How Doctor Strange died, and a younger version stepped up to solve his murder

The Expiry of Doctor Strange #1 excerpt (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Doctor Strange is nonviable. That's atomic number 102 coddler - Marvel announced IT would happen when The Death of Dr. Strange event was first mentioned publically, just by the name of it. But after reading September 22's The Death of Doctor Strange #1, we bang that last is not the ending of the story - merely the beginning.

Spoilers ahead for The Death of Dr. Strange #1.

Doctor Oddish is dead.

Doctor Oddish is alive.

Thither's no resurrection up to her neck in this sleight of hand; it's a well-used mythological and comic book cliche that goes back centuries. In the case of The Death of Doctor Strange #1, it's a younger version of Doctor Rummy that appears following the death of his modern self, with the specific task to hear where his old self socialist off.

For some Avengers fans, they'll remember this very same kind of story in the 1995-1996 event Avengers: The Crossing, with a teenage version of Tony Stark recruited from the past by the Avengers to help battle a modern-day Tony Blunt who made a dark-skinned turn and straight himself with Kang the Vanquisher. The older Stark eventually regrets his ways and sacrifices himself to block what he started, leaving a 19-year-old version of himself behind to turn Marvel's chief Iron Man. Fans dubbed him 'Teenager Tony.'

It's too soon to say what this jr. version of Doctor Strange will be - he's still old enough to have a bit grey in his fuzz, simply for straight off, we'll call him Doogie Strange (after Doogie Howser, MD - hey, even our jokes are from the distant past!)

Over the row of The Demise of Doctor Unknown #1, it's revealed that Doctor Strange "severed" a portion of his soul and put it away in a pocket universe as a failsafe in the event that atomic number 2 was killed in the future.

How did Doctor Strange die?

Midway through the issues after a series of scenes showing Doctor Strange's daily tasks, he hears a knock along his front threshold at the Sanctum Santorum. Strange summons his classic attire and answers it. At firstborn, He greets them with no alarm, so it appears who or whatever is at this door is not like a sho threatening to him. But then they interrupt him to allege now bequeath represent his "last day."

The fight begins with a magical blast of some sort at the Sanctum Santorum's doorsill, then a baseball club-venire grid with Fantastic being knocked back on his heels. Atomic number 2's constrained against a palisade with magical blue tendrils of vigour, followed away the as-thus far-unrevealed aggressor brandishing a sticker and then things go black.

(Remember, the Scarlet Witch is shown to have died by a fatal stabbing from a mystery count on also brandishing a dagger. This leads us to a possibility on how Doctor Funny and Scarlet Witch's murders are connected.)

Although the fatal blow International Relations and Security Network't shown in detail, his trunk is found later with that dagger remaining in his chest - and magic users from around the Marvel observance something changing in the wind.

Another affair you might girl from reading the comic is that his hands are also missing, with pools of blood spilling away of his sleeves. After decades of organism injured to the repoint he couldn't perform surgery any longer, recent events restored his full use of his hands and he began doing surgery once again - healthy, as yet course.

Although his custody are absent, his ii iconic magic items - the Eye of Agamotto and the Dissemble of Levitation - persist along his body.

How does the Marvel Universe react?

Wong, Thor, Alpha Flight's Shaman, the trace frank Bats, Limbo's Sorcerer Sovereign Magik, Strange's assistant Zelma Stanton, Brother Voodoo, and John Reed Ivor Armstrong Richards are shown feeling a reaction to the killing of Doctor Strange - even though they are FAR away. All have an obvious connection to magic except for Richards, WHO is shown being aware of it somehow past a computer monitor reading "Dimensional Breach Close."

To begin with in the topic, Doyle Dormammu from the Strange Academy asks the Sorcerer Ultimate about "something happening in the outer planes" that He is sensing, but isn't aware what IT is. Weird mentions this has been brought to his attention earlier that day only doesn't have an account him.

Back at the crime scene, Wong, Zelda, Bats, and Brother Voodoo are the apparent first-responders to Eerie's dying, although the murderer is eternal gone. Strange's long-time foe Baron Mordo (with Kaecilius) arrives next. After first beingness damned for the murder by Wong, Mordo says atomic number 2 didn't do it - and is distracted because someone else 'stole' his right to kill Strange himself.

