Strange #3 // Review
Clea Strange is on the hunt for a gang known as the Blasphemy Cartel. She’s from out of town, so she will need a guide. In order to track-down scum, you’re going to need to work with scum. She’s going to contact The Rose. And she’s going to find a mystery in Strange #3. Writer Jed MacKay continues an entertaining mix of magic, muscle, and crime with penciler Marcelo Ferreira, inkers Roberto Poggi and Don Ho, and colorist Java Tartaglia. Clea’s distinct personality shines radiantly in a novel take on the world of magic in the Marvel Universe.
The Rose assumes that Clea has killed his bodyguards. Actually, they’re okay. They’ve been turned into snakes, but they’re okay. She wants to get some information out of The Rose. She gets a little bit more than she might have expected when the Blasphemy Cartel tries to give her the slip through a lei line in Manhattan. They’ve got another surprise for her when they spring the Sands of Nisanti on her as well, but she IS the Sorcerer Supreme of a couple of different dimensions, and it’s pretty clear that they don’t know what they’re up against. Neither does Clea.
The third issue in the series is shockingly breezy. By the time it’s really started, it’s already over. All that’s left by the closing splash page is a shadow of a remarkably well-paced script. MacKay’s juxtaposition between Spidey-level organized crime and powerful magic slices its way across the page. Darkness faces greater darkness in a delicious anti-hero who is a lot more fun than Stephen Strange has managed to be on many occasions. MacKay finds the perfect balance in another thoroughly satisfying chapter in the life of a woman who walks in magic on two different planes.
Ferriera, Poggi, and Ho find the right pulse between earthbound gun violence and powerful magic. The art team manages to find clever angles and a sweeping sense of movement in the chase and subsequent battle between Clea and the agents of Codename Oathbroken: Blasphemy Cartel 024. Tartaglia brings the night-based confrontation a beautiful kind of radiance with lights mixing from stars in the night sky, headlights on the highway, and eldritch powers. Clea’s purple glow is beautiful until the orange text of AR-15 gunfire prompts the sorcerer supreme to conjure a fire of her own.
Somehow one just knows that Dr. Strange is going to be resurrected all too soon. Given what Clea has been doing these past three months as Sorcerer Supreme, that feels like it will be at least a little disappointing. Clea’s adventures thus far have been an appealing blend of mystery and magic that draws fantasy into a world of crime and tech. It’s the type of fusion that MacKay had managed so well with his Black Cat series. The hero is dark. The villains are fascinating. There’s a tremendous dramatic weight about it all. Clea’s fun. Here’s hoping she sticks around for a while.
