Strange #1 – Review

by Mark Waid (writer), Emma Rios (artist), Christina Strain (color artist), Lauren Sankovitch *(associate editor), Tom Brevoort (editor)

The Story: Strange, powerless, has found the demon Tul’uth possessing a baseball team. He also finds a girl with an unusual aptitude for magic.

What’s Good: I really, really wish I could have found something to write here.

What’s Not So Good: As a big Dr. Strange fan, it kills me to say this, but I was… disappointed. I know Steven Strange doesn’t draw the readership he once did, but except for a few years here and there, he’s always been somewhere in the monthly books because he’s a compelling character. As much as Tony Stark, Stephen Strange is about redemption and unlike the new Stark, Strange is still selflessly, unflinchingly, unquestioningly heroic. This first issue of this limited series isn’t showing Strange the love.

First off, there’s nothing wrong with Emma Rios’ pencils, but the wild-blue-hair anime style does not suit the menacing mystic worlds that surround Dr. Strange. Even Casey’s true view through enchanted glasses revealed a world of deep, riotous color, but without the foreground shadows or darkness that really make Strange’s adventures moody and spooky. So…good artist, wrong book.

On the writing side, I’ve read a lot of great Mark Waid books, but this story is starting in a particularly unambitious way. First of all, I don’t understand where all of Strange’s power went. He first appeared in 1963 as Master of the Mystic Arts and didn’t become Sorcerer Supreme until about 1972. In those nine years he wasn’t the Sorcerer Supreme, he had power enough to defeat Mordo, Nightmare, Dormammu and anyone else who came his way. In the late eighties, he used some black magic (much like he recently did with the Avengers). This tainted him for a while, so he had to look for new sources of power. Despite the fact that he couldn’t call then upon his typical patrons, he was still skilled enough to use the black magic that Kaluu taught him. So why then is this Strange so powerless that he can’t beat a second-rate demon without playing baseball?

More unambitiously, this newly humbled Strange, instead of seeking to regain his might (not necessarily the supremacy he had, but his mastery), pits himself against a minor demon in what looks to be a 1-issue mop-up operation with no significance to Strange or the rest of the Marvel Universe. On the Marvel website, some prominence is given to Strange finding a new student. This leads me to think that Marvel is trawling for new teen readers drawn to a teenage girl growing up under Strange’s tutelage, and that she’ll be the one growing as a character, not him. I hope I’m wrong, but otherwise, by issue #4, I’m going to be suggesting that the limited series should have been called “Casey, Apprentice of Strange”.

Like I said, it kills me to criticize a Dr. Strange book, but there’s so much they could have done with this title. Some of Strange’s best adventures have been when he is massively outgunned and has to survive on his wits and skill alone in alien dimensions. Why couldn’t Waid, Sankovitch and Brevoort have picked out something like a quest to redeem Strange? A journey to reclaim lost skills and take what he is and the wisdom he has learned and save some world from evil, with only his wits and limited magic to help him? Lead a magical guerrilla war on some foe Dr. Voodoo is too busy to fight? The possibilities for heroic redemption are endless, but none of them are suggested by this first issue.

Conclusion: I’m disappointed not only for this series, but also because I know that the failure of this series will delay a true return by Dr. Strange to the mainstream of the Marvel Universe for a couple of years. (I’ll still buy issue #2, though, because Stephen Strange is such a great character)

Grade: D

-DS Arsenault

 

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #2 – Review

by Rick Remender (writer), Jefte Palo & Gabriel Hardman (artists), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Lauren Sankovitch (editor)

The Story: Doom has abandoned Jericho Drumm in a dimension where his magic does not work. Worse yet, half of his Staff of Legba is stolen. He barely makes it back to Earth, only to find out that whatever foe he has been fearing is already way ahead of him. Luckily, Daimon Hellstorm is there to help.

