Category: Comics Excerpt

Doctor Strange:

…Welcome to the Chamber of Extrospection. The Orb of Agamotto for the most part suffices for me, and so I do not come here often.

Topaz:

I—see….

Doctor Strange:

This should be the portal by which we may see something. I need you to sit here.

Topaz:

Of course, Stephen.

Doctor Strange:

Now, by the void which halts the word—by the blind, unthought, unheard—let the curtains part and show—what we need and wish to know!

Topaz:

It’s a mirror!

Doctor Strange:

Yes—but look at the mirror and not what it shows, Topaz.

Topaz:

I don’t under—but there’s something—it’s so cold out there—cold and—and angry—!

Doctor Strange:

That’s it, Topaz! Keep on! Keep on!

Topaz:

Something’s beginning to form—but what…?

— “Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts” #78 (1987)

Used without permission.

Acroyear:

[We are attacked] by my turncoat cousins!

You, dog! I have a message for that traitor prince you serve! Tell him there is a blood-feud between us—and that I will have his head!

— “Micronauts” #1 (1979)

Used without permission.

The game manual for 1981’s "Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord" Apple II computer game contained several humorous cartoons drawn by Will McLean. These are my favorites:

Doctor Strange:

Oh, Hell. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s incanting in Latin.

— “Doctor Strange: The Oath” #1 (2006)

Used without permission.

This limited series has several humorous lines like this.

Kaluu:

Behold, Stephen! Behold the ancient days of Earth returning—the days when Man was a slave in body, mind, and soul!

…Ghaszaszh Nyirh, of the Old Ones. The scrolls say that he loved the debasement of his slaves the best. And they will go to him willingly. What will they not trade for some food for their children?

Doctor Strange:

And so they give up their souls—allow themselves to be twisted by a horror from the depths of time…for food?

Kaluu:

For food.

— “Strange Tales” #9 (1987)

Used without permission.

Doctor Strange:

…Even for as practiced a sorcerer as myself, there is danger! But in this case, it is a danger worth taking!

Nosmo cobis…holo erasma rabis….

The words sound vaguely Latin—but, in truth, the language predates Mankind by millennia!

Fragments of this incantation were discovered years ago by an aged monk named Montessi. Uttered within close proximity of a vampire, even by one unschooled in the mystic arts, it would cause the unliving creature’s total obliteration.

But Doctor Strange is Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, and he has the complete incantation! He shall not suffer a vampire to live!

— “Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts” #62 (1983)

Used without permission.

[Baddie teleports away after stealing the Eye of Agamotto from Doctor Voodoo.]

Damion Hellstrom:

[on his knees, his face in his hands]

You don’t understand.

Spiderman:

No! No, we don’t understand! What has happened? What is the Eye? Where did it go?

Doctor Strange, ex-Sorcerer Supreme:

[holding a hand to his bowed forehead and closed eyes]

Without the Eye of Agamotto, we forfeit.

Doctor Voodoo, Sorcerer Supreme:

[comes to Doctor Strange, weeping]

Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.

Mockingbird:

What do we forfeit?

Doctor Strange:

[everyone looks up to the sky as it begins to tear open]

Everything.

— “The New Avengers” #2 (2010)

Used without permission.

The Ancient One:

The true power is yours—to allow in, or keep out. What happens to any of us is either invited into our lives or sent away.

True power…is the power to choose wisely. And that you already possess.

You are like the man who sits on the side of the road, begging for pennies, without realizing that he’s sitting on a box of gold. Everything you need is already around you and within you.

Stephen Strange:

If that’s so, then why is everything that comes so naturally to people like Baron Mordo so difficult for me?

The Ancient One:

You come from the world of Western thought. Mordo from the world of Eastern thought. Your soul is rigid, made up of straight lines. His soul is flexible; it has no straight lines.

Stephen Strange:

Then why not make him the inheritor of your work?

The Ancient One:

Because sometimes there is a time and place for straight lines. Because there are some forces before which we should not bend.

And when the night-wind comes, Mordo, I fear…will bend.

— “Strange” #5 (2005)

Used without permission.

[With the Dread Dormammu possessing his physical body, Doctor Strange in his astral form has taken refuge in a New York City street rat. An unexpected ally arrives in the form of Topaz, whom Strange previously helped recover the stolen half of her soul.]

Topaz:

…I know. I’m “only” an empath, a healer. But I did find you, and a magician of power could not have gotten within a hundred miles of Manhattan without having been stopped—or destroyed utterly.

But there are more—and better—things than power, Stephen.

— “Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme” #2 (1989)

Used without permission.

[Numerous earth spirits, summoned by Doctor Strange and Kaluu on Glastonbury Tor, attack them.]

Doctor Strange:

You will submit to the power of Doctor Strange! Your power may be as ancient as stone and sky, sun and moon, spring and winter…but mine is something else entirely!

[Doctor Strange blasts several earth spirits with an eldritch beam of dark magic.]

Bow down! Bow down before your master! And now you will follow me—spill your blood at my command—fight as I bid you—and you will drive the darkness back!

[All the earth spirits bow down.]

Earth spirit:

We are yours to command, O Dread One!

— “Strange Tales” #11 (1988)

Used without permission.

