DOCTOR STRANGE

 

DOCTOR STRANGE

Real Name: Stephen Vincent Strange

First Appearance: Strange Tales (Vol. 1) #110, July 1963

Powers: Dr. Stephen Strange was a brilliant, wealthy, and celebrated neurosurgeon whose career was cut short when a car accident resulted in nerve damage to his hands. Despondent and near-destitute after exhausting most of his wealth on faux-treatments, Strange traveled to the Himalayas to seek the counsel of the Ancient One, a Tibetan sorcerer. As a guest in the Ancient One's home, the jaded Strange proved himself worthy as the sorcerer saw his potential for great goodness and power, and adopted him as his disciple. When Strange's studies with the Ancient One ended, he returned to New York and became a leading occult authority.

Dr. Strange is a Master of the Mystic Arts and frequently holds the title of Sorcerer Supreme of our dimension. Typically speaking, his powers come from three distinct sources: His natural psychic potential, ambient magic in the environments, and extra-dimensional entities or power sources.

Strange can access a number of psychic abilities, which are the inherent potential found within all human minds. He is capable of thought-casting, reaching out mentally to touch the mind of another person over a vast distance, allowing them to communicate telepathically. He can also read the minds of other people to a certain degree. Unlike a mutant telepath, who tends to accidentally pick up on stray thoughts from others if they aren't careful, Strange's mind-reading ability requires considerable concentration on his part to perform at all, so much so that he typically relies on other means to reach what's inside someone's mind, like the truth-seeking rays of the Eye of Agamotto or compulsive mesmerism. Doctor Strange is very skilled at manipulating the minds of others with little more than a glance or a hypnotic gesture: He can modify or erase memories with ease, create illusions to disguise his attire or physical appearance, make himself or others invisible to the naked eye, or send people into a placid trance. While entranced, Strange can command people to voluntarily reveal information to him or carry out his bidding. Dr. Strange also possesses psychokinetic abilities, enabling him to levitate and manipulate matter through the power of his mind. Without accessing an outside source of power, Strange can typically lift no more than a few hundred pounds of weight, and mostly restricts himself to moving around small objects, or performing self-levitation in the lotus position. Finally, Strange can release his astral form, causing his spirit to leave his body and travel unfettered by mortal bonds. In this state he is invisible, inaudible and intangible, detectable only by those with mystical powers or sensibilities for the most part. He can consciously make himself visible to people if he chooses to, and project his voice telepathically in order to be heard. Strange can travel in this form at the speed of thought, and can access most of his own psychic abilities even while separated from his body. He can also possess the bodies of other people if necessary, providing they are not protected by some mystical power. Typically, Strange cannot remain free from his body for more than 24 hours without risking dissolution of his astral form, although there have been several instances when that limit has been surpassed.

Doctor Strange can manipulate the naturally occurring magical forces that permeate our environment, using a cross between spoken incantations and arcane hand movements to focus his spells. The powers he can summon in this manner vary considerably: He can fire bolts of bedevilment which stun opponents into submission or unconsciousness, cast protective energy shields to deflect various forms of attack, become intangible to move unopposed through solid objects, manipulate the various elemental forces such as fire, earth, wind and water (although he asserts this has always been a weak area in his expertise), summon images out of thin air to portray events from the past or the future, conjure objects out of thin air or alter the molecular composition of existing objects, and perform acts of teleportation. Dr. Strange is quite easily capable of moving from one dimensional plane to another, but teleporting within a given set of dimensional boundaries is more difficult, and overuse of such a spell can wear down existing dimensional walls to allow incursions from hostile realms. Travel through time is more difficult than any other form of transportation, but it is possible under certain circumstances. A simple casting can also be used to make him comfortable in the vacuum of space or the bottom of the ocean. The realms of magic can deal with highly specific forms of spells or incantations, requiring Strange to have a keen knowledge of who or what he's facing. For instance, Doctor Strange knows a spell of containment designed specifically for werewolves, creating a barrier that is virtually unbreakable to those creatures yet all-but irrelevant to other entities. And even that spell failed to contain Jack Russell, because he had developed into a different kind of werewolf. His ability to wield these forces also makes him instinctively sensitive to disturbances in the ether, or changes in magical energy around him. This gives him certain heightened senses, allowing him to detect the presence of dimensional travel, sense sudden or powerful sources of magic nearby, and attunes him to the various mystical barriers he has set up around his Sanctum Sanctorum, making him aware of anyone's approach. Strange can also send out seeker spells, "programmed" to locate specific people or objects and return to him once they have done so.