They're fitful past a prognosticate to Doctor Unusual's Avengers membership card (yeah, information technology has 5G) from Captain America. Cap isn't heedful of Naturalized's death, and is career for an "Avengers emergency".

"We need Antic. We're tracking multiple extradimensional invasions and are emoving to engross right away."

According to Stanton, the Purple Dimension, the Sixth Dimension, and the swamped city of Kalumesh have already taken reward of Strange's barrier falling and intruded into Earth.

Earlier in the issue during a presentation to the Eerie Academy, Doc Unnaturalized outlines that take off of his job arsenic Earth's Sorcerer Supreme is to play "part of the major planet's natural defenses."

He specifically talks about a barrier spell - a "master spell" as he calls it - He must maintain that "strengthens the boundaries between our dimension and the outside planes," which would include the Asgard, Limbo, Dark Dimension, the Celestial Concordance, the Consecution of Colours, and more. All those named have, at one point OR another, unsuccessful invasions of Earth before, and this barrier spell helps fend that off.

This storyline of the roadblock spell beingness down will apparently spin unsatisfactory into the ti Scripture Death of Doctor Strange: Avengers, with the Strange-little Avengers trying to respond to these magical emergencies.

But the final stage respondent to the death of Doctor Strange is the aforementioned younger Doctor Strange, Doogie Strange.

Who is Doogie Strange?

Although it's not specified in The Expiry of Doctor Strange #1, the outfit Doogie Strange wears dates this interpretation to a really specific time - his showtime class in litigate, November 1963 through December 1964.

When Doctor Strange outset began victimization magic, his wise man the Ancient Cardinal talented him a dress of magical items - including a blue Cloak of Levitation and the Amulet of Agamotto. You can William Tell them obscure from the color of the dissemble, and how the Talisman of Agamotto is square. It isn't until December 1964's Strange Tales #127 that Strange receives the round Eye of Agamotto talisman and the more powerful red Dissemble of Levitation.

(Strange ended up gifting the blue Cloak to an prentice years later, while the Talisman remained in Strange's possession - although Deadpool did steal it once.)

So aside the looks of The Death of Doctor Naturalized #1, Doogie Strange is a first-year version of Doctor Strange who hasn't completed his grooming under the Ancient One. He isn't even the Sorcerer Supreme at this stage - that wouldn't be until tenner years subsequent, in issue time.

How did Doctor Strange plan for Doogie Singular?

Rummy was around when the whole 'Teen Tony' thing happened, but the first-person narration from Strange in The Death of Doctor Strange #1 reveals the plan is inspired past something a lot older - a 300+-year-old character from Russian folklore called Koschei.

(Yes, the Same Koschlei, 'The Deathless,' that Mike Mignola has adapted as a character reference in his Mignolaverse family of characters with Hellboy recently.)

On that point are various versions of the Koschei folklore, but the common element is that he was an evil mage World Health Organization attempted to become immortal by saving a piece of his person away and hiding it within an aim - correspondent to how a Horcrux is used by Voldemort in the Harry Muck aroun mythology.

According to Strange's recital, the Sorcerer Dominant did the same as a failsafe in sheath he was killed. And instantly it's being put to use.

As the first-class honours degree issue ends, it's a story on two fronts - one to find out who dead Doctor Strange, but so at the same clip likewise stepping into the breach Strange left to protect Earth against other-dimensional invasions and other magic calamities.

IT remains to be seen if Doogie Strange is right here temporarily, or will be ironed into full-time duty beyond just this series.

The story continues along Oct 20 with Death of Doctor Strange #2 (of 5), which you can see an advance trailer of now.

Wonder has said the next Sorcerer Supreme of Earth will be named in December - and we've got a shortlist of potential Sorcerer Supremes already going.

Newsarama Major Editor Chris Arrant has dabbled risible book news for Newsarama since 2003, and has too written for USA Nowadays, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Wonder Amusement, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brewage, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Fine art of Wanderer-Man Standard, and contributed to Dark Sawhorse/Bedside Jam' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a jurist for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a extremity of the American Library Association's Graphic Original & Comics Round Table. (He/him)