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Images Of Ikkon
The spell in which Doctor Strange divides his astral energy into making many copies of himself. In Infinity War we saw one of the extremes of the spell: he made A TON OF COPIES, but it’s easy to assume he could make just one or two is he wanted. That means that just like the other spells, it has levels of complexity, meaning making one or two copies might spend little or moderate energy while making a ton of copies might cost a lot of energy.
The technique is activated by a sequence of many different hand signs, which causes the arms to multiply first as each sign is made. Then, after the sorcerer determined how many copies they will create, they release the copies, which spread around as independent bodies.
Originally posted by dailymcugifs
In order to achieve that level of this technique, the minimum required has to be a very good control of the mystic potential, or mystic energy as to say. When Thanos hits Strange with the Power and the Soul stone, we can see his astral body was hit, meaning it has everything to do with the spell. The copies Stephen created weren’t empty souless dolls, but they were true copies of himself, with mind and will of their own, all controlled by Strange. Despite the name “Images of Ikkon”, the copies aren’t just images, they aren’t just illusion, the copies are REAL CLONES.
The definitive proof the images are REAL CLONES is how they can conjure spells just like the original Stephen. The Eldritch Whip they conjured was pretty much the real thing, they hit and hurt Thanos, who had to use all the 3 stones he had in order to defeat Strange. He had to use the Soul Stone to locate and affect the real Stephen, he had to use the Power Stone to interrupt his spell and amplify the power of the Soul Stone and he had to use the Space Stone in order to pull Strange and grab him, preventing him from moving or teleporting. That technique sure gave Thanos some headache and from what he saw, the titan wouldn’t have been to handle it if it wasn’t for the Infinity Stones he had.
Originally posted by marvelheroes
Let’s also remember Strange isn’t using his own Time Stone to conjure the Images of Ikkon. He’s doing it all by himself, using his own mystic energy. If I had to classify this spell, I would say it’s a very advanced one. It requires focus and it spends a lot of energy. No wonder Stephen used this spell as his last resource in the battle against Thanos.
Originally posted by brolinjosh
When Thanos breaks the Images of Ikkon spell, you can see duplicates of Stephen returning to his body, meaning the copies “return” to Strange. If we follow the same logic as the one we see in Naruto, Stephen, once he receives all the copies back, he gets to learn and feel whatever his copies learned and felt, and that would explain a lot about how Strange barely could fight after that. If all his copies were violently hit by Thanos’ stones, when they returned to Stephen’s body, he felt all those impacts at once.
From what we quickly saw when the copies are destroyed by Thanos, they seem to be made from that orange energy that composes most of Stephen’s spells. We can get a few conclusions from that. One is that Stephen’s aura is orange. Other is that the copies are made from light, which is drawn from Eldritch Magic and Eldritch energy. This is interesting because while in the comics Strange’s aura and energy seems to be pink, in the movies his aura seems to be orange. It’s difficult to know however, if we can conclude that for sure since the other sorcerer’s spells also are orange when they use Eldritch magic, so yeah, Marvel still is quite undefined when it comes to that.
When controlling the copies Strange sure has to know what he’s doing, it requires a lot of focus to coordinate all those clones. Since Strange wanted to use the same tecnique against Thanos using all his clones (the whip), it was easier for him to give his copies the same command. However, what if each copy had to move differently? Would the original Strange have to control all of them at once or would each copy have their own mind and know what to do? I personally think the second option is the most logic one, but well, let’s hope we’ll learn more about this super awesome spell in the upcoming sequels!