TEAM STRANGE
There’s strength in numbers in Doctor Strange And The Sorcerers Supreme
Due to make his big-screen debut later this month, Marvel’s Master of the Mystic Arts is also set to become the focal point of his very own team book. Written by Supernatural scribe Robbie Thompson and drawn by Javier Rodriguez, it won’t actually be the good doctor himself who calls the shots in Doctor Strange And The Sorcerers Supreme.
“The group is pulled together by none other than Merlin,” Thompson tells Red Alert. “He’s assembled a group of Sorcerers Supreme to combat something in his own time that he can’t handle on his own.”
Taken from different moments in history, the line-up includes Yao, a “not-so-ancient” teenage Ancient One, as well as Young Avengers mage Wiccan, Brazilian mage Nine, Apache Sorcerer Supreme Kushala, Sir Isaac Newton and a “slightly evolved” Mindless One called the Mindful One, and, of course, Stephen Strange himself. “By rights, he should be the ringleader but he has just taken an absolute beating in ‘Last Days Of Magic’,” says Thompson, referring to the recent storyline in Doctor Strange’s Jason Aaron-written solo title, which saw sinister, extra-dimensional beings the Empirikul almost wipe out all magic in the Marvel Universe.
“The Empirikul’s actions have unleashed an entity known as the Forgotten,” teases Thompson. “This mystical monster was imprisoned by magic, but escapes when the Empirikul destroy magic in our time. Free from his bond after centuries of captivity, the Forgotten has gone back in time to reclaim what was once his. So in the first couple of issues, you can expect to see a desperate Merlin assembling this group on the fly, and we’re going to hit the ground running, as they’re going to be on their heels right away, and not everyone is going to survive the journey.”
Apart from the various Sorcerers Supreme themselves, Thompson hints that some well-known supporting characters will also make an appearance. “I can’t give too much away,” he teases, “but I would love to see Clea and Wong in the pages of Doctor Strange And The Sorcerers Supreme!”
Doctor Strange And The Sorcerers Supreme is published by Marvel Comics on 26 October.