Warning: SPOILERS for Dr. Strange: Surgeon Supreme #2
Whenever Doctor Strange stars in a Marvel series, incredible displays of magic are a guarantee. The most impressive of these tend to happen in a matter of moments: the Ancient One sending Cumberbatch’s Strange through the multiverse or Eternity forcing Strange to relive the entire history of the Earth. In this week’s Dr. Strange: Surgeon Supreme #2, a battle with a newly-upgraded villain led to just such an event. Strange’s foe tore the multiverse apart and the Sorcerer Supreme knitted its bonds back together… all in the blink of an eye.
Surgeon Supreme #2, written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Kev Walker, centers around a battle between Strange and a longtime Marvel villain named the Wrecker. The Wrecker is traditionally a straightforward physical threat who uses an enchanted crowbar to smash through obstacles, sometimes for theft and sometimes to cause chaos on behalf of an employer in need of a distraction. The Wrecker is working the latter job in this case, but the crucial difference is that his crowbar has received an upgrade: rather than wielding a bludgeon that merely brings down buildings and totals cars, he’s using a glowing weapon that can wreck reality itself.
The new equipment surprises Strange, but the good doctor has been forging his own magical items. Waid’s run began with the revival of magic on Earth after a perilous absence, which led to the Sorcerer Supreme creating a foundry where he can begin to replenish his impoverished stock of enchanted artifacts. Strange devises a pair of magic-resistant gauntlets that give him a chance to block the Wrecker’s spacetime-rupturing strikes and, he hopes, wrest it from the construction-themed pillager’s grasp.
When Wrecker notices Strange’s preparations, he shows the mage a new trick: using his crowbar to pry open the endless layers that make up the multiverse, ripping Strange into pieces of every Doctor Strange on every iteration of Earth.
This move is a bizarre mix of visceral and abstract, endangering Strange on every timeline and causing them all extreme agony in the process. Though the collected Stranges didn’t have the time or strength to communicate, they all formed the same spell, creating some sort of magical lattice that exploded out to repel their attacker and sew together the dimensional rift. The alternate versions of the Sorcerer Supreme – old, young, male, female, and mummified – disappeared, leaving only our Strange to rip away the stunned Wrecker’s crowbar and finish him off.
Doctor Strange was able to disintegrate the new crowbar as part of a spell that reversed the damage, as well as the new weapon of Wrecker’s partner Thunderball: a wrecking ball that looked like a miniature star on a chain. But their attack only raised more troubling questions. Strange has no idea who supplied the enchanted tools or why… but the issue suggests that it’s someone with access to the sorcerer’s own foundry.
This is the last thing Strange needs right now – he’s already working two lifesaving jobs thanks to the restoration of his surgeon’s hands and dealing with the return of former allies with ulterior motives they refuse to admit. (Not to mention that he’s working on several Avengers teams at once in other books.) For the challenges ahead in Surgeon Supreme, Doctor Strange is going to wish he had kept a few of those alternate versions around.
Dr. Strange: Surgeon Supreme #2 is on sale at your local comics shop now.
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