Kaine's Costume

 

Kaine is one of those characters I could probably talk about a lot more. Specifically, I find his MC2 incarnation fascinating for various reasons. Today I wanted to take a look at something I’ve always found under utilized in his original Main Marvel Universe and only touched upon lightly in the MC2: Kaine’s weird costume during the Clone Saga.

I’ll let writer and editor Glen Greenberg explain Kaine’s suit in his own words from the brilliant Life of Reilly Part 9 (which can be found here and here):  

And here's a few things you probably didn't know about Kaine. First, that weird costume of his was actually a life-support outfit that stabilized the debilitating effects of his cellular degeneration. Kaine lived in constant pain, and that would only get worse as time went on, but the outfit slowed down the degeneration and prolonged his life. That's why Kaine wore the costume in most of his modern-day appearances, and why he didn't have it in the LOST YEARS limited series, which took place years earlier.

 

Glen continues:

 

Ironically enough, as Mark Bernardo - even to this day - has never failed to point out, NONE of the Spider-writers ever managed to work any of this information into the actual stories! Mark and I both felt that these were some of the most interesting aspects about Kaine - but as it turned out, the people in our little group would be the only ones who ever knew about them!

So, the writers had a logical explanation worked out for why Kaine was wearing the suit during the present-day parts of the Clone Saga and not the flashbacks seen years earlier in the Lost Years mini-series, this information apparently never made it’s way into the stories that were published at the time.

 

Now in both the Main Marvel Universe and the MC2-niverse we see Kaine on the loose shortly after the infant Mayday Parker is kidnapped by agents of Norman Osborn, leading to him pursuing Alison Mongrain and becoming directly involved in the events that follow. One area where things differ is after his apparent escape from prison in the Main Marvel Universe, Kaine is still somehow rocking his life-support suit that slows his clone degeneration. How he got access to it is unclear and makes little sense (Amazing Spider-Man #435).  Meanwhile what we see in the MC2 around the same time seems somewhat more likely: Kaine is wearing plain civilian clothes which evoke his attire during the events of Spider-Man: The Lost Years, the kind of thing he would have easy access to while on the run from authorities and trying to remain incognito (Spider-Girl #48-#49 and Amazing Spider-Girl #25).

It's only later on in the MC2’s history, during the time a young Reilly Tyne and later the body of the deceased Matt Murdock aka Daredevil are brought to Kaine’s secret laboratory, that we see Kaine rocking a new shiny metallic suit or armour (as seen in flashbacks from Darkdevil #1-#3). This is appears to be the same design in which he made his MC2 debut in Spider-Girl #12 and would continue to wear for the next few issues until his imprisonment at the end of Spider-Girl #17. Subsequently Kaine is shown in prison without this metallic suit and upon his release, only returning to it when he reappeared in the pages of Spider-Girl once more with Spider-Girl #45-#47, #48-49. From this point on, Kaine is seen alternating between either civilian clothing, his metallic suit, or a combination of the two. This brings us to the next point.

 

Kaine no longer seems to require his regeneration suit, a fact made clear in the Darkdevil mini-series not just through his prison stay without any special suit, but in the aforementioned flashbacks. Specifically, one which mentions Kaine mastered ‘arcane skills’ years earlier to prevent his degeneration. This apparently involved acting as a servant to the living spirit of vengeance known as Zarathos, and a mention by the spirit implies Kaine still suffers physical torment. However, Kaine notes in Spider-Girl #14 that after years of constant agony, his nerve endings simply stopped functioning, suggesting he can no longer feel anything.

 

This raises the question of why Kaine wears the metallic suit at all if he doesn’t have to rely on one to stave off his cellular degeneration and no longer seems to experience pain? We don’t have a definitive answer, but I have a theory that’s quite straightforward and deceptively simple: If Kaine can’t feel pain and has already been ravaged for years prior by his imperfectly cloned cells degenerating, he’s far more vulnerable to severe injury. Kaine has experienced severe physical trauma throughout his years and would probably have died years ago had he not used arcane methods to cheat death. Kaine remains mortal and is now at an advanced physical age, hence why he often relies on his metallic suit for protection: should he sustain a life-threatening injury, he would not even feel it and may not realize until it is too late.

 

Kaine wears the metallic suit less as time goes on, eventually wearing civilian clothing exclusively in his later appearances in Amazing Spider-Girl and beyond. While it does humanise him, it also leaves him vulnerable. Perhaps that is by choice? Anyway, let me know what you think or if you have any alternative suggestions. Kaine is such a great character and ripe with such potential for future stories should the MC2 ever make comeback.

 

Until I figure out Kaine’s whole Caribbean detour thing, I remain

 

frogoat

Doctor Strange in the MC2

 

Now that Spider-Man: No Way Home has come and gone, the most anticipated Marvel Studios movie release is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness so now is an excellent time to take a look at Doctor Strange in the MC2.

