Strange #5 // Review
Clea’s mother is drinking blood right where the neighbors can see it. Clea naturally feels more than a little uncomfortable with her reputation in the neighborhood, but she shouldn’t be. This is 177A Bleecker Street in Marvel Manhattan. The neighbors have seen worse. They see a whole lot more in Strange #5. Clea continues to search for a way to return Dr. Strange from the dead in another issue written by Jed MacKay that is graphically conjured by artist Marcelo Ferreira, inker Roberto Poggi, and colorist Java Tartaglia. The issue finds Clea hunting the evening with Moon Knight as she seeks his advice.
Things die down quickly on Bleecker Street. The party is over, and Clea needs to clean up. She’s still looking for a way to bring her husband back from the dead. It only makes sense that she would consult with a man very familiar with resurrection...Moon Knight. If she’s going to discuss matters with him, though, she’s going to have to do so while he’s out working for the god he serves. Clea’s been playing defender over the course of the past few months. This month she’s playing the role of the gritty earthbound crime-fighter.
MacKay manages a breezy team-up between Clea and Moon Knight with characteristic wit and heart. The team-up is a smart one that continues to show the resourcefulness beyond Clea’s power. She knows that Moon Knight doesn’t have the kind of power that could bring her late husband back from the dead, but she knows that his knowledge may be of some use to her. Clea’s interactions in a grittier street crime environment give MacKay an opportunity to explore the complexities of Clea’s personality. It’s an intriguing picture of someone who was raised in a much more brutally magical place but feels a connection to the homeworld of her late husband.
Ferreira and Poggi splash the magic across the page with a flair that contrasts well against the physical action brought to the page for Moon Knight. Tartaglia makes the combat magic positively radiant in the shadowy darkness of Moon Knight’s world. The real triumph of the art team in this issue lies in the mystery and the drama. Clea looks heroic in her own way as she inhabits the distinctively Ditko Cloak of Levitation. (Makes it look better than Stephen ever did.) Ferreira and Poggi also manage to shine the light of some very intricate dramatic nuance on her face as well.
It’s inevitable that Stephen’s going to come back to Bleecker Street. MacKay and company are making a strong case for Clea being a major character moving forward. Issue #5 and the four issues that came before it show Clea to be a far more interesting character than Stephen has been in recent years. Even if she’s not destined to be Sorcerer Supreme for a great deal longer, it would be really, really cool to continue to follow her after things get resolved for Marvel’s favorite Sorcerer Supreme.
