Doctor Strange #1 Casts Spell This October

A live-action Doctor Strange movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch is officially scheduled for next year. So comic book fans of the Master of the Mystic Arts knew that Marvel would have a new comic book series coming out soon.

Well, that time is now.

Doctor Strange #1 is set to drop next month at your favorite local comic book store. The writer of the new series is Jason Aaron of Star Wars and Thor fame. Series artist will be Chris Bachalo, whose more recent works include the Uncanny X-Men and The Avengers. For the first issue, artist Kevin Nowlan lends a hand on the art with the five-page bonus story also written by Aaron.

Doctor Strange was created by comic book artist legend Steve Ditko. Making his debut in Strange Tales #110, Stephen Vincent Strange was a brilliant and arrogant neurosurgeon. (Dr. Gregory of the television series, House, on steroids.) Strange’s medical career ended after an auto accident shattered the bones in his hands and left them trembling uncontrollably. After using his considerable fortune trying to find a cure, the destitute doctor tracked down a hermit known as the Ancient One. Strange saved the Ancient One from another magician and became his apprentice. Later, he would inherit his mentor’s title and role as Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth Dimension.

Doctor Strange has been the star of his own comic series off and on since the 1960s but spent much of the 2000s as either a support character (Amazing Spider Man, New Avengers) or even as a foe (New Avengers, Secret Wars).

So what’ll be Strange’s new role in his series? The House of Ideas is just giving the vaguest of hints. A “dark new power” is on the rise that will have “repercussions for all magic users”. Strange is apparently not up to the task and the line, “it’ll take a new kind of Sorcerer Supreme”, alluding to all kinds of changes. A new Sorcerer Supreme? Or a new, darker attitude, i.e., Man of Steel? And will this new direction have any ties to the upcoming movie? Marvel’s tight-lipped as a closed Eye of Agamotto.