Doctor Strange: The Oath

[cornerofmadness]

Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K. Vaughan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I hadn't realized when I picked this up from the library that a) it was published in 2007 (not that it matters much but it serves to illustrate how much they updated Wong as a character for the movies) b) it was about brain cancer as I have someone in my life dying from it. (So I guess that's the spoiler for what Stephen's friend is dying from).

Points to my comment about Wong, this still has Wong in his early 60s role as a servant. There are reasons for the servitude (besides institutionalized racism) but for the more modern reader it's easy to see why this might not sit well (and why the movie erased it entirely) Wong and Stephen are friends here but there is still the deference and servile aspect to Wong so I guess that's your CW

Wong is dying. Strange wants to save him and in the process, pulls from the multiverse a true panacea. Naturally Big Pharma is having none of that nonsense. They can't monetize it. So they send someone to steal it but instead he ends up shooting Strange in the process which takes us to the opener of this.

With the Night Nurse. Oh you can just see Stan Lee's alliterative fingers all over this one. She dates to the 70s when they tried to bring in girls by giving them nurse romance comics (shudders) She was reinvented years later into sort of what we see here, a woman who serves as the caretaker to the Cape Crowd. All the superheroes come to her clinic (and Wong brings Strange) In this 2007 rendition, she's technically a doctor but Night Nurse sounds more zippy (shudders)

Of course eventually Strange has to choose save the world with the panacea or save his friend. You can guess his choice.

Overall, it's not a bad story, the art's what you expect from Marvel and at last they tried to come up with some real world villains here but the answers are a bit too easy.





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The Knights of Heliopolis

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The Knights of Heliopolis by Alejandro Jodorowsky

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Let's be clear Jérémy's art was five star and the only reason I gave this three stars. This is some of the most beautiful sequential art I've seen in ages. The story on the other hand is problematic at best.
C.W. misogyny, rape, some gore, lots of naked people.

There will be spoilers in this, the really big ones I'll put a warning on it.



( Spoilers from here on out )

Zokusho

[cornerofmadness]

Zokusho by Paul Corn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is one I picked up a Tsubasacon last year from the artist. It sits at the intersection of SF and fantasy which would normally be up my alley. The distractor for me is that I'm not a fan of assassins and thieves as protagonists and there were a lot of them in this. Each story was set up (at varying lengths) to introduce the characters who presumably will be working together in the future.

We have mafia enforcer types, we have rotting Johnny who is literally doing that after a magic-surgery gone wrong (and was special forces turned assassin as well) and then there are a couple of Wayward Cross...knights? (who may or may not be assassins too) and the telepath Nitrous Blight who was for me the more interesting of characters.

By the end of this volume, everyone is introduced and some are now working together. However, I'm not too likely to go further just because it's not my taste in reading material. The art, for some reason, put me in mind of Rurouni Kenshin. If you like morally grey to charcoal characters you'd probably enjoy this.



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