Strange Academy #6 - Marvel Comics

STRANGE ACADEMY No. 6, February 2021

Taking its audience by the hand down a dark and winding pathway from tongue-in-cheek magical machinations to some disturbingly lethal sorcerous shenanigans, Skottie Young’s narrative for Issue Six of “Strange Academy” definitely injects the ongoing series’ with a strong sense of deadly danger by its conclusion. In fact, by the end of the twenty-page periodical it seems certain that the somewhat carefree education of the school’s surviving students will never be taught in the same manner again; “Zelma. Did you get them stabilized enough for me to get back to the Sanctum Sanctorum and --”

Intriguingly though, this journey down the rabbit hole is so well penned by the Inkwell Award-winner that it is highly unlikely many of this comic’s readers actually noticed the plot’s ever-enclosing storm clouds of dread and doom until the publication’s final splash panel revelation. Up until this point, it still seems highly plausible that Emily Bright’s well-meaning, yet massively under-powered rescue expedition, are somehow going to survive their confrontation with the Hollow reasonably unscathed, especially considering that the heavily outnumbered adolescent apprentices are still occasionally swapping witticisms with one another.

Indeed, having managed to stave off the wooden-faced cultists with a wall of frozen icicles, an incredibly creepy horde of zombies, and vicious wall of fire, the children initially appear to have an entire arsenal of potent supernatural weapons up their young sleeves with which to defend themselves. Unfortunately however, if there is one thing Young’s storyline makes very clear, it is that the pupils have been sorely mislead as to their actual prowess in the Mystic Arts by their teachers, as one by one their visually impressive enchantments fall surprisingly flat when faced with some genuinely competent spell slingers.

To put things into even clearer perspective, the almost casual way Doctor Strange and Jericho Drumm dispatch the Hollow once they arrive ‘in the nick of time’ just goes to show how wide the chasm between Doyle Dormammu’s seemingly awesome powers are with those of the actual Sorcerer Supreme himself. Such a misleading sham to lull the students into a false sense of security concerning their abilities genuinely smacks as a major betrayal of trust by the teachers, and arguably causes as much consternation as the fact that this comic ends with the death of at least one pupil.

The regular cover art of "STRANGE ACADEMY" #6 by Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado