Writers: J.Michael Straczynski & Sara (Samm) Barnes
Artist: Brandon Peterson
Publisher: Marvel Knights
Right, first things first, if you’re expecting this to be the JMS-penned Doctor Strange story that ties in with events in Amazing Spider-Man, then you’ll be disappointed. This issue at least doesn’t have anything to do with those stories, and looks to be a retelling of Strange’s origin instead. Future issues might deal with those particular loose ends, but there’s nothing here that’s essential to the Spidey stories.
Secondly, all this “you are the one” business isn’t nuanced and clever, it’s clumsy and heavy-handed. It worked in The Matrix because there they did something a bit more subtle than have a bunch of people pop up and just say “you are the one”, and because we didn’t know before we went in that Neo would be The One. Here, it’s just clunky and a bit embarrassing. Tsk.
Otherwise, this comic is rather… average, really. The art is pretty decent, but doesn’t particularly impress or grate at any point, and the writing, woefully clumsy attempts at clever foreshadowing aside, is just as undistinguished. Part of this is due to the fact that all we’re getting here is an expanded retelling of Strange’s origin, but all the additions seem to be closer to padding than anything of importance. This is the same origin, with different art, and a number of added scenes of wanton debauchery, just to show what a bastard Strange was before he got his powers. The best friend seems to be new, and will probably suffer some nasty accident, as he’s not hanging around with Strange in the modern Marvel Universe (unless this is non-continuity, in which case we’re definitely not going to get any of the Spidey plot threads tidied up). The accident that ruins Strange’s hands has also changed, although not for the better, as what we see here suggests that he has a nasty skiing accident that somehow only injures his hands. Yes, he’s in a bit of a mess generally, but all the blood seems to be coming from his hands for some reason. On the other hand (no pun intended), the dialogue is for the most part pretty natural, but when that’s the only significant improvement over the original origin (ha!), you know there’s something up.
The general impression here is one of pointlessness. The additions and changes don’t bring any new insight to the character, and I’m hard pressed to see why this should replace previous versions of the character’s origins. It’s not bad by any means, and future issues might do a better job of justifying the series’ existence, but this first issue fails to convince me that you need a miniseries to tell Strange’s backstory, when one back issue (or a page from the online or print versions of the Marvel Encyclopaedia) will do the job just as well.
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