Master of the Mystic Arts: Doctor Strange Appreciation 2022

[Clea]

Even CBR is now discussing how hard it is to write about magic:

https://www.cbr.com/why-increasing-p...s-mcu-problem/

My take on this article is that it is not about how hard it is to write about magic. Writing magic is easy. It's about what to do with characters after you introduce them at a low power level, but then ramp them up to extreme power levels just to create exciting stories. It applies to regular superheroes and the magical power based characters. As the article says, the MCU is rapidly escalating the power set of the magic-based characters in order to generate the "level of buzz and anticipation" for the Phase 4 films. That's fine, but then what does the MCU do with those same hyped up, super powerful magic users once they move on to Phase 5? If Stephen Strange can cast spells that alter everyone's memories in the multiverse, or Wanda's new Darkhold inspired chaos powers give her the ability cause havoc throughout the multiverse, how do you even use those characters again if all your story deals with ninjas, spies, or Skrulls?

The comics have gone through endless cycles of ramping up superheroes powers until characters barely resemble how they were first introduced. Then the villains get amped up too. Sometimes the MU busts the characters down to previous power levels. Sometimes they don't. Pretty soon, everyone in Marvel can punch Dormammu, or fight Thanos, or sit down and have chit chats with Eternity or the Watchers.

So far as Strange is concerned, he mainly stayed in the magical corner of the MU and grew his skills and knowledge organically through years of study. He faced cosmic level threats all the time and his knowledge expanded accordingly over time. Once Marvel decided to move him onto a non-magical superhero team, the first thing they did was bust his powers down to level set him with the non-magical superheroes. Over the years in the comics, they power him up and bust him down in cycles all the time.

Over in the MCU, I'm abstractly interested to see what they do with Stephen Strange going forward. The MCU actually skirted around Strange's magical abilities for years by linking so much of his abilities to the fact that he had an Infinity Stone, not magic. They still show that he can't do basic things like teleportation without a sling ring, so it seems like they want to keep him at a lower power level. I expect they'll keep him at something equivalent to Avengers Strange, so that he fits in well with the non-magic superheroes. I don't know what the MCU plans to do with Wanda in the short term or the long term. WandaVision was a massively scaled back version of things that Wanda did in the comics. If they tip too far into turning her into a crazy villainous character, it will be hard for the MCU to redeem her later.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

My own personal preference is not for overly super powered characters -- oddly, I've never considered Strange and Wanda in that category. The latter, probably because I mostly read her in before she became a reality warper. But the problem is solved if you write the character instead of the power.

I haven't read enough of Captain Marvel, and I've only seen the movie once, but I never really understood what her 'power' was.

Daredevil's my current favorite hero so the heavy hitters don't interest me as much. I'm more into catharsis than the power fantasy aspect nowadays. I usually prefer Marvel than DC for that reason.

[Albert1981]

You do realize, these are COMIC BOOK movies, and this is a COMIC BOOK forum, right?

It doesn't matter what is created and on the actual page, people are always going to have their own expectations, headcanon or dumb ideas. I do NOT endorse creators creating to the lowest common denominator.





Again, because it was a stupid idea. It was recently introduced, completely out of the blue, by Jason Aaron in his Dr Strange run, because he was obsessed with the idea that magic had to have an immediate and dreadful cost.

Also, for the most part, with the mighty exception of Brian Cronin, the CBR "articles" are crap. Whisper thin subject, inaccurate, clickbait, and betraying the ignorance of the subject matter.

I think the MCU has done a pretty good job of "grounding" the craziness of comic book stories for the first three phases. That's why I favor the movies and shows to a certain extent. Even Strange's magic in that first film of his didn't feel too ridiculous to me. And he was using an Infinity Stone when did his magic. For a long time I thought Wanda got her powers from an Infinity Stone as well, but her show clearly stated that she was "born" with the power of Chaos Magic. Then she was able to create life, manipulate reality (as well as time and even the WEATHER), while mind controlling thousands of people. To me, Wanda is starting to get a little overpowered. I think Strange is a bit too with him casting spells to make probably MILLIONS of people forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. I prefer their powers come from "cosmic gems" and/or "other dimensions" and/or using "dangerous artefacts" and/or being "possessed by powerful demons." So it's not totally THEM that's doing weird ****. I guess that's what I meant by comic book-y. I'm actually wondering how the HELL is the MCU gonna make dudes like Ghost Rider and the Silver Surfer NOT overpowered when THEY are introduced. I actually don't mind if the villains and antagonists are more overpowered though. Especially if it takes a team of heroes to defeat them.

