Review: Doctor Strange #1 M.U.

Doctor Strange #1 M.U.
Written by Chip Zdarsky
Art by Julian Lopez and Scott Hanna

Marvel Comics is in the middle of a mostly forgettable event called Monsters Unleashed that is shaping up to have absolutely zero lasting impact on the Marvel Universe as a whole. Still, who doesn’t want to see superheroes punching giant monsters? And that’s what you get. In spades. It’s a fun story but mostly empty.

Coming out of this event however have been a bunch of one-shot stories -Spiderman/Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Avengers to name a few- and these have been well crafted single issues with all of the monster punching that you get from the main series but with a lot of added character moments.

My favourite of these so far has been the Doctor Strange one-shot. Written by Chip Zdarsky and brought to life by Julian Lopez and Scott Hanna, it takes full advantage of the world of broken magic that was created by Jason Aaron in the regular Doctor Strange monthly comic. In this comic we have a weakened and broken Doctor Strange trying to figure out his place. The monsters stand in for all of the Doctor’s fears and insecurities. We all have our monsters to fight. It just so happens that Strange’s monsters are personified in this issue as actual monsters.

It’s an odd buddy-cop story with Strange teaming up with Googam, son of Goom – one of Marvel’s classic monsters. And I loved Googam! I really hope we get more of Googam in Doctor Strange moving forward. He’d make an amazing addition to the Doctor Strange cast/ensemble.

Please, Jason Aaron! (the regular writer of Doctor Strange) I’m sure Chip won’t mind if you poach Googam into the regular series!

The issue is now available at your local comic book store (LCS) and is a great done-in-one Doctor Strange comic. Accessible. Complete. The art is wonderfully clean and conveys all the monster punching goodness with incredible detail.

Check it out