Who Is This NEW and REFRESHING Dr. Strange? - A Review of Dr. Strange #1

If there is one character that draws my attention more than most of the others it’s Dr. Strange.

The reasons are numerous, but the primary one is...it’s a story of lessons learned, second chances and redemption.  You thought I was going to say that he is able to cast cool spells, didn’t you?  Well, that factors in as well, I can’t lie.

Dr. Strange, if you’ve read his history, is about a surgeon who is brilliant, but whose conceit and inflated self importance makes him virtually unbearable.  One of his first stories showed him telling a colleague that a case wasn’t worthy of his attention despite the condition of the patient.  As you know, Dr. Strange met with a car accident and it left him unable to use his hands for surgery or almost anything else.  Long story short, he went to a “secret mountain” where he met with an elder sorcerer who, very patiently, taught him the error of his ways.  He eventually was given the mantle, “Sorcerer Supreme” much to the dismay of another long time student who wanted that title.

But, I’m sure you know most, if not all of this, so let’s get to the latest volume of Dr. Strange.

The first thing that struck me is that Dr. Strange speaks directly the reader.  He talks to the reader as if they knew nothing about him.  He relates his story, he talks about the way he loves what he does and why he does it, and he is doing all of this while fighting a group called the “Free Rovers”.  It pulls you in immediately and forms a bond between you and the good doctor.  In a rare twist of Dr. Strange humor he touts himself as the reason the reader isn’t fighting demons right now and he goes on to say, “You’re welcome, by the way.”

The first few pages go on to establish Dr. Strange as a human with human frailties and human emotions.  It takes a gigantic step away from the Dr. Strange you see in the Illuminati, a person who can do no wrong, is steadfast in his opinions, and truly stands above the rest.  In this edition you even get the feeling that you and he are alike and that you could be a Sorcerer Supreme if you wanted to.  I confess, reading Dr. Strange all these years, I wondered how he remembered all the spells and hand gestures.  The new Dr. Strange shows it’s not always easy.

His “humanness” (if that is a word) goes on to become the humane.  When he is not saving us from the Dread Dormammu he is in the neighborhood healing kids and helping people with maladies that would baffle the common doctor.  When one parent offers to give Dr. Strange anything he would ask for saving his child, Dr. Strange replies, “Your neighbor is despondent.  I can feel the heat waves of his aura reverberating through the walls.  He has a birthday coming up, and he dreads the thought of spending it alone.  Bake him a cake and buy him a goldfish and consider your debt paid.”

Wow!  Who is this new and human Dr. Strange?  Interestingly enough the comic continues to get better.

He reveals to the reader how he sees the burdens of each person as he passes them by.  He refers to parasites that the soul attracts calling them 'inter-dimensional bacteria'.  The humor continues as he tries to get rid of one by “Shooing” it away from someone and it winds up eating him.  If you look carefully you can see the man who no longer has the parasite feeling refreshed while Dr. Strange is being eaten by the parasite.

Another thing that becomes evident in the comic is that all of the other sorcerers are being “humanized”.

To relieve stress Dr. Strange goes to a ‘sorcerers only’ coffee shop.  There he meets with Doctor Voodoo (the former Sorcerer Supreme), Shaman and The Scarlet Witch.

What do they discuss?  The stresses of the day,  just like you and I would.

Dr. Strange:   They were spooked.  Running from something.  “The Coming Slaughter” she called it.

Scarlet Witch:  Great.  Another one of those.

It’s such a human, and familiar, conversation I couldn’t help but laugh at how they talked about demons like we talk about paperwork.

There is a twist that seems to set this story up for some incredible storylines.  THIS IS A SPOILER IF YOU DIDN’T READ IT YET.

They talk about how there is a “bill coming due”.  The bill refers to how the universe needs to be in balance.

Monaco, the Prince of Magic:  There’s always a price to what we do.  A cost.  You do it too long without paying it, life will find a way of paying it for you.  You damn well oughta know that, Stephen.  In my day, every time I used a spell to clobber a buncha nazi warlocks and save some poor blonde’s life, I’d go home that night...and drown one of my rabbits.

Doctor Voodoo:  Not the rabbits again.

Monaco, the Prince of Magic:  Better to drown a thousand rabbits than to see some baby in Timbuktu drop dead ‘cause of what I’d done.  A life for a life.  That’s how you keep the cosmic balance.

The variety of storylines that can come from this realization is staggering.  It is also a dictum that I was taught from the time I was a child.  I remember mom saying, “If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.  If you do good things, good things will happen to you.”  Good ‘ole mom.

