Master of the Mystic Arts: Doctor Strange Appreciation 2022

[Frontier]

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.

Does this mean Wong is a regular again?

[Clea]

Does this mean Wong is a regular again?

Signs point to yes. In the 1st issue of Death of Doctor Strange, Wong was back at the Sanctum. This new book is just a continuation of the DoDS story, so I assume Wong is back for good.

[Clea]

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.

I agree with everything you said. Writing magic is not hard. Marvel merely lacks the interest in building out the magical side of the MU because purely magic focused titles don't sell as well as superheroes and aliens. It's easier for Marvel to transform Strange into a generic Avengers magic dude with an ill defined power set and an utterly meaningless title of Sorcerer Supreme. They have to keep de-powering him as a distraction though, because if they didn't, it would soon become obvious that the Sorcerer Supreme has no business spending all his time hanging out with the Avengers when he's supposed to be saving the dimension from magic based enemies. I'm hoping that the DoDS mini-series will provide Marvel with the opportunity to re-focus Strange back on his actual job as Sorcerer Supreme again, once they bring him back from his hiatus in the afterlife. We'll see.

[Frontier]

Signs point to yes. In the 1st issue of Death of Doctor Strange, Wong was back at the Sanctum. This new book is just a continuation of the DoDS story, so I assume Wong is back for good.

Glad to hear it .

[Clea]

Glad to hear it .

I'm just guessing though. Wong may be back at the Sanctum in the books that MacKay is writing, but not in other titles. Since he has a long history with Clea, it makes sense for him to be at the Sanctum while she is Sorcerer Supreme there. It gives her a familiar and much cherished friendly companion to talk to. I also think having Wong in the book helps to provide continuity from Stephen Strange to Clea and then, I hope, the return of Stephen Strange.

[Reviresco]

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.

Well, this is lovely! It's great to see Clea loves dogs.

But ... is Bats corporeal?

[Reviresco]

Cool Dr Strange art from Frazier Irving!




His process for this piece is here on his twitter.

https://twitter.com/frazerirving/sta...399896064?s=20

[Clea]

Well, this is lovely! It's great to see Clea loves dogs.

But ... is Bats corporeal?

He'll probably be a nice shade of Ghostbusters Green once he's inked and colored. I'm sure he can manifest himself as reasonably corporeal enough to snuggle up and get petted. It's one of a dog's greatest joys in life, so why not in the afterlife, too?

[Clea]

Cool Dr Strange art from Frazier Irving!




His process for this piece is here on his twitter.

https://twitter.com/frazerirving/sta...399896064?s=20

So pretty! This is a recreation of a variant cover he did for the Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme book from a couple years ago. Looking at his Twitter post, I see it's available. I wonder what he's charging for it?

[Albert1981]

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.

I suppose that's why DC's magical "corner" is probably a little bit more successful than Marvel's? And I do think DC leans into the mysticism=horror thing a bit more which can give writers some more material to work with. I doubt that new writers are interested in reading handbooks (which would be a GREAT idea in my opinion). They wanna do their own thing, without being weighed down by continuity. Sure it's lazy as hell, but I can see why they do that. I think the MCU CAN make magic more popular than it is in the comics. From what I understand, during the 70s and 80s, Luke Cage and Iron Fist were JUST as popular as Black Panther and Doctor Strange. But Disney did a great job with the latter two characters.

Actually, one of the reasons why I got into Marvel Comics in the first place during the early 90s is because of Ghost Rider. He was my favorite character for a while. But I HATED what I saw in the live-action stuff. I think it boils down to the fact that MY Ghost Rider was Danny Ketch. I didn't really know who Johnny Blaze was. So I didn't connect with the films. Strange has always been Strange, so I quickly became a fan of his movie version pretty quickly. But at least in the 90s, Marvel did some "supernatural" stuff then which interested me. I never thought Strange was a supernatural horror character, so I didn't read about Stephen too much during that era. I probably would have if I had known that he was.

https://bloody-disgusting.com/editor...rs-future-mcu/

According to the above article, Strange is also possibly a "spiritual" character. I thought that was more Moon Knight's schtick!