I sorta understand where Aaron was coming from. Because many people feel that "magic as a storytelling device is a disaster waiting to happen":

https://aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com/?p=552

I read an old interview on CBR that Aaron participated in, and it discussed the "rules of magic" in the Marvel Universe:

https://www.cbr.com/interview-aaron-...ngoing-series/

"At the Marvel retreats we have a couple times a year, a lot of times we'd talk about magic. How do we deal with magic? How do we portray magic? What are the rules of magic? Those were kind of long conversations where we didn't really settle on defining magic -- and I don't think we need to. I don't think we need a huge set of rules for magic. For me, there's just one rule that's very important, and that's that everything that Strange does has to have a cost. There has to be repercussions when you gamble with these kinds of forces."

"Exactly. I don't want a Doctor Strange who is a deus ex machina. I don't want him to show up, wave his fingers around, say some weird words to save the day, and suddenly everything is fine. I want a Strange that really has to fight and suffer for everything he does."

Having a cost to magic is a simple rule that limits what magic users can do. I think it's a pretty cool concept. Though going on disgusting magical "diets" might be too much for the MCU too handle.

[Albert1981]

It's not a new problem. MCU always struggled with the power fantasy characters such as Thor and Captain Marvel. Unfortunately Strange and Wanda joined that category.

Characters with cosmic or magical powers can be difficult to write. So far I think the MCU has done a pretty good job in making them seem "realistic" to me. I was reading a newspaper article a couple of weeks ago. It stated that people who lose their vision automatically have their other senses enhanced in order to compensate for that loss. And their sense of hearing is most particularly improved. This has been proven true following decades of research. So to me, a dude like Daredevil feels more "realistic" to me than other characters from the comic books. I think that also explains his consistent popularity as well.

[Galerion]

In my opinion this "problem" is way overblown. Like already has been said there have been many stories with people of varying power levels without any problems.

To make a few examples.

• In RPGs the magical characters always end up being a the most powerful members of the group because that is just how it is. It's balanced by the fact that mages are rare and mages of great power are even rarer and mages of great power that actually care about making the lives of other people better are the rarest of them all. So yeah in those worlds mages just don't teleport in and fix everything with a flick of the wrist. They have other things to deal with so non-magical people still have to do the heavy lifting on that front.
• In Lord of the Rings Gandalf is the most powerful member of the fellowship even though he isn't even allowed to use his full power. Nobody else could have stopped yet defeat a Balrog. Nobody else could have lifted the spell from Theoden. Yet as we all know he didn't overshadow the other non-magical members of the group and it was them who ultimately secured the victory.
  
• Probably the best example that you can make considering it's incredible popular and there is a huge divide in power level between characters. Im talking about Star Wars. If you are not a Force user you are nothing more than cannon fodder and an annoyance to a powerful Force user. An entire squad of trained and armed soldiers is not a threat to Darth Vader. And Darth Vader is actually tame when you consider a few feats that some other Force users have pulled off. A Force user is generally only defeated by another Force user. And still even in this heavily polarized franchise you have non-Force users that have mattered and made a difference.

Where am I going with this? In the trailer to Dr Strange 2 we have already seen Shuma-Gorath. Does anybody wish that Yelena swoops in, fires a few 9mm bullets into him and then finishes him off with a roundhouse kick? That's absurd.
Threats like that are where people like Strange or Wanda come in and it's exactly why this isn't a problem. While they are busy fighting threats at their power level the other characters can fight threats on their own power level. One doesn't invalidate the other.

[Albert1981]

My take on this article is that it is not about how hard it is to write about magic. Writing magic is easy. It's about what to do with characters after you introduce them at a low power level, but then ramp them up to extreme power levels just to create exciting stories. It applies to regular superheroes and the magical power based characters. As the article says, the MCU is rapidly escalating the power set of the magic-based characters in order to generate the "level of buzz and anticipation" for the Phase 4 films. That's fine, but then what does the MCU do with those same hyped up, super powerful magic users once they move on to Phase 5? If Stephen Strange can cast spells that alter everyone's memories in the multiverse, or Wanda's new Darkhold inspired chaos powers give her the ability cause havoc throughout the multiverse, how do you even use those characters again if all your story deals with ninjas, spies, or Skrulls?

The comics have gone through endless cycles of ramping up superheroes powers until characters barely resemble how they were first introduced. Then the villains get amped up too. Sometimes the MU busts the characters down to previous power levels. Sometimes they don't. Pretty soon, everyone in Marvel can punch Dormammu, or fight Thanos, or sit down and have chit chats with Eternity or the Watchers.

So far as Strange is concerned, he mainly stayed in the magical corner of the MU and grew his skills and knowledge organically through years of study. He faced cosmic level threats all the time and his knowledge expanded accordingly over time. Once Marvel decided to move him onto a non-magical superhero team, the first thing they did was bust his powers down to level set him with the non-magical superheroes. Over the years in the comics, they power him up and bust him down in cycles all the time.

