Quote Originally Posted by Beware Of Geek View Post
In my opinion, only…

PROS:
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Zelma Stanton.
The Bar With No Doors and its regulars
The shapeshifting Cloak of Levitation.
Bachalo's art.

CONS:

The characterization of Strange, Wong, and the Ancient One (in flashback).
Stephen's Frank Zappa-looking 'stache and his Renfaire wannabe redesign.
The Empirikul.
Mister Misery.
Depowering Stephen (again) and replacing his powers with that blasted axe.
The "price of magic" that showed up in no other book and basically affected no other character, especially the whole "unable to eat human food" bit.
The "death of magic", which ALSO showed up in no other book and basically affected no other character.
The pacing. By the Vishanti, it took forever to get anything done.

Aaron is a good (not great) writer, and has created some interesting characters and concepts. But I would opine that he prefers to warp existing characters to fit his ideas, rather than adapt to what has come before. If his run had been about a completely new character, it would rate a lot higher in my book, but as it is, it's a decent story about magic, but a piss-poor one about Doctor Strange.
It sounds like the typical problem I see with many writers, good ideas but bad execution. Another is not taking the time to truly learn the character and their history.

Quote Originally Posted by Prof. Warren View Post
I'm absolutely loving it.

I was slightly skeptical going in, like a lot of fans, simply because of the de-powered angle.

But I should've known Waid would do something good with it. He's really got a handle on this book. As much as I enjoyed Cates' run, I'm even more impressed with what Waid's doing.

Issue #4 legitimately blew my mind by introducing a way of viewing Strange that had never occurred to me in decades of reading him.

That's a sign of a brilliant writer and I can't wait to see where Waid takes Strange going forward.

And, of course, the beautiful Saiz art makes the whole package that much better.
Waid, as far as I'm concerned is usually outstanding. I'm not sure why Marvel writers have a fixation with depowering characters. I want to see writers go back to more imaginative use of it, not subduing it. With that said, I hope Waid takes Strange there.