Review: Doctor Strange #1 - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
Review: Doctor Strange #1
By Andy Frisk
October 9, 2015 - 00:58

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Jason Aaron
Penciller(s): Chris Bachalo
Inker(s): Tim Townsend, Al Vey and Mark Irwin
Colourist(s): Chris Bachalo
Letterer(s): VC's Cory Petit
Cover Artist(s): Chris Bachalo
$4.99

There hasn't been an ongoing Doctor Strange comic book series for as long as I can remember. There's a movie coming up though staring none other than the awesome Benedict Cumberbatch as the good doctor, so Marvel Comics pulls out the big guns (the ones they used to reserve for the X-Men before then began not caring about them since they get less cash off their movie success) in the form of writer Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo (both of Wolverine and The X-Men fame). Turns out the good doctor hasn't looked or read this good in years. What else would you expect from Aaron though?

What's Happening: There's a storm a brewin' in the aether realms that's threatening to destroy all the magical plains (and of course ours as well), and our hero is just now getting wind of it. Strange things are happening, even as compared to Doctor Strange's experiences, and he himself just might end up being on the receiving end of a re-balancing of the costs and demands of all the magic he's been throwing around and using to keep our realm safe. Looks like he won't be standing alone though against the coming threat though...hopefully.

The Writing: This is yet another Jason Aaron powered Marvel Comics joint, so little exposition on the smoothness of the plot, the witty, yet gentle, sarcasm, and sharp dialogue and character development employed by Aaron herein is needed. Aaron has done wonders with Thor, Wolverine (before Marvel Comics decided to stop publishing stories about him in some attempt to starve out interest in the movie version of the character...in my opinion at least), and Ghost Rider, so he's the perfect writer to take Stephen Strange through a brilliant adventure and then turn him into a woman, or something...

The Artwork: I have honestly never really enjoyed Bachalo's art outside of this issue of Doctor Strange and his run on Death: The High Cost of Living a little over two decades ago. He's a talented artist an all, but he's got such a quirky style that it is best suited to strange, magical tales, or in short Doctor Strange and Death of The Endless' tales. Since Death is pretty much dead as far as new material on the character is concerned (pun intended), looks like Bachalo will have to draw Doctor Strange. And does he ever. Doctor Strange and the weird aether-ectoplasmic-netherworlds he traipses through never looked as cool. Doctor Strange's other realm adventures had, in the past, often taken on a very Tibetian-Hinduism look (which was very, very cool for its psychedelic time), but here under Bachalo's creative eye, the aeither-ectoplasmic-netherworlds take on the look of...well, something from a Clive Barker/Stephen King/Chris Bachalo horror work. And it looks fantastic.

The Verdict: While I'm pretty much as done with Marvel Comics as I am with DC Comics now that the 616 Universe is dead, I'm going to stick around and check out these new adventures of Doctor Strange, mostly because I'm a Jason Aaron junkie, but partly because there hasn't been an interesting (or any interest on behalf of Marvel Comics in) Doctor Strange and I'd like to see where this goes.

Rating: 8/10