Doctor Strange #20 // Review
The final issue of Doctor Strange finds the doctor dealing with the nightmare of responsibility on a whole new level as the injury which thrust him into the mystic arts has disappeared entirely. Writer Mark Waid ushers-in a whole new chapter in the life of the Sorcerer Supreme in an issue drawn by Jesus Saiz. A strange, little diversion into another place and a distant conflict feels like a bit of a strange place to end the current series, but the evolution of the character is a welcome mutation which just might lead him into a promising new phase in his life.
Doctor Strange is called on to perform surgery. He is a highly respected surgeon as he once was in a different life. It’s been years since he last practiced as serfdom, though and his techniques are obsolete. Operate on the patient who needs his help and he risks killing them. Something’s strange about it, though. Why does everyone suddenly have the face of the entry known as Nightmare? Strange awakens to have a conversation with the glowing green ghost of an old basset hound. The sympathetic ear of a late canine companion launches Strange into the final adventure with a technomancer in another galaxy before a whole new chapter in his life.
Waid’s work here feels a bit odd at the end of a rather long run of the current Doctor Strange series. Magic has restored the sorcerer’s ability to perform surgery, which grants him a whole new world of responsibility, but theoretically, the most powerful sorcerer o earth could have crafted the magic to do so long ago, so why the sudden reversal of his condition now? There are countless possible reasons, but Waid ignores the basic fundamentals of Strange’s transformation in favor of transporting him into an adventure that’s little different from the usual type of far that he’s encountered over the decades. Kind of anticlimactic.
Saiz lends Strange an intensity that goes beyond the supernatural. The opening dream feels very taut with ER personnel all in uniform scrubs in a perfectly mundane setting, which amplifies the dark weirdness of the reveal when it becomes totally apparent that the event is a nightmare. There’s the potent darkness of horror about the last issue of the current series even once that fantastic DOES arrive on the page in a boho way. Above all, there is a cautious sense of exploration drawn across the face of the hero in every panel. Saiz does a clever job of making the moments in this issue feel personally monumental to the hero, which is quite an accomplishment given all that he’s been through over the decades. Strange’s unique intellect reads through on his face with the scalpel-like emotional precision of Saiz’s pen.
It may not be a totally satisfying end for the series, but Strange’s story isn’t over. One series ends, the next begins in Doctor Strange – Surgeon Supreme, which has Waid returning to write the exploits of the sorcerer in December with artist Kevin Walker. Before then, however, there’s the small matter of a Doctor Strange Annual written by Tini Howard. Set on Halloween night, the issue goes on sale on October 30th.