The third and final main source of Doctor Strange's powers is accessing extra-dimensional sources of power, or using items with their own inherent magical powers. A large part of this is merely casting a spell while invoking the name of a particularly powerful magical deity. Doing so lends a fraction of the deity's nigh-infinite mystical might to the spell's power, magnifying the inherent strength of the spell and preventing Strange from using up the finite resources such as his own personal power and the available ambient magicks. Such spells must be cast with the deity's nature in mind, however -- spells cast in the name of the pacifistic Seraphim should be defensive or protective in nature, whereas more aggressive spells would be made in the name of Cyttorak or Satannish. To invoke a deity's name for a spell they would not approve of could weaken the potency of the spell, cause it to backlash on Strange in some way or, in extreme cases, even lead to the deity itself appearing to chastise him. Doctor Strange knows of a number of different deities to invoke, many of whom possess their own unique talismans or spells that he can summon through invocation. Often these are spells virtually identical to conjurings Strange could make on his own, yet he employs these because they tend to be more powerful and do not tax his own reserves of power at all. The Winds of Watoomb can be summoned to create hurricane force gales to drive back attackers, or create wind funnels to carry him at high speeds to his location. The Illusions of Ikonn can perform simple tasks such as invisibility or disguise, or more elaborate illusions that alter the very appearance of reality. The Shields of the Seraphim are virtually impenetrable defensive barriers, and can be cast in front of Strange as two-dimensional disks or as bubbles shielding him or others from all sides. The Vapors of Valtoor are a thick, cloying mist with several uses such as concealing him from sight, congealing clouds into solid masses, eating through matter like acid, or casting off small lightning bolts to assault opponents. The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak are unbreakable coils of mystical energy which can entwine around a target and immobilize them in place. The power of Cyttorak can also be manifested as an all-encompassing crystal to contain opponents helplessly. The Roving Rings of Raggadorr can also surround and imprison opponents, or be used as projectile weapons to cut through steel. The Flames of the Faltine are a mystical and highly destructive form of fire from the same dimension as Dormammu. The Moons of Munnopor are luminescent orbs that can be summoned to illuminate his surroundings or burst like flash bulbs to blind and disorient his opponents. The Demons of Denak are an invisible force which can shatter obstacles with great strength. The Fangs of Farallah materialize as a massive mouth with pointed fangs. By biting or swallowing a victim, the fangs expose someone to wild psychedelic hallucinations and visions of other-dimensional realms that render them insensate and unable to defend themselves. More often than not, however, Strange simply conjures in the name of the all-mighty Vishanti, his patrons Agamotto, Oshtur and Hoggoth.

Doctor Strange uses certain talismans at all times, particularly his cloak of levitation and the Eye and Orb of Agamotto. The cloak responds to his mental commands, and can be summoned or manipulated from a distance. He can use it to entangle or distract opponents, but primarily he uses it for self-propelled flight. Flying through the cloak's power instead of his own allows Strange to focus his strength and concentration on other matters and spells. Indeed, the power of the cloak is so natural that Strange will remain floating in mid-air at times even after being knocked unconscious. The Eye of Agamotto is contained in a special Amulet worn around Doc's neck. With a thought, he can cause the amulet to open and reveal the Eye, and call the Eye up onto his forehead to wield it more freely. The Eye of Agamotto is the embodiment of light and truth, and can be used for various purposes. At its simplest, the Eye can be used merely for illumination, lighting up a room or the path before him. It can also illuminate things invisible to the naked eye, revealing things that were otherwise undetectable, or lighting up trails of radiation, psychic energy, or magical emanations that Strange can follow back to their source. Casting the Eye's light upon a specific person or object can reveal their true nature, banishing spells of illusion or transformation that disguise them. The Eye's light is pure goodness and truth, meaning the light alone is often enough to drive back evil men or demonic entities. The Eye of Agamotto can also be used to probe memories far more keenly than Strange's own psychic powers, revealing hidden or long-forgotten truths that a person may not even be consciously aware of. The Orb of Agamotto is a similar tool, a stationary conjurer's crystal in the Sanctum Sanctorum which Doctor Strange uses to locate distant people or objects, causing them to materialize within the Orb for observation. The Orb can also activate itself, warning Doctor Strange of dire threats that require his attention. Many other talismans he has possessed in the past include the Book of the Vishanti, the Wand of Watoomb, the Purple Gem, and the Darkhold.