[Clea]

I suppose that's why DC's magical "corner" is probably a little bit more successful than Marvel's? And I do think DC leans into the mysticism=horror thing a bit more which can give writers some more material to work with. I doubt that new writers are interested in reading handbooks (which would be a GREAT idea in my opinion). They wanna do their own thing, without being weighed down by continuity. Sure it's lazy as hell, but I can see why they do that. I think the MCU CAN make magic more popular than it is in the comics. From what I understand, during the 70s and 80s, Luke Cage and Iron Fist were JUST as popular as Black Panther and Doctor Strange. But Disney did a great job with the latter two characters.

Actually, one of the reasons why I got into Marvel Comics in the first place during the early 90s is because of Ghost Rider. He was my favorite character for a while. But I HATED what I saw in the live-action stuff. I think it boils down to the fact that MY Ghost Rider was Danny Ketch. I didn't really know who Johnny Blaze was. So I didn't connect with the films. Strange has always been Strange, so I quickly became a fan of his movie version pretty quickly. But at least in the 90s, Marvel did some "supernatural" stuff then which interested me. I never thought Strange was a supernatural horror character, so I didn't read about Stephen too much during that era. I probably would have if I had known that he was.

https://bloody-disgusting.com/editor...rs-future-mcu/

According to the above article, Strange is also possibly a "spiritual" character. I thought that was more Moon Knight's schtick!

Strange is a spiritually-oriented character, as his history of shedding his previous worldly aspirations in favor of morally realigning himself into a self-sacrificing defender against evil mystical entities ought to make obvious. He is grounded in meditation, study, and championing 'good' against 'evil' on a fundamentally spiritual and moral level. He works with gods and derives powers from gods/other spiritual and mystical entities to perform spells. Much of his rise in power and status in the hierarchy of magical characters is based on the fact that these gods see him as a champion, and not merely someone who wants to get power for his own selfish reasons. The various mystical beings out there respect him, or fear him, or hate him because they know they can't corrupt him. All of that makes him a spiritual character. The good entities want to use him. The bad entities want to destroy him. He walks his own path among all of them. The MCU version of Strange almost entirely eliminates this fundamental aspect of his character to make him blend in with all the rest of the superheroes. Comics Sorcerer Supreme!Strange is a spiritual/mystical character. Comics Avengers!Strange is a hybrid between this spiritual character and the generic non-spiritual superhero crowd, with most (but not all) of the mysticism scrubbed off. Avengers!Strange is 'mysterious' more than 'mystical.' MCU Strange is just a wise-cracking dude with a sling ring, an Infinity Stone, and a cool house. Except now he doesn't even have an Infinity Stone to fall back on as an explanation for his powers, so I am interested to see what the MCU does next with him.

I would not describe Moon Knight's character, power set, and interactions with the Egyptian god Khonshu as "schtick." I've always found Mark Spector to be a fascinating character, partly because of the way he defines himself and orients himself in the world based on his relationship (real or imaged) with this deity. All of which reminds me that I need to get around to reading the latest Moon Knight series by Jed MacKay. Now that I've seen how much I like his writing on the Doctor Strange book, I'm interested to see how he writes Spector, too.

[Albert1981]

Strange is a spiritually-oriented character, as his history of shedding his previous worldly aspirations in favor of morally realigning himself into a self-sacrificing defender against evil mystical entities ought to make obvious. He is grounded in meditation, study, and championing 'good' against 'evil' on a fundamentally spiritual and moral level. He works with gods and derives powers from gods/other spiritual and mystical entities to perform spells. Much of his rise in power and status in the hierarchy of magical characters is based on the fact that these gods see him as a champion, and not merely someone who wants to get power for his own selfish reasons. The various mystical beings out there respect him, or fear him, or hate him because they know they can't corrupt him. All of that makes him a spiritual character. The good entities want to use him. The bad entities want to destroy him. He walks his own path among all of them. The MCU version of Strange almost entirely eliminates this fundamental aspect of his character to make him blend in with all the rest of the superheroes. Comics Sorcerer Supreme!Strange is a spiritual/mystical character. Comics Avengers!Strange is a hybrid between this spiritual character and the generic non-spiritual superhero crowd, with most (but not all) of the mysticism scrubbed off. Avengers!Strange is 'mysterious' more than 'mystical.' MCU Strange is just a wise-cracking dude with a sling ring, an Infinity Stone, and a cool house. Except now he doesn't even have an Infinity Stone to fall back on as an explanation for his powers, so I am interested to see what the MCU does next with him.

