Best Doctor Strange stories of all time

Death of Doctor Strange #5 variant cover

Destruction of Doctor Strange #5 variant screening (Picture credit: Kaare Andrews (Marvel Comics))

The best Doctor Other stories showcase the operating surgeon-turned-Sorcerer Supreme as he battles with supernatural and superhuman forces while too combating the all-too-hominal causes arse it, but just recently he found himself in a battle he didn't deliver the goods.

Yes, Doctor Strange is dead - register all about IT in our The Death of Doctor Strange #1 rundown.

While questions rise about Restore Strange's murder and Marvel Comics has already announced his replacement - his estranged wife Clea, Wonder Studios has formally kicked off the figure-up to his close moving picture with the first Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer.

So Doctor Strange is none doubtedly connected the minds of many an. So with that in mind, let's consider what are the best Doctor Strange stories around.

10. Season Extraordinary

Of wholly the other major Wonder superheroes, Doctor Strange has in all likelihood had his line of descent retold in print the to the lowest degree, leaving batch of room for a modern version of the story on shelves. Doctor Unusual: Season One - arguably the best of Marvel's transient 'Season One' introductory OGNs – is honorable such a retelling. Written by Greg Pak with artistic creation by Emma Rios, Doctor Strange: Mollify Cardinal sets up Gothic's backstory and relationships in a way that has undoubtedly influenced (or at least echoed) the film version of the narration.

Doctor of the Church Strange: Season One recounts Strange's life as a gifted surgeon whose hands are mangled in an accident. Unable to preserve his work, helium seeks out a cure, instead finding a new path as a master wizard. The story introduces the core drift of Baron Mordo, Wong, the Antediluvian Extraordinary, and Dormammu, conjunctive them every last to a core tale and setting upwards a inviolable basis for Strange's subsequent adventures.

Plus, you get to take 136 pages of Emma Rios's artwork.

Buy: Amazon

9. Sorcerer Ultimate Formerly More

It's hard to incu modern stories that genuinely seize something unique about Restore Oddish; for almost of the survive 10, he's primarily been a supporting character for the Marvel Population. Yet, in the latter half of Brian Bendis's long Avengers run (collected as Parvenue Avengers By Brian Michael Bendis Assemblage Volume 7), Strange became a key player in New Avengers.

In the future issues of New Avengers Vol. 2, which followed the end of 'Dark Reign,' Strange finds himself part of an unlikely Avengers team up finisher in make-adequate to the Defenders, and stripped of his title as Thaumaturge Supreme. With his classic role given over to Doctor Fetish, Strange must find a new path in the Marvel Universe.

Bendis's narration explored the themes of Strange's arrogance and humility, and his willingness to sacrifice for his power. It besides established new-sprung connections between Iron Fist's power, K'United Nations Lun, and the Ancient Nonpareil.

Of naturally, it all wrapped up with Unnaturalised restitution his Mantle Eastern Samoa Sorcerer Supreme, leaving him arguably stronger than e'er before thrusting him into some really big cosmic bizarreness every bit share of Marvel's Illuminati.

Buy: Amazon

8. Defenders: Indefensible

Though Bodoni font audiences likely colligate Doctor Curious with the Avengers – a coupling that carried over to the Marvel Medium Universe – Strange's get-go squad was the Defenders. Founded alongside Namor, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfboarder, the celebrated 'not-team' dealt with esoteric threats and took a decidedly stranger tone than Marvel's other team books.

Though we could prospective build a number of the best Defenders stories wholly on its own, we're including Defenders: Insupportable, the limited series that reunited the original four Defenders with writer J.M. DeMatteis, who in turn reunited with his fellow Magistrate League International co-creators Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire.

Indefensible brought the trio's slick, irreverent sensibilities to the Defenders, injecting their stylemark humor into a story that pitted the foursome against classic Oddish foes such A Dormammu and Nightmare.

Bribe: Amazon

7. To Steal the Sorceror's Soul

Stool a story not even a rumbling government issue in length be considered among the greats? If it's good enough, wherefore not?

1982's Marvel Fanfare #5 has a succinct 17-Sri Frederick Handley Page tale by the novel team of Chris Claremont, E. G. Marshall Rogers, and P. Craig Russell. Strange's romance with the otherworldly Clea is fully bloom here, with Claremont channeling his picture X-Workforce soap operatics with great effect. That pairing underscores the action of the tarradiddle, as Dormammu and Strange fight once again.

Although short in distance, page-for-Page this is extraordinary of Doctor Fantastic's most potent tales and definitely worth tracking down for students of Doctor Crazy fandom as symptomless A manque masters.

Bargain: Virago

6. Dr. Strange vs. Dracula: The Montesi Formula

Doctor Strange flitters between genres and groupings in the Marvel Comics creation, often serving as an inexact but welcome face in the Avengers mythos As comfortably as Marvel's repulsion line. The best model of that is the Sorcerer Supreme's tussles with the publisher's interpretation of Genus Dracula and his fellow vampires.