Doctor Strange's powers have changed several times over the years. He originally possessed a different, less powerful amulet and cloak before the Ancient One allowed him to upgrade shortly into his adventures. Later, when Asmodeus of the Sons of Satannish banished Strange from Earth and stole his face and form, Doc found that he could not re-enter our dimension in his current state. He had to alter his appearance before returning to our dimensional plane, adopting a masked costume different from his previous attire. Shortly thereafter, Eternity gave Strange a gift for his services and subtly altered history so that Strange was now, and always had been, a man named "Stephen Sanders". This allowed him to operate publicly in his new masked attire as "Doctor Strange" without giving away his identity. Soon afterwards, however, Strange cast aside all the trappings of his mystical life, giving up his skill with magic indefinitely. He was soon forced to take up the mantle again, though, in order to stop Baron Mordo from taking his place. In so doing, his true name, face, and full mystical powers were returned to him. Sometime later, the Ancient One died and passed on the sum totality of his magical powers to Doctor Strange, increasing Strange's power and reserves of strength considerably. As part of his initiation as the new Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange was granted immortality, in the sense that he would no longer age from that point on. In addition, his forehead would now glow with the symbol of the ankh whenever he was facing a dire peril.

Many years later, Doctor Strange reached a low point in his career. He was forced to destroy the Orb of Agamotto and all his other talismans in order to keep his rival Urthona from taking their power. This greatly reduced his ability to cast moderate level spells. His remaining powers were most quick and simple tricks, or mighty and powerful spells that required considerable incantation or preparation. What's worse, the destruction of those ancient talismans let loose hordes of other-dimensional entities which had been banished from our plane eons ago, yet now once again had egress into the Earthly dimension. This, combined with the departure of Clea and Strange being forced to face his own emotional shortcomings, left his confidence shaken and his abilities unreliable. Doctor Strange only made matters worse when a water elemental creature assaulted him using a human host body, and Strange deliberately committed murder to kill the host and end the elementals threat. This act of black magic tarnished his soul and made Strange's typical white magic resources less reliable to him. The situation worsened when he had to deal with an amulet known as the Wings of Needless Sorrow, which was drawing upon the emotional pain of a mother whose child was ill, and using it to guide an entire crowd of people into suicide by fire. Faced with only moments to act before the crowd killed themselves, Strange's solution was to take the Wings' power into himself, making him the host for the amulet's dark power and freeing the connection between it, the mother, and the innocents. This act, however, only further blackened Strange's soul, to the point where he could no longer even wield the Eye of Agamotto. Strange descended even further into darkness, accepting his new lot in life as a black magic sorcerer and training at the feet of Kaluu, the Ancient One's old nemesis, all for the sake of once again binding the evil forces he had let free. Traveling down this path cost Strange his left eye, caused him to mystically rape his old friend Victoria Bentley to steal her magical powers for himself, and ultimately merge himself with Arioth, one of the Lords of Chaos he was fighting, in order to destroy the ultimate evil, Shuma-Gorath. After the climactic battle, Strange's ego was virtually destroyed and his mind had to be rebuilt, a process which cleansed him of the taint upon his soul. He reclaimed the Eye of Agamotto, discarded the Wings of Needless Sorrow, and did what he could to restore Victoria's magic. Not long thereafter, Agamotto himself revealed that he had saved Strange's talismans from destruction at the last instant, restoring them to Strange along with a new left eye, taken from his former nemesis, the Silver Dagger.