Over in the MCU, I'm abstractly interested to see what they do with Stephen Strange going forward. The MCU actually skirted around Strange's magical abilities for years by linking so much of his abilities to the fact that he had an Infinity Stone, not magic. They still show that he can't do basic things like teleportation without a sling ring, so it seems like they want to keep him at a lower power level. I expect they'll keep him at something equivalent to Avengers Strange, so that he fits in well with the non-magic superheroes. I don't know what the MCU plans to do with Wanda in the short term or the long term. WandaVision was a massively scaled back version of things that Wanda did in the comics. If they tip too far into turning her into a crazy villainous character, it will be hard for the MCU to redeem her later.

Well, if Strange could bring characters from "parallel timelines" into the main MCU one using "magic" that would be kinda overpowered to me. And also since Doc Ock and Green Goblin DIED in other Spider-Man movies, he can manipulate TIME using "magic" by bringing them back from the "past". And that's without the assistance of the Time Stone! See why I'm not a huge fan of going too hard into magic, time travel and parallel universes in comic book stories? I mean those things didn't hurt NWH's popularity AT ALL, but the MCU is basing FUTURE movies and shows on what happened there. So things can definitely get confusing. And Marvel Studios definitely could be going in this direction in the MoM.

It's funny that you mention that Strange is such an important Avenger now. When I was a kid, dudes like the Hulk and Stephen were DEFENDERS. A team that was a quite bit different than the Avengers in my opinion. But now Banner and Strange are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT Avengers. And I like that a lot. I think it's fun to mix tech (I'm including androids, gamma rays, radioactive bug bites, Pym Particles, and Super Serums in that category), magic, gods, soldiers, spies and martial artists together in the Avengers. I'm one of the few people in these threads who DON'T want too many teams in the MCU. Disney has two teams in the MCU (the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy). And some members of each team STILL haven't met each other yet. I like it when everybody meets everybody. And that CAN'T happen if the MCU has 250 characters at once. I also think Avengers Strange will stay Avengers Strange. But Midnight Sons Strange might be out of the question then.

Don't know what's gonna happen with Wanda. I haven't looked at MoM rumors ever since I got burned by the whole Bohner reveal last year. I think a LOT of Strange 2 leaks are PURE bullshit. I only know about them because I hang out here. As I've said before, I don't frequent comic book related subs on Reddit. But I lurk on other forums there which sometimes discuss the MCU and DCEU because I like reading the perspectives of comic book film/show fans who are not comic book nerds/geeks. It will indeed be hard to redeem Wanda if she murders people because of her "grief" in the Strange sequel. I thought that theme was dealt with in WandaVision.

[Reviresco]

I think the MCU has done a pretty good job of "grounding" the craziness of comic book stories for the first three phases. That's why I favor the movies and shows to a certain extent. Even Strange's magic in that first film of his didn't feel too ridiculous to me. And he was using an Infinity Stone when did his magic. For a long time I thought Wanda got her powers from an Infinity Stone as well, but her show clearly stated that she was "born" with the power of Chaos Magic. Then she was able to create life, manipulate reality (as well as time and even the WEATHER), while mind controlling thousands of people. To me, Wanda is starting to get a little overpowered. I think Strange is a bit too with him casting spells to make probably MILLIONS of people forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. I prefer their powers come from "cosmic gems" and/or "other dimensions" and/or using "dangerous artefacts" and/or being "possessed by powerful demons." So it's not totally THEM that's doing weird ****. I guess that's what I meant by comic book-y. I'm actually wondering how the HELL is the MCU gonna make dudes like Ghost Rider and the Silver Surfer NOT overpowered when THEY are introduced. I actually don't mind if the villains and antagonists are more overpowered though. Especially if it takes a team of heroes to defeat them.

I sorta understand where Aaron was coming from. Because many people feel that "magic as a storytelling device is a disaster waiting to happen":

https://aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com/?p=552

I read an old interview on CBR that Aaron participated in, and it discussed the "rules of magic" in the Marvel Universe:

https://www.cbr.com/interview-aaron-...ngoing-series/

"At the Marvel retreats we have a couple times a year, a lot of times we'd talk about magic. How do we deal with magic? How do we portray magic? What are the rules of magic? Those were kind of long conversations where we didn't really settle on defining magic -- and I don't think we need to. I don't think we need a huge set of rules for magic. For me, there's just one rule that's very important, and that's that everything that Strange does has to have a cost. There has to be repercussions when you gamble with these kinds of forces."

"Exactly. I don't want a Doctor Strange who is a deus ex machina. I don't want him to show up, wave his fingers around, say some weird words to save the day, and suddenly everything is fine. I want a Strange that really has to fight and suffer for everything he does."

Having a cost to magic is a simple rule that limits what magic users can do. I think it's a pretty cool concept. Though going on disgusting magical "diets" might be too much for the MCU too handle.

