The Doctor is IN
Written By:
Jason Aaron
Art By:
Chris Bachalo, Mark Irwin, John Livesay, Victor Olazaba, Al Vey, Tim Townsend
& Jamie Mendoza, Jay Tartaglia & Chris Bachalo
Letters By:
VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Price:
$3.99
On Sale Date: June 22, 2016
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
It should come as no surprise to those of you that
follow my usual reviews of DC Comics’ weird and outcast offerings that I am a
big fan of Doctor Strange. I got a Marvel Masterworks edition of his first
Steve Ditko-drawn adventures, and even delved into the second collection, and I
love both of them. Curiously, I haven’t really enjoyed any iterations after the
original one—I enjoyed Steve Englehardt’s time writing the character, and I
like Brian K. Vaughn’s The Oath, but
for the most part I’ve found that successive attempts at writing the character
have been lacking the overly-pompous dialogue and psychedelic atmosphere of the
original series. But when Jim Werner came down off his crack cocaine binge with
the idea that we should start covering Marvel comics on Mondays, I knew that by
the hoary Hosts of Hoggoth I had to be the one to review Doctor Strange. And so it falls to me, dear reader, to recap and
review issue #9 of Doctor Strange,
right now!
So of course, the first issue of Doctor Strange has
to be part four of a five-part series titled Last Days of Magic, because nothing can be easy in my world. A
quick recap: this partly-robot dude named the Imperator comes from a world
where magic holds sway over science. His parents were scientists and so the
local warlock militia killed them, but not before they shot Baby Imperator off
in a spaceship, initiating something called the Empirikul. Specifically, this
means that Imperator goes from world to world, dimension to dimension, purging
everything magic and killing its wielders with the help of his semi-robotic stormtroopers
wearing eyeball helmets. So Imperator has come to the Marvel Universe, sapped
it of its magic and even killed a beloved magician named Monako, and now
Marvel’s spellcasters are scouring the globe to retrieve all remaining
artifacts, from which they can scrape the faintest traces of spectral essence
and smoke it in their witchy bongs or something.
Our tale begins in the Himalayas, where Strange’s
manservant…what? That’s what he is! Wong and the Sanctum Sanctorum’s librarian
Zelma Stanton are hanging out at the Temple of Secret Defenders, which probably
sounds a lot cooler when said aloud in Cantonese. People from around the world
touched by magic, but unskilled in wielding it, have convened due to some
psychic broadcast that probably promised the magic world’s equivalent of
tickets to see the Rolling Stones. In fact these disparate people are part of
Wong’s plan to provide some kind of ethereal shield for the good Doctor when he
finally goes up against Imperator…and where is Doc Strange, anyway? Why, he’s
right around the corner, in the jungles of Tibet, being chased by mask-wearing,
magic eating monkeys with his dead mentor’s skull in a bag. Stephen leaps from
a cliff and radios in help from his pal Joshua, flying the Phantom Eagle’s
bi-plane that makes it just in time (of course.) In the plane’s rear seat,
Strange crushes up the Ancient One’s skull and sucks up the magic right there.
Damn dude, you can’t wait until we get into the hangar? I mean it’s just half
an hour away!
Back in Greenwich Village, Imperator is pissed off
that the Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, aka his house hasn’t been razed, and
the eye-bots tell him that demolition has been halted because they’re a-scared
of something mighty fearsome in th’ cellar! Imperator just strides down there
to find a kid, the embodiment of all the pain and suffering Dr. Strange has
incurred using magic, somehow? Is that how that works? You can just bank pain
and suffering in your basement like shitty Christmas presents and shameful
pornography? Okay. Strange’s pain-thing wants to strike a deal for its freedom,
but Imperator is like, “Mmm, nah,” and shoots it with his eye-lasers. Oh yeah,
he’s got eye-lasers.
At the Temple of Secret Defenders, Strange has
convened with Scarlet Witch and a bunch of Marvel Universe magicians with whom
I am relatively unfamiliar to go over their empowered booty: looks like a bunch
of dull weapons and rocks. The team begins to waver, but Dr. Strange grabs a
magic axe and gives a rousing speech about how he’ll do it himself, if he has
to, because he’s an idiot. The rest of the gang agree to face off with
Imperator, but before taking off he knocks Wong out with a spell and tells
everyone called there by his magic beacon to go home, the Rolling Stones aren’t
going to show up. That’s sort of a bummer because these are people of every age
and ability who came hundreds and thousands of miles to climb the Himalayas for
this shit, I mean how is the nine year-old kid who had a monster under his bed
supposed to just go home? He probably doesn’t even know how he got there in the
first place. So I guess they teleport or whatever over to the Sanctum Sanctorum
and it’s pretty awesome because Scarlet Witch has a sawed-off shotgun and dudes
are just clubbing eye-bots and stuff, no magic needed here buddy. Stephen
Strange has made his way into the basement, where Imperator is still tussling
with that goopy magic hangover, and fires a spectral arrow right into
Imperator’s back!
So this was an okay comic book—a great comic book,
technically speaking, the art and the plotting was absolutely top notch. The
story was a little lacking, I thought, and had some placeholder moments that
seemed intended to stretch this story into a neat five-issue trade collection.
I also would have liked to see more visual depictions of magic in this book,
but I suppose during an arc titled the Last Days of Magic is not the best time
to expect such a thing. I dunno, I had no problems with the dialogue, and there
was plenty to read but somehow I seemed to tear through this and the three
issues that preceded it at a lightning pace. That’s not really a great look at
four bucks a pop.
Bits and
Pieces:
7/10
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