The next change in Doctor Strange's powers came with the War of the Seven Spheres, an unfathomable conflict between the various mystical deities. The Vishanti and Strange's other patrons all attempted to "draft" him to their respective sides in the war, as compensation for the many years they had allowed him to tap into their power and invoke their names in his spells. In order to avoid the 5,000 years of servitude the war was expected to last, Doctor Strange recited the Emancipation Incantation, a spell which freed him of the responsibility and debts he had accumulated, but leaving him extraordinarily weakened. No longer worthy of the Sorcerer Supreme title, Strange now had only the extremely finite levels of mystical power in his own body and environment available to him, with no extra-dimensional sources of "fuel" to boost his abilities. In this weakened state, he was confronted by Salome, a former Sorceress Supreme who returned to Earth with her banished brethren of the Fallen during the Siege of Darkness to oppose the Midnight Sons. The witch used a form of magic known as Salome's Dance, negative emotional energy harnessed through arcane gestures and movements in order to manipulate elemental forces. In striking back at Stephen to reclaim her title, Salome blasted him with elemental flame that would have destroyed Doctor Strange. A moment before death, Doctor Strange constructed a temporal stasis spiral, casting himself and his talismans into a pocket of null-space, where he constructed his new Sanctum Sanctorum. The null-space protected him from the disintegrating effects of Salome's Dance, but if he ever left that pocket space he would be consumed and die within moments. His astral form could still wander Earth safely, though.

In order to reclaim his life and title, Doctor Strange conceived a radical plan to revenge himself against Salome. Using his own treasure trove of magical artifacts, and seeking out other sources of geo-magical power, Stephen Strange began constructing a magical device known as the Forge Canal, which would effectively "reboot" and recreate the elemental magic forces of Earth with him at its center, taking mastery of that power from Salome and giving it to Strange. Limited as he was, though, Stephen created a pair of ethereal doppelgangers, essentially pseudo-living spells or "magic robots", to operate on Earth as his proxies. The first, simply called "Strange", aided Stephen Strange in gathering up the geo-magical artifacts he needed for the Forge Canal, and served with the Midnight Sons in the Doctor's stead. The other, Vincent Stevens, was initially unaware of his unique physiology and origins, and simply followed his pre-programmed directives to create a material power base of wealth and resources for Stephen Strange to access when he returned, all the while believing this drive was his own. Unfortunately for Stephen Strange, his "Strangers" were far more chaotic and independent than he had ever considered. As he avoided the full destructive effects of Salome's Dance and entered null-space, a fraction of Salome's power "infected" Stephen, and through him the Strangers as well when they were created. This made Stephen more prone to emotional extremes himself, gave Strange a berserker fury that caused him to rage out of control at times, and made Vincent Stevens self-serving and almost amoral at times in the methods he used to acquire wealth and power. Still, each of the Strangers embodied personality traits derived from their creator, Stephen Strange, and had access to most of his memories.

Vincent Stevens was basically a normal human on the surface, although his aetheric construction made him virtually impervious to harm. While he still experienced pain, the spell that comprised his physical form would quickly regenerate and repair any injuries he suffered. Stevens could only die through magical disruption of his binding essence or the inherently finite duration of the spell that forged him. He did possess one superhuman ability, the power of hypnotic influence. With a subtle flare of power from his eye, Stevens could grab hold of and manipulate the minds of other people. This made him highly coercive, able to mentally push people into believing what he tells them or carrying out his wishes. He could also plant subliminal directives into people's minds, causing them to experience a series of visions representing their greatest fears, or see him as someone else entirely.

Strange was able to far more freely manipulate magical energies than his "other". He channeled raw elemental fury through the twin fire-gems embedded on the back of his hands. Much like Salome's Dance, these blasts of aetheric flame could liquefy, burn through, or utterly consume virtually anything. His chaotic nature combined with the earthbound magic, he was a conduit for Strange to agitate and disrupt the surrounding elemental forces, sometimes through concentration but often by his mere presence. Harsh, biting winds cut through the air in his wake, and ionization filled the atmosphere to induce furious storms and disrupt electronic systems much like an electromagnetic pulse does. He could direct wind, fire, and lightning to strike at his commands, vacuum the air out of someone's body to make them implode, and was even able to create elemental involution in order to dehydrate Atlanteans even while they were still underwater. Strange also demonstrated many other forms of spell-casting and magic manipulation, such as self-propelled flight, teleportation of himself or other people and objects over a distance, altering molecular integrity to pass through solid matter, amplifying the force of gravity to pin opponents to the ground, and even reanimating the dead to create a legion of skeletal warriors. Possessing no internal organs or skeletal structure, Strange was unaffected by physical harm. Although he could be temporarily disturbed by major disruptions of his physical form, even being decapitated or split in half did little to deter Strange. He could actually use the insides of his body as a storage space, tucking away the artifacts he was collecting for Doctor Strange within himself, and then reaching inside to remove them as necessary. When disrupting, Strange's body experienced a form of chaotic warping, a form of matter distortion which was contagious to the touch. Physical objects would break down into a highly agitated liquid state if they touching him while he was warping. The effect was extraordinarily painful for living beings, and would be permanent and therefore lethal if Strange remained in contact with them for too long. While warping, Strange could reconstitute himself by making contact with the earth, as his ties to elemental magic allowed him to draw strength from it.