The bottom line is that Dr. Strange is going in a new direction.  This is a new and wonderfully human Dr. Strange.  It’s not the Dr. Strange you saw in Secret Wars.  It’s not the Dr. Strange who was faithfully a member of the Illuminati.  Heck, it’s not even the Dr. Strange from the last volume!  He’s now you and me.  He makes mistakes, he has the need to meet with other to decompress, he uses his powers for the common good, and he’s far from perfect.  There is something remarkably refreshing about the ‘new’ Dr. Strange.  Keep it up Jason Aaron, Christopher Bachalo, and Timothy Townsend, this is a winner and I cannot wait for the next issue!

The Comic Whisperer’s Ratings:

Overall Rating:             6 out of 6 Infinity Stones
Recommendation:        BUY and COLLECT

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My view on the upcoming Batman vs. Superman Movie

I have to start by asking what Batman could possibly do to Superman?

I know, I know, it's only a movie and I need to suspend logic and I'm a complete idiot for nitpicking like this.  I loved the Jurassic Park flicks, and I'm a comic book nerd, so clearly I should be able to let this go because it's pure fantasy.

But I can't.

I've seen the comics and watched the cartoons where Batman has kryptonite stored away for the day when Superman goes rogue.  There are even those comics where Superman GIVES Batman the kryptonite in case he goes over the edge.  So, I buy the fact that Batman may have a ridiculously slim shot of fighting Superman.

All that being said this shouldn't even be a movie.

This is like a child fighting the current MMA champion or one of the seven dwarfs slam dunking a basketball.  Even in a world of fantasy this is a stretch.

Let's look at what could happen if Batman comes within 200 feet of Superman, well out of kryptonite's influence.

-A blast of super cold breath could freeze Batman and anything he's carrying, then he could be punched into powder.

-Nothing physical Batman could do would hurt Superman.  This is the guy who took the initial blows from The Incredible Hulk and Doomsday and didn't flinch.

-We're talking a person with no super powers whatsoever in the "batsuit of the week" facing someone who can fly into the Sun and enjoy it.

Now, let me take a step back and say that I WILL go see the movie and probably enjoy it.  But in a movie where the person most likely to go rogue being Batman faces off against the super powered Boy Scout, I have to ask a few more questions:

-Why would DC possibly pit these two against one another with a Justice League movie in the wings where the two are best friends?

-How are they going to squeeze Lex Luthor and Wonder Woman, and some creature that will take all of them to beat, into one movie?  Yes, it's been leaked that there will be some villain created from General Zod's remains that will be able to combat the Trinity to a standstill.

You may say the answer to how they could pit them against one another in one film and have them be best friends in another is simply because they have to team up against another threat.  If all that is going to happen you can't justify the title Batman vs. Superman.  How can this fight last more than 15 minutes if a storyline has to be built around the two of them, and Wonder Woman, fight a villain created by Lex Luthor?  It sounds like a calamity to me.

Well, we shall see.  I'll definitely comment after I see the movie.

The 3 Things I Hate About the Jared Leto Joker

I don't like to get too critical of character,  after all actors and director do their best to make the comic characters come to life.  But of all the Jokers over the years, this one is the worst.

Let's start with the tattoos.  First of all they don't make any sense.  The Joker's laugh is one of the most iconic laughs in all of comicdom.  Did they really need to tattoo it on his upper chest?  And the skeleton head jester?  Really?  Isn't the fact that The Joker is The Joker not enough?  Besides, The Joker isn't buff and certainly doesn't take his shirt off, why the need to go this far?

Next, look at the "Damaged" tattoo on his forehead.  Let's review what The Joker does...he kills people and exposes them to a chemical that forces the enigmatic smile that they die with.  Is that not enough to show he's damaged?  Does Bane have a tattoo on his head that says "Steroids" or "Muscular"?  Does Killer Croc have a tattoo that says "Crocodile" or "Reptile"?  Is this intended to link him to Charles Manson?  You may think that ludicrous, but do you know anyone else who is tattooed on their forehead?

Next is the annoying, ridiculously annoying actually, single purple glove.  Give the Joker two gloves or no gloves, but don't give him the Michael Jackson look.  It's almost like the props department lost one of them so they decided to shoot it anyway with just one glove.  The old "one is better than none routine.

Last is the "Grill" that has been given to him.  What the heck is that?  Does Arkham have a dentist now?  Was The Joker paging through a magazine and decide that it was a good look for him?  Can anyone picture The Joker sitting in a dentist chair for hours with his mouth open and calm so he can get his "Grill"?  The only dentist I know capable of this would be familiar to you wrestling fans, Dr. Isaac Yankum, who is now wrestling as Kane.

Come on Hollywood, stop playing with one of the greatest villains of all time.  Just because you put him in his green and purple outfit, put him in the pose from The Killing Joke, doesn't make him The Joker.  His insanity makes him The Joker.  This is like stapling bacon, ham, and pork to a pig so everyone knows it's a pig.  This is not an issue of being a comic purist, it's an issue of asking people not to get carried away.   Next thing you know he The Joker will have a joker from a deck of cards superglued to his cheek.