Doctor Strange: Season One


By Greg Pak & Emma Rios, with Alvaro Lopez, plus Matt Fraction, Terry Dodson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6387-9

Much as I’d love to believe otherwise, I know that the Cold War, transistor radio, pre-cellphone masterpieces of my youth are often impenetrable to younger fans – even when drawn by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett or Don Heck.

Radical perpetual change – or at least the appearance of such – is the irresistible force driving modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

Even for relatively minor or secondary stars the process is inescapable, with increasing supra-comicbook media adjuncts (film, TV, games, etc.) dictating that subjects be perpetually updated because the goldfish-minded readers of today apparently can’t understand or remember anything that’s more than a week old.

Alternatively, one could argue that for popular characters or concepts with a fifty-year pedigree, all that history can be a readership-daunting deterrence, so radical reboots are a painful but vital periodic necessity…

Publishing ain’t no democracy, however, so it’s comforting to realise that many of these retrofits are exceptionally good comics tales in their own right and anyway, the editors can call always claim that it was an “alternate Earth” story the next time the debut saga is modernised…

Released in 2012, Doctor Strange: Season One was the fifth all-new graphic novel in a hardback series designed to renovate, modify and update classic origin epics (following Fantastic Four, X-Men, Daredevil and Spider-Man) and, despite clearly being intended as story-bibles for newer, movie-oriented fans and readers, mostly managed to add a little something to the immortal but hopelessly time-locked tales.

Once upon a time Steven Strange was America’s greatest surgeon, a brilliant man, yet vain and arrogant, caring nothing for the sick, except as a means to wealth and glory. When a self-inflicted drunken car-crash mangled his hands and ended his career, the arrogant Strange hit the skids, big time.

Then, fallen as low as man ever could, the debased doctor overheard a barroom tale which led him on a delirious odyssey – or perhaps pilgrimage – to Tibet, where an impossibly aged mage and eventual enlightenment through daily redemption transformed the derelict into a solitary, ever-vigilant watchdog for frail humanity against all the hidden dangers of the dark. Now he battles otherworldly evil as a Sorcerer Supreme, a veritable Master of the Mystic arts…

Putatively set in the period following his automotive Armageddon, this fast-paced mystic buddy-movie traces Strange’s first days and months under the tutelage of the puissant Ancient One and, after exposing the perfidy of senior disciple Mordo, his quest to prove himself worthy of the exalted station and inner peace he sought.

Still plagued with the tantalising dream of healing his shattered hands, regaining his status as a superstar surgeon and resuming his life of glamorous, sybaritic luxury, Strange struggles to master the most basic disciplines of magic, constantly competing with fellow postulant Wong – a flashy, smart-mouthed martial artist and life-long devotee of the cult of Kamar-Taj – the Ancient One’s mysterious homeland.

Because the students despise each other so vehemently their aged guru forces them to train together…

Their tempestuous cloistered life is soon shattered: first by a demonic assault and subsequently by the arrival of museum curator Sofia di Cosimo, who has discovered that three antique rings scattered around the world have the power to compel and command the astounding might of the hallowed trinity of gods known by sorcerers as the Vishanti. Whoever holds the rings has ultimate power in their hands, and someone very bad is obviously trying to find them…

When the Ancient One refuses to aid Sofia, Wong and Stephen sneak away with her, determined to save their complacent master and unsuspecting mankind from appalling horror…

And thus begins a smart, sharp and extremely engaging quest that takes the fledgling heroes to a corrupt politician in Salem, Massachusetts, a modern-day saint in the slums of Cairo, and a mad old biddy in the British Museum, all the while dodging demonic assaults, escaping angry, disdainful deities, foiling arch-foes and slowly becoming the people Earth needs them to be…

Also included in this attractive and compelling hardback is the tantalising first chapter of the then-new Defenders comicbook title wherein Strange, Sub-Mariner, Red She-Hulk, Silver Surfer and Iron Fist reluctantly reunite to help the Hulk destroy his eldritch antithesis in ‘Breaker of Worlds part 1: I Hate Myself and Want to Die’, by Matt Fraction, Terry & Rachel Dodson.

Be Warned: the tale is extremely addictive but concludes elsewhere…

Also included are nine pages of design sketches and many examples of the art production process from pencils through inks and beyond by Rios, making this a superbly enticing and entertaining package for both newcomers and returning readers alike.
© 2011 and 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.