Marvel history, Doctor Strange encounters Gorath on many occasions, usually as an adversary.

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Unfortunately, Shuma Gorath, Marvel's tentacled beast, is not called by his comic-accurate name in the MCU but instead dubbed Gargantos for Doctor Strange 2. This is a first for the MCU, which has always stuck to the characters' original names from the comics no matter how weird they may sound to the general public. The real reason for the name switch is to avoid legal disputes with Conan Comics, which featured a character named Shuma Gorath prior to Marvel.

While Shuma Gorath's Marvel debut took place in a 1973 issue of Marvel Premiere #10, the Lovecraftian name was first used in 1967 in a Conan story titled The Curse