Marvel Team-Up Featuring Doctor Strange and Goopy
Pain Monster
Written By:
Jason Aaron
Art By:
Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, John Livesay, Victor Olazaba, Al Vey, Tim Townsend
Jamie Mendoza & Wayne Faucher, Chris Bachalo with Rain Beredo
Letters By:
VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Price:
$3.99
On Sale Date: August 3, 2016
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
We have arrived at the conclusion of the five-part
story “The Last Days of Magic!” so I suppose this would be…the last day? I
wonder if it will be like the Last Days
of Disco: a half-believable, dull recollection of partying hearty. Or
perhaps like the Last Days of Coney
Island: a poorly-drawn, shamefully-animated half-assed attempt at a Ralph
Bakshi cartoon. Or maybe it’s like the biblical Last Days: a crazy chaotic mess
of weather anomalies and giant angels with multiple heads on snake necks and
with lion faces breathing fire that neither burns nor ignites the faithful! Oh,
please let it be like the biblical Last Days! With Doctor Strange, that’s actually not impossible. So let’s stop
joshing around and dive into the review!
Explain
It!
It’s sort of weird to hop on a series at the end of a
five-part story, particularly when that is advertised on the cover, so I’m not
going to bother rehashing too much here. Speaking of the cover: is that the
most bullshit you’ve seen in a while, or what? They might as well have just had
a hand giving the reader the finger, for all the effort that went into this
one. I’m sure there’s some incredible reason as to why the cover to Doctor
Strange #10 looks like a poor man’s version of the character selection screen
on Street Fighter II, but the fact is
that it looks amateurish and like the comic book is an afterthought. Surely
there was something in inventory that would have been better.
Anyway, Doctor Strange is down in his basement,
facing off against Imperikul with his paltry magic weapons, while a massive
heap of slop with eyeballs and mouths that represents the pain that Strange has
deferred when casting his magic oozes in the background. Strange fires some
magic arrows, but Imperikul just absorbs them and sends them back at the good
Doctor, with devastating effect. Imperikul beats him up for a while, then—as
the fight is happening—Strange encounters the pain goop, which naturally wants
to kill him. Meanwhile, the weapon battle between Marvel’s magic heroes
contingent and Imperikul’s drones wages just outside the Outer Sanctum, and in
the Himalayas Stephen Strange’s pal Zelma starts bleeding from her eye and
sends good vibes over to Greenwich Village, where the Doc is battling. Later,
Wong and the rest of the monastery join her in their chant. Just so you know
about it. All this stuff is happening in the background.
So back to Imperikul and the Doctor and the pain gak
are all hanging out in the basement, and Strange decides to strike up a deal
with the pain paste to team up with him against Imperikul. The pain sludge
wants to kill Doctor Strange, and indeed believes the honor is, by rights, the
pain splooge’s, so it fends of Imperikul to save the Doctor for later, more justified
murder. After some round robin-style fighting, Strange throws some powderized
Ancient One in Imperikul’s eyes, blinding him and—I think causing some giant
green explosion that reveals his invasion to normal (non-magic) humans? I think
that’s what happens…whatever it is, the shield keeping the world at large from
seeing the massive war between science robots and magicians happening right
next to them has failed, which is nice because Scarlet Witch bet her friend
five bucks that it was happening.
At this point, the pain slurry oozes all over Doctor
Strange, forming a kind of sticky, black suit with toothy mouths all over it,
and which reminded me of the time Squirrel Girl attacked Doctor Doom in a
battle suit made from live squirrels. This is less exciting, though, since
Strange uses his new power to punch the living daylights out of Imperikul,
eventually setting off another massive explosion that knocks out his invading
forces and leaves him weakened. Then, with the help of people worldwide that have
believed so much in Doctor Strange that they’ve grown a third eye on their
foreheads, Strange pummels Imperikul into submission. In the epilogue, we see
that the pain residue has gotten away to attempt murder another day, Imperikul
is being held in the basement as Strange’s new pain receptacle (which is a
pretty John Constantine thing for him to do), and the world’s magic is still
drained or missing or whatever, so basically Doc Strange is going to have to
get a day job, and let me tell you his typing skills are not good.
Another thing that’s not good is this drawn-out story
of Doctor Strange’s failure. Having this epic battle between aliens and
magicians that the normal world can’t see really lowered the stakes of the
whole thing, but when the solution is to enslave the antagonist and be left
powerless anyway, then the fact that this played out over five issues really
feels like a lot of nothing going on. I do like the art in this book, though I
wonder why it requires so many inkers. But it is expressive and the layouts
quite creative, except for the layout of the cover which absolutely sucks. So
all in all, not a great story arc, not my favorite iteration of Doctor Strange,
not recommended. Maybe in September, when a new arc begins that will ostensibly*
coincide with the November 4 release of the Doctor
Strange movie, things will become more interesting. But unlike the sycophantic
monks at the Himalayan monastery, I don’t have faith.
*That is, unless, the whole thing is renumbered and
rejiggered after Marvel’s October event, or whatever.
Bits and
Pieces:
5.5/10
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