After 58 years of spellcasting, cape swooshes, and saving lives, the Sorcerer Supreme’s time is just about up in the Marvel Universe. A trailer released earlier this week revealed the Marvel is currently working on new series titled Death of Doctor Strange. The five-issue storyline is set to release this September, and tells the story of Strange’s final days, as well as how his super-powered peers react to his untimely demise. According to Marvel’s official blog post announcing the tragic story, readers can expect a “terrifying tale filled with deadly new villains, outstanding mystical feats, and complex mysteries that all of Marvel’s heroes will be desperate to solve.”
At the center of these mysteries, of course, is a pretty big one: who killed Doctor Strange. Death of Doctor Strange writer Jed MacKay and artist Lee Garbett are framing the series as a sort of “whodunnit” of mystical, and Marvel, proportions. While superhero deaths are often shrugged off in comic books (which is fair considering the staggering number of ‘resurrections’ that follow them), the series could still be an incredibly big deal for Strange’s character and the Marvel Comics Universe. Death of Doctor Strange marks the first time Strange has ever died in the comics, and the death of the world’s Sorcerer Supreme is not one to take lightly and is also the crux of what MacKay wants to dig into:
What happens to the world if Doctor Strange isn’t in it?’ It’s a question that I’m excited to show people the answer to in Death of Doctor Strange. Strange has been a Marvel fixture from the early days, but now, his time has run out and as a Strange fan, it’s been my bittersweet privilege to shepherd him through his last day and the effects that snowball out of it.
You see, without Strange, the world is left without the chief hero responsible for ensuring multidimensional peace and fighting back actual horrors the likes of which other Marvel heroes don’t encounter as much. It’s also worth noting that whenever Marvel has used the “Death of…” title — such as in Death of Captain Marvel, Death of Wolverine, and Death of the Mighty Thor — it’s led to major changes that have completely altered the shape of the Marvel Comics Universe. Will there be a new Sorcerer Supreme? Did an ally kill Strange? Is he gone for good? The answers to all of these have serious repercussions. At the very least, we can expect the run to make an impact in Marvel’s upcoming titles, as his absence allows for the emergence of some pretty unique evils. It all starts this September when the first issue of Death of Doctor Strange hit comics book stores.