Eventually, Doctor Strange finished the Forge Canal and finished creating his new form of earthbound magik: The Gaian Aura. Fashioning an aetheric sword and set of armor to protect himself from dissolution, Doctor Strange exited null-space to confront his Strangers and Salome. Stevens ultimately died, while Strange was reborn in the body of a denizen of the Dark Dimension. Doctor Strange was ultimately able to access the full power of the Forge Canal and the Gaian Aura by tricking Salome into absorbing back the Salome's Dance which had contaminated his mystical aura, leaving Strange free of her influence. Salome was routed, and Strange was once again Sorcerer Supreme and now a master of elemental magic. Capable of exerting all of his standard previous powers (astral projection, cloak of levitation, mesmerism, etc), Strange also now had a strong affinity for manipulating the forces of the natural world, such as summoning a massive frost wave along with arctic-chilled winds, summoning lightning strikes, or forming a concentrated stream of water out of thin air. He also began flexing the ability to fold time around himself in various ways. This allowed him to simulate teleportation, either transporting himself from one place to another within his line-of-sight instantly, or summoning items out of one person's hands and into his own. This power also extended somewhat to the new Gaian vestments he wore. Using his cloak and costume, Strange could wrap people up inside a null pocket of dimensional space, leaving them trapped until he chose to release them. He could also store items in the same manner, pulling them out of his pocket space with a flick of his fingers. These vestments were magically resistant to all manner of harm, and could even absorb a hail of bullets without injuring Doc at all. The pattern of tectonic spines on his bodysuit could also become animated and pull loose, shielding him over a greater area of space. This aetheric costume could also "morph" itself into different kinds of civilian clothes, while still maintaining its enchanted durability.

Eventually, Strange was finally drafted into the War of the Seven Spheres by the Vishanti, and fought at their side for untold amounts of time before being deposited back on Earth mere weeks after he left, with the Gaian Aura disrupted and his ability to use it exhausted. Instead, Strange devised a means of using the power of the syzygy (the miraculous alignment of all the planets and the sun into one straight path) to attune himself to a new source of magic: catastrophe magic. Strange now wielded the inherent power of change and probability, harnessing the potential magical energy produced in the world whenever random chance or coincidence affected something. This meant his power reserves were inherently finite, and it was possible for him to exhaust all available catastrophe magic, leaving him powerless until enough coincidences cropped up in daily life to refuel his batteries. Still, he was able to access the basic forms of magic he had wielded in the past, such as levitation, astral projection, teleportation, and so on, while also possessing an enhanced capacity for transmogrification -- he could cause a gun to dissolve into a swarm of flies, change clothes into restricting chains, or "disarm" someone by turning their limbs into ropes or butterflies. If he chose to, he could make such transmogrifications of someone's body both painless and temporary.

At some point behind the scenes, Doctor Strange renewed his relationship with the Vishanti and the other mystical deities, restoring his old status quo. This remained for many years until Strange corrupted his magic by channeling the power of Zom the Unconquerable during World War Hulk. Stephen was forced to step down from the role of Sorcerer Supreme and give up most of his power. The practical circumstances of Strange's depowering were never clearly laid out. He still held the accumulated knowledge of a master of the mystic arts, but while his mind had the knowledge of advanced spells and incantations, his body wielded magic at the level of a novice. This meant he required a great deal more care and focus in spell-casting than he was used to. Eventually, Strange was re-powered by Agamotto and the Vishanti, making him Sorcerer Supreme once more.

Dr. Strange holds a medical doctorate (M.D.) and is an expert physician and surgeon with vast knowledge of medicine. Though an expert neurosurgeon, the nerve damage to his hands prevents him from holding a scalpel steadily to perform delicate surgery, except when supplemented by his magics.