Doctor Strange [2015] #26 - Marvel Comics

DOCTOR STRANGE No. 26, December 2017

Devotees of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s fantasy tabletop role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” doubtless had plenty to enjoy with John Barber’s marvellously claustrophobic narrative for Issue Twenty-Six of “Doctor Strange”, with both the titular character and Zelma Stanton making “what may well be their last house-call” deep inside the long abandoned 76th Street subway station and subsequently facing a foe seemingly snatched straight from Tom Moldvay's module "The Lost City". Indeed, this twenty-page periodical’s opening sequence, which depicts Dwarven Mage Varkath accompanying an ill-fated expedition desperately trying to flee the underground lair of an unseen shambling horror “eons ago”, would arguably have been perfect itself as the introductory scenario for one of “Tactical Studies Rules” early Seventies’ adventure supplements.

Fortunately however, those bibliophiles within this comic’s 24,001-strong audience who didn’t have a comprehensive understanding of “the best-known and best-selling role-playing game” shouldn’t have felt that they had been put at any particular disadvantage due to the freelance writer utilising the Sorcerer Supreme’s mentoring of his apprentice as an appropriate vehicle to explain to the reader just what is taking place; “Which points to possession, or some sort of soul corruption. The Thaumaturge Trivium were legends… in certain circles, mostly in Tibet.” In addition, despite its strong dungeon-based ‘dice-rolling’ flavour, beautifully conveyed by Niko Henrichon’s pencilling, the “long-time editor of Marvel’s Ultimate line” slowly morphs his narrative into a seemingly much more straightforward story of ‘Cat and Mouse’ between a truly sinister, all-pervading evil and a disconcertingly weaponless Master of the Mystic Arts.

Intriguingly though, at some indiscernible point this terrific tale also shies away from being a fright-fest involving murderous ghoulish ghosts stalking a modern-day world not of their making and instead provides a fascinating focus upon Strange’s past misdoings, which ultimately culminates with the former preeminent surgeon’s dark soul actually overpowering the ancient entity’s malevolence due to it being “a long time since anyone accused” him of being “pure of heart.” This contamination of an “evil thing poking at my soul”, alongside Stephen’s admission that he has occasionally bent “right towards wrong” really does raise some interesting questions as to the magic-user’s past, and the implication that the good Doctor and his librarian will at some point brave further into the dustily decrepit world buried beneath New York City in order to hunt “for [more] remnants of power” bodes well for even more murky revelations to come…

Writer: John Barber, Artist: Niko Henrichon, and Letters: VC's Cory Petit