I would not describe Moon Knight's character, power set, and interactions with the Egyptian god Khonshu as "schtick." I've always found Mark Spector to be a fascinating character, partly because of the way he defines himself and orients himself in the world based on his relationship (real or imaged) with this deity. All of which reminds me that I need to get around to reading the latest Moon Knight series by Jed MacKay. Now that I've seen how much I like his writing on the Doctor Strange book, I'm interested to see how he writes Spector, too.

Wow! I was TOTALLY unaware of this stuff you just mentioned. Thanks SO much for sharing. I always thought dudes in the Strange "franchise" like Brother Voodoo were FAR more into the whole spirituality "thing" than Stephen ever was. MCU Strange I guess is somewhat mystical because he spent some time in monasteries and hung out with a few monks in the Far East? I guess comics Strange is a little bit more altruistic than movie Strange? Most of the fantasy I've read (not much at all) have had magic users REALLY concerned about the fragility of and balance in nature and are absolutely dedicated to protecting those things. But I feel that the Ancient One and even Mordo cares more about that kind of stuff in the MCU than Strange does. To me Strange is still pretty impulsive and reckless to me (though I think he's more thoughtful and prudent than Wanda and Loki). I think Moon Knight is a really cool and fascinating character too. I like the "street-level" supernatural folks in the Marvel Comics: Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, Blade and Moon Knight. I don't count Strange among them.

[DigiCom]

Wow! I was TOTALLY unaware of this stuff you just mentioned. Thanks SO much for sharing. I always thought dudes in the Strange "franchise" like Brother Voodoo were FAR more into the whole spirituality "thing" than Stephen ever was. MCU Strange I guess is somewhat mystical because he spent some time in monasteries and hung out with a few monks in the Far East? I guess comics Strange is a little bit more altruistic than movie Strange? Most of the fantasy I've read (not much at all) have had magic users REALLY concerned about the fragility and balance in nature and are absolutely dedicated to protecting those things. But I feel that the Ancient One and even Mordo cares more about that kind of stuff in the MCU than Strange does. To me Strange is still pretty impulsive and reckless to me (though I think he's more thoughtful and prudent than Wanda and Loki). I think Moon Knight is a really cool and fascinating character too. I like the "street-level" supernatural folks in the Marvel Comics: Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, Blade and Moon Knight. I don't count Strange among them.

You have to remember, Strange is a product of the Orientalism of the late 19th & early 20th century. In those days, a lot of people believed that the Far East held ancient wisdom in hidden valleys. (See LOST HORIZON or Madame Blavatsky for examples). This was only enhanced by the New Age philosophies of the 1960s.

[Albert1981]

You have to remember, Strange is a product of the Orientalism of the late 19th & early 20th century. In those days, a lot of people believed that the Far East held ancient wisdom in hidden valleys. (See LOST HORIZON or Madame Blavatsky for examples). This was only enhanced by the New Age philosophies of the 1960s.

Oh yeah, I can understand that. The whole Shangri-La thing is pretty famous. I've actually seen what remains of the Lost Horizon movie on TCM once. Not a bad film. I think the Man Who Would Be King sort of riffed on this theme as well.

I sort of understand why Disney downplayed the spirituality of Strange's character. The MCU is a pretty grounded and realistic universe, as far as superheroes go. So they've stuck to that. But for characters like Moon Knight and Ghost Rider, I don't actually think that will be possible. As long as Stephen stays an Avenger, I don't think he'll be possessed by demons or anything.

[Clea]

You have to remember, Strange is a product of the Orientalism of the late 19th & early 20th century. In those days, a lot of people believed that the Far East held ancient wisdom in hidden valleys. (See LOST HORIZON or Madame Blavatsky for examples). This was only enhanced by the New Age philosophies of the 1960s.

All that orientalist history in the comics aside, the whole point of the first MCU Strange film was that Stephen Strange finally understood his spiritual path and realized that he had gained magical powers to defend the world against malevolent gods like Dormammu. He was willing to sacrifice himself horribly over and over in the time loop to protect the earth from Dormammu. MCU Mordo is absolutely not a spiritual character. He's the exact opposite of Strange. MCU Mordo thought he was a good, moral man and defender of the earth, but the moment he got pissed off at the Ancient One he revealed his true nature. He thinks that he has the right to be judge and jury of all other magic users, and the absolute moral right to wipe out magic on earth entirely. His egoism is causing him to destroy earth's protection against evil. He has become a villain because of his ego. Strange became a hero because he rejected his ego.