Dr. Strange vs. Dracula: The Montesi Formula collects both a crossing between Doctor Unusual and Tomb of Dracula, likewise every bit a fivesome-issue arc of Strange's solo title that ended in the death (albeit temporarily) of vampires in the Marvel Universe a la 'No More Mutants.'

Among the creators involved, Roger Stern and Gene Colan are at their best present, and the closing storey drawn by a then-ascending-and-coming Steve Leialoha caps it off expertly.

Buy: Amazon

5. The Way of the Weird

The supernatural side is sometimes a hard fit inside the superheroic confines of the Marvel Universe - particularly in nowadays's landscape - but Jason Henry Louis Aaron and Chris Bachalo have navigated those strait spell keeping dependable to the Thaumaturgis Supreme in their run so farthermost along the new Doctor Strange entitle.

The first arc, Doctor Strange: Way of the Weird, sets the stage with an outside force looking to eliminate the "abomination of magic trick" universe of discourse by universe, slowly winding its way towards the core Marvel U. Henry Louis Aaron and Bachalo hit on big ideas such A the submit of magic in Marvel and the diverse array of magic-users that can like a sho be base, patc noneffervescent reinforcing that personal charm of Stephen Strange and the unique elements that fix him the Sorcerer Maximum.

Henry Louis Aaron's late-in-the-lame addition that witching usage harms Strange physically adds to the tension of the series - and the reference itself - giving some parameters and consequences for what is, for some magic trick-based stories, an endless stream of deus ex machina climaxes and stories without trusty stakes.

Sure, seeing Dr. Strange wielding an axe could be off-putting - but if the magic-powered broach didn't scare you off to begin with, the axe bum win you over formerly you read Aaron's reasoning.

Buy: Amazon River

4. A Separate World

Writer Steve Englehart was already familiar with Doctor Curious from his work on Defenders, but when helium took o'er Strange's unaccompanied adventures in, atomic number 2 stirred away from the superheroic style he wrote on the team account book, delving deep into myth and magic.

Marvel First #4-14, self-possessed alongside Englehart's Doctor Odd #1-5 As Doctor Strange: A Separate Reality, follows Strange and his supporting cast as they become trapped in Rummy's Heart of Agamotto, battle Lovecraftian horrors such atomic number 3 the cosmic giant Shuma Gorath, and foiling a fourth dimension travel plot by Baron Mordo.

Doctor Strange: A Separate Reality collects Englehart's entire run, alongside artist Frank Brunner, and marks the moment when Physician Naturalized affected from mystical superheroics to outright fantasy, and even horror.

Buy: Virago

3. Triumph &ere; Torment

Some of Restore Strange's best stories are the ones that pair him with unlikely allies, and no story is more emblematic of that than Triumph & Torment, a Marvel graphic fresh from Roger Stern and Microphone Mignola.

In the fib, Restore Doom makes a deal with Physician Established to venture into hell and call up the soul of Doom's mother from the satanic Mephisto. Of course, Doomsday, existence the ruthless, power-hungry MS and trick that he is, seems to big-ill-natured Strange. But the narrative's twist ending shows that the difference between heroes and villains is oft American Samoa simple as execution – especially when dealing with magic.

In addition to featuring some of Stern's best work Strange and classic graphics past the legendary Microphone Mignola, Triumph & Torment set the substructure for the unlikely and tenuous friendship between Doom and Adventive, which was a critical persona of the 2015-2016 Secret Wars.

Buy: Amazon River

2. Strange Tales

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko didn't evenhanded create Doctor Strange, they defined the elements that still make up the burden of his mythology; from his origins, to his powers, to his allies and enemies.

Lee and Ditko's run on Strange Tales took Marvel Comics to trippy newfound heights, combining Lee's flair for dramatic dialogue with Ditko's inventive and mystical environments.

Strange Tales #110-141 contains numerous gems, from the innovation of Strange's greatest foe in 'The Domain of the Dread Dormammu,' to the first telling of his origin as a brilliant but arrogant operating surgeon, and culminating in 'The Eternity Saga,' the story that introduced Ditko's personification of reality, the titular Timeless existence.

The duo's entire run was collected in Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange Vol. 1.

Buy: Amazon

1. The Oath

If there is one story that truly defines Doctor Strange not right as a character, but as a hero, it's Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin's Doctor Strange: The Oath, a tale about friendship, heroism, and the greater good.

The Oath tells the story of Doctor Strange suffering from a gunshot offend, trying to rails down the soul who shot him patc also seeking a cure for his companion Wong's terminal cancer. In the course of discovering his assailant, Strange finds more than he bargained for, and winds up being affected to choose to cure Wong and saving the entire universe.

Vaughan's modern take on Medico Eery, coupled with Dean Martin's contemporary so far iconic artwork, codified Oddish for the current Marvel Universe in a way that no deed of conveyance since has until no to live up to.

Steal: Amazon River

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and worldwide comic book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-the-spot reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Goldbrick International: San Diego, Empire State Drama Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic news media, I am the artist of galore weird pictures, and the guitar player of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)