Except Aaron and others who have used that as an excuse not to give Strange a book for decades, clearly haven't paid attention to the previous decades of Dr Strange books, where he DID have restrictions and rules. It simply isn't true.

Again, it is COMIC BOOKS. If you want realistic, go watch a 1970s movie.

[Reviresco]

It's funny that you mention that Strange is such an important Avenger now. When I was a kid, dudes like the Hulk and Stephen were DEFENDERS. A team that was a quite bit different than the Avengers in my opinion. But now Banner and Strange are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT Avengers. And I like that a lot. I think it's fun to mix tech (I'm including androids, gamma rays, radioactive bug bites, Pym Particles, and Super Serums in that category), magic, gods, soldiers, spies and martial artists together in the Avengers. I'm one of the few people in these threads who DON'T want too many teams in the MCU. Disney has two teams in the MCU (the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy). And some members of each team STILL haven't met each other yet. I like it when everybody meets everybody. And that CAN'T happen if the MCU has 250 characters at once. I also think Avengers Strange will stay Avengers Strange. But Midnight Sons Strange might be out of the question then.

No they aren't. People to this day complain about Strange, Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine as Avengers.

[MRP]

Again, it is COMIC BOOKS. If you want realistic, go watch a 1970s movie.

But the 1970s Doctor Strange movie is hardly realistic (not to mention terrible though I consider it to be in the so bad to be good category).

-M

[Frontier]

No they aren't. People to this day complain about Strange, Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine as Avengers.

Yeah, I don't want to see Strange as an MCU Avenger...or a traditional Avenger in any sense.

[Doombot]

Strange should never be seen as an Avenger. He's someone the Avengers go to for help with threats beyond even them.

[Albert1981]

Except Aaron and others who have used that as an excuse not to give Strange a book for decades, clearly haven't paid attention to the previous decades of Dr Strange books, where he DID have restrictions and rules. It simply isn't true.

Again, it is COMIC BOOKS. If you want realistic, go watch a 1970s movie.

I thought the Batman movies (I'm including Joker among them) were fairly "realistic". So we don't have to go to an era before I was even born to see superhero flicks that are more grounded. Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye and Captain America 2 were not too crazy either. But I only really enjoyed Captain America: The Winter Soldier to tell you the truth. I don't feel the MCU is as weird as the comic books. Which I really like (and I don't hate weird stuff either). I just think normal humans warping reality (among other things) on massive scales is too rich for my blood. That's why I'm okay with Aaron's idea of introducing a cost to that kind of magic use to make sure things don't get out of hand. At least for the movies/shows. Comic books can go as crazy as they want for all I care.

[Albert1981]

No they aren't. People to this day complain about Strange, Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine as Avengers.

I was talking about the MCU Avengers. I think most audience members were thrilled to see Banner team up with Stark, Rogers and Thor in that first Avengers movie. I know I was. Sure the Hulk left the Avengers quickly after its founding in the comics, but I don't mind him being part of that team. I'm okay with Strange being on the Avengers's roster as well. Characters like Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Spider-Man often "work alone", so I'm okay with them NOT being Avengers. Wolverine firmly belongs in the X-Men franchise in my opinion. I know Hulk and Strange often do their own things, but I think they play off well with the other Avengers. In the MCU, I'm okay with Silver Surfer, Nova, Adam Warlock and Quasar being in a new Guardians of the Galaxy team. I think the movies/shows should be a little different from the comic books.

[Clea]

Over on Twitter, Jed MacKay posted some preview pencils by Marcelo Ferreira for the upcoming STRANGE book. Isn't this adorable? I'm sure I must have commented once or twice (or a bazillion times) how much I love Bats. Looks like the afterlife's Best Good Dog is going to continue to get well deserved affection and chilling out time in the new series. Of course he is! LOL. I'm so easily pleased just by the idea of this book.

[Lee Stone]

Writing magic and cosmic characters CAN be hard for some writers. Writers that really have no inclination towards those kinds of stories.
However, some writers, like Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Roger Stern, have absolutely no problems in that area.

Dr. Strange spent his entire career from the '60s to the late '80s/early '90s without any major 'deconstructions'.
Since he's come back, he's probably been de-powered at least once per series. I may be exaggerating.

The rules of Marvel Magic were grown by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and Roger Stern. They were laid out in plain English in the Marvel Handbooks by Stern, and even repeated in the Marvel RPGs by TSR (with Stern as a guide).

How someone can see all that and still be confused about Strange, his world and the people/beings he deals with routinely and how magic works in the Marvel Universe, confounds me.
It's not like there's really a lot to research.

Maybe one day we'll get a writer that understands Strange and wants to expand on his mythology instead of just wanting to tear him apart and put him back together again and get credit for it.