Doctor Strange: The Way of the Weird gives us a magicless Sorcerer Supreme

Doctor Strange: The Way of the Weird gives us a magicless Sorcerer Supreme

Right now, everyone is raving about the newest addition to the Marvel movies: Avengers: Infinity War, the movie that beat Star Wars Episode VII’s opening weekend. If you haven’t seen the movie, go and see it.

This movie takes almost all of the protagonists we love in the Marvel movies and puts them together. In my first time watching the movie, I really couldn’t get enough of Doctor Strange’s new abilities, so I decided to pick up one of his comics.

One of the best scenes in Avengers: Infinity War is where Iron Man and Doctor Strange bicker. In this scene, Tony says, “What is your job exactly, except to make balloon animals?” and Dr. Strange’s reply is, “Protecting your reality, douchebag.”

Doctor Strange Vol. 1: The Way of the Weird gives you more of a taste of what the true job of the Sorcerer Supreme is. Rather than fighting physical beings like Ultron or Loki, he protects all of reality itself. This isn’t an origin story, but the author Jason Aaron still does a great job of explaining the character a bit in this book, as well as launching him into a new madcap adventure.

The artwork was fantastic, and I can only imagine how fun it would have been for Aaron to convey his vision to Bachalo (the illustrator).

The plot of the comic surrounds the fact that every spell Strange casts comes at a cost of his life. You find the doctor waking up somewhere very odd, with no spell books, no weapons, and no memory of how he got there, and monsters are chasing him.

Strange also faces a new threat in this series — the darkness beyond. The dark forces aim to destroy magic itself, finding everything mystical in the multiverse. Magic’s days are numbered, and Doctor Strange is not prepared.

In this volume, the main antagonist’s reasons and motives so far are unknown, but in order to stop him, Doctor Strange has had to assemble every magician and every Sorcerer Supreme he can to help stop this destroyer before magic is taken forever. No magic means every existence would just collapse in itself, thus ending many, if not all, universes.

This series is really fun to read both story-wise and visually speaking. I’d recommend Doctor Strange: The Way of the Weird to anyone who wants more of the Marvel universe.