Doctor Strange:

What happened? This night, Victoria, the Black Knight put to rest the soul of a valiant hero. And in doing so he saved his own!

— “Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts” #68 (1984)

Used without permission.

Obviously, my favorite superhero is Doctor Strange. With that also comes my favorite female comic book character: Clea. She has grown from a mere damsel in distress into a complex hero in her own right. Like Doctor Who’s companions, she brings out the best in Stephen Strange.

That artists have always drawn her with beauty equal to any other Marvel heroine has nothing to do with my stanning interest in Clea. 😉

Here are some of my favorites:

From Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts #73 (1985)

From Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #2 & #12 (1988-89)

From The Death of Doctor Strange #4 & #5 (2022)

From Strange #1, #5, #8, & #9 (2022)

The twenty-first century artists have omitted the Flames of Regency. The most-recent limited series, Strange, gave her a temper and the visual effect having the Flames manifest when she is furious. It encompasses her entire head, giving her a Dormammu-like appearance.

ADDENDUM: I said earlier that Clea has become a complex character. The most recent issue featuring her gave us this last-cell teaser:

From Doctor Strange (Volume 7) #10 (2024)

Used without permission.

Glastonbury Tor, Somerset, Great Britain. When the land was called the Island of the Mighty, it was a holy place. The shadowy King Arthur has one of his reputed tombs nearby, and the yet more shadowy Joseph of Arimathea once made it a resting place of the Holy Grail.

There are two figures atop the tor now, clad in the garb of the ancient priests of sacred oak and wisdom’s cauldron. The preparations have been made. Now they can begin.

In the alphabet of trees they speak—with the names of the Triple Goddess they conjure—with the breath of birth, conjunction, and death, they work their spell….

— “Strange Tales” #11 (1988)

Used without permission.

Doctor Strange:

Kanna, I’m handing you the keys to my forge….

Kanna:

Is that a Faltine Furnace? Is that a Wall of Infinite Elements…?

— “Doctor Strange“, Volume 5, #8 (2019)

Used without permission.

Another wonderfully evocative name—completely self-explanatory but still mysterious.

Doctor Strange:

…I’m healing.

[He casts The Gorgerell Self-Healing Spell, from the Scroll of Melsalam.]

Help me prepare Hellstrom for a healing….

[He casts The Terranotti Healing Spell, from the Scroll of Melsalam.]

— “New Avengers” #2 (2010)

Used without permission.

I like the nuance that there are separate spells for healing yourself and healing others.

Khat:

You could be powerful, human, but instead you snivel and whine about other nasty human lives. You can’t save them. Why should you care?

Doctor Strange:

You’re right…I’m weak….

But I have to hurt. I have to know what wounds me. Because by admitting my weaknesses, I also learn my strengths….

And that is why I will triumph, little demon!

— “Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts” #77 (1986)

Used without permission.

Nightmare:

Good-bye, Doctor Strange!

[Giant-sized Nightmare crushes Strange in his grip.]

Dagger:

Cloak—he—he just exploded—became so many streamers! …But the—the streamers are still fighting Nightmare!

Nightmare:

No, Strange! You can’t do this! You can’t trick me—

Doctor Strange:

But I can, Nightmare! This way, I can envelope you, limit you…

[Nightmare shrinks back down to human size.]

…until we are more evenly matched!

Nightmare:

Strange—you—you fool!

Doctor Strange:

Oh, I know! I have defiled my body with this black trick—I have warped my self and my spirit in terrible ways—but I am indeed fool enough to fight you whatever it takes!

Nightmare:

…You would rather make yourself pay the price for using dark magic than sacrifice others! Your false nobility will be your downfall!

…For all your prowess, Strange, you are still a mortal—full of trivialities, quirks, and limits! Even though you burst your bag of skin, you reweave it—if badly…!

— “Strange Tales” #7 (1987)

Used without permission.

This scene has stayed with me across the decades—and primarily the dialogue written by Bill Mantlo. Larry Alexander’s artwork shows a magic that probably should not have been performed, but Doctor Strange’s verbal admission of how it has defiled his body and warped his spirit is crucial. Paired with that is Nightmare’s taunting retort on how Strange can reweave his bag of skin—though only badly. So evocative.

Baron Mordo:

Demons of Dormammu! He’s captured the eldritch forces I used against him…and used them to form a Conjurer’s Sphere!

But that’s one of the most dangerous mystic constructs imaginable! It literally absorbs the magical force in a contained area! Only the most skilled sorcerer alive…would dare…form one….

— “Doctor Strange: The Oath” #50 (1981)

Used without permission.

Doctor Strange:

I neither fear nor resist Nature’s power! Recognizing that it is but a part of the manifestation…of the primary energy…I allow it to flow through me! Drawing from it, I add to my own power!

— “Doctor Strange Miscellany #1” (????)

Used without permission.

Doctor Strange:

…Please, do you honestly want to have a wizard’s duel with me?

Nicodemus West:

Not in the least.

Vrak par hensargini!

Doctor Strange:

The…the Sands of Nisanti?

Nicodemus West:

…For the next three minutes, neither of us will be able to use magic in any form….

— “Doctor Strange: The Oath” #5 (2007)

Used without permission.