What’s Good: I confess that I’m a fan of Marvel’s “sorcerous” worlds, all the way back to the spooky Lee/Kirby Dr. Strange stories, so seeing a new monthly with the new sorcerer supreme is awesome. Jericho Drumm is a great character. He obviously doubts himself, but is also obviously compensating and this is a situation that goes way back. He’s been someone filling shoes all his life and the shoes don’t get much bigger than holder of the Eye of Agamotto. Drumm is what takes a cosmic sorcerer supreme invasion story and makes it personal. And it’s not just Remender’s handling of Drumm’s personality that makes this work. There is also the whole different angle on magic: the new stuff, the new spells, all of which fit into Haitian mysticism. I listened to Marvel’s podcast interview with Remender on this new series and I was heartened to find out he’s as much a sorcerer supreme fanboy as I am and it shows in his approach to Drumm.

Palo, Hardman and Beaulieu deliver on the art chores. This is not realistic draftsmanship. Between the three of them, they produce one of the grittiest magic stories I can remember in Marvel. The textured environment, the stylized shadows on cyclopean frogs, the falling stones – the story is told through pictures and a brevity of text that really makes the bookwork. The surreal settings come alive because of the imagination that Palo and Hardman bring to the table. And Beaulieu adds a lot to the mood with the use of earthy browns, grays and dirty greens to set moods that are only interrupted by the red of Drumm’s cloak, or in the case of the flashback to his childhood, blood. Overall, the artistic effect is excellent.

What’s Not So Good: Nothing to complain about, other than having to wait until next issue to see what happens next.

Conclusion: Whether you’re a sorcerer supreme fanboy or not, go out and buy this book. It is original, tense, spooky, surreal and moody.

Grade: A-

-DS Arsenault

 



Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #1 – Review

By Rick Remender (writer), Jefte Palo (pencils & inks), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colors)

The Story: Jericho Drumm, the Houngan Supreme, and now Sorcerer Supreme, has to establish his street cred and get the big job done before a prophesied evil swallows the universe. First stop: Dormammu, and that’s just the prologue! Stephen Strange is there too, finishing up handing over the reins of power before heading off. Then, alone, Doctor Voodoo heads into the world himself, but is surprised by an old enemy and a new challenger for the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme.

What’s Good: The new conception of the Sorcerer Supreme. Doctor Voodoo is not your dad’s Doctor Strange! He’s walking around with human skulls on his belt and shrunken heads dangling off the Staff of Legba. He’s in-your-face and daring, the Gunner of God and the Houngan Supreme. It is seriously cool. The Haitian angle brings a new feel and tone to the Marvel Universe’s top sorcerer. Remender hit all the right notes. At the same time, Voodoo’s got some cockiness issues. Strange lost the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme because he’d become complacent and stopped learning, but Voodoo is into some nasty magic that Strange wouldn’t touch. Anyone smell hubris?

Palo and Beaulieu deliver some beautiful art. I think that magic always gives an artist room to run with the ball and we get a new classical-Greek view of Dormammu’s domain, shrunken heads, the Scrying Stones of Chthon, gritty New Orleans and a defeated, shaken Strange. And the variant cover by Tan was awesome. I’ll give a no-prize to anyone who can tell me which classic cover and artist it’s based on!

What’s Not So Good: Having really learned the worlds of Doctor Strange in the surreal weirdness of Ditko, Brunner, Russell, and even Paul Smith, I found some of the dimensions and environments visited by Voodoo to be a little… restrained. Don’t get me wrong. The art was well done, but I’m not used to straight lines anywhere the Sorcerer Supreme walks. Palo’s extra dimensional designs have a regularity that seems like a lost opportunity compared to the psychological chaos that usually provides the backdrop to Marvel’s magical adventures. Even the brief view of Shuma-Gorath felt like Palo was holding back. I hope in the next couple of issues, Palo lets himself go nuts and to put whatever bizarre wackiness he can think of onto the page.

Conclusion: There are lots of challenges to writing and drawing the Sorcerer Supreme well. Marvel has hit on the right concept and launched a great new series. I expect a few growing pains, but this first issue caught the tone needed to make the Sorcerer Supreme work. Go out and get it.

Grade: B+

-DS Arsenault