 

While Doctor Stephen Strange first appeared in Strange Tales #110, his MC2 counterpart makes his debut in the pages of A-Next #3. Right off the bat, this appearance provides a number of insights into Stephen’s new status quo, starting with the issue’s opening page which pretty well confirms the Sorcerer still resides within the Sanctum Sanctorum located at 177A Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village. We also learn that Doc Magus aka Dormagus has replaced Strange as the new Sorcerer Supreme (as Dormagus puts it) ‘ever since The Vishanti fired [Stephen’s] butt.’

 

Having foreseen a world-threatening tragedy that will unfold in the near future, Doctor Strange takes matters into his own hands and recruits his former Defenders teammates Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Incredible Hulk in an apparent attempt to save the day using extreme measures. Doc Magus attempts to warn off Strange and when this fails, he takes his mentor Deacon’s advice and approaches the newly formed Avengers team for help. Soon enough the two teams clash in Arizona until Dormagus uses the Eye of Agamotto to uncover Doctor Strange’s true motives were three-fold: to make Namor proactive once more, ensure the Hulk is able to fulfill his destiny and provide the new Avengers team a ‘baptism of fire’.

 

While Doctor Strange himself does not appear, he is alluded to in J2 #4 While in an unknown dimension alongside the Avenger J2 battles a Darkling posing as the original Juggernaut, the dark lord Nemesus taunts Dormagus’ about the mystic’s strained and dysfunctional relationship with his own father. When he is thwarted and retreats, Nemesus’ parting words to Dormagus are ‘give my regards to your own dear father!’.

 

Ignoring a warning from Doctor Strange to wait for reinforcements, Dormagus and Zane Yama aka J2 make their way to a pocket dimension to rescue Cain Marko aka Juggernaut. Despite reuniting Zane with his father, Nemesus appears and reveals Doc Magus had fallen into his trap and closed the heroes gateway home, trapping them. Fortunately, Doctor Strange appears alongside his fellow Defenders the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner and aid in escaping from Nemesus’ dimension before they are all swarmed by legions of Darklings. This story makes clear some unexplored history between Nemesus and Strange (J2 #12).

 

Around this time, Doctor Strange made an appearance in Wild Thing #0 where in he is called upon by Wolverine to attempt to remove the cure of the Wendigo from the land around Hudson Bay. Meeting Wild Thing, Stephen makes a knowing comment to Wolverine: ‘Independent children can be such a trial, eh, Wolverine?’ With the aid of the Hulk, Wolverine and Wild Thing, Doctor Strange successfully lifts the curse.

 

When the demonically empowered vigilante Darkdevil is stabbed through the chest by the Venom Symbiote bonded with Normie Osborn, Doc Magus is called upon to save him. Struggling to save the hero, Dormagus admits he is out of his depth and accepts the help of Doctor Strange just as the demon Zarathos appears and warns the two mystics to leave Darkdevil’s body as he claimed it as his own. Unable to perform a conventional exorcism, the two are forced to journey into Darkdevil’s mindscape and restore the balance between the three vying avatars within the hero: the spirit of vengeance Zarathos, the ghostly spirt of the costumed hero Daredevil and the boy Reilly Tyne (Spider-Girl #83-#84).

 

With a string of superheroes going missing, Doc Magus sets out to find them on his own, once again rejecting the aid of Doctor Strange, only to wind up defeated in his astral form by a disguised Loki and fall under the villain’s thrall immediately afterwards when reunited with his mortal form and abducted (Last Hero Standing #2). 

 

While attempting to resolve the mystery of the missing heroes, Doctor Strange is instead attacked by the culprit Loki himself, who mentions Stephen’s ‘fall from grace is well-known to [him]’ before making short work of the Sorcerer. Still enthralled and falsely believing he knows who kidnapped him, Doc Magus leads the other heroes to Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum only to be confronted by a Loki-controlled and enraged Hulk who makes short work of the assembled heroes indiscriminately. Upon finding that Doctor Strange was seemingly in a coma, Dormagus was unable to detect Loki’s handiwork thanks to the dark spell’s effect (Last Hero Standing #4). Asgard’s Grand Vizier reveals the truth to Doc Magus and Doctor Strange is shortly after present to witness the death of Captain America (Last Hero Standing #5).

 

Unless I’ve missed a cameo somewhere, that’s the last time we see Doctor Strange in the MC2. I find the still-unresolved mystery of how and why Doctor Strange lost the position of Sorcerer Supreme to be a most tantalizing plot thread. I sincerely wish we learned the details of this massive development.

 

Until I learn to master the mystic arts and become Sorcerer Supreme only to lose the job under unrevealed circumstances, I remain

 

frogoat  

 

 

 

  

Doc Magus: Who's Your Daddy?!

 

I must admit I’ve been devoting a fair bit of time and thought to the MC2’s present Sorcerer Supreme, the youthful Doc Magus. With that being the case, today I’m going to take a look at Dormagus’ parentage. In particular this post will provide the answer to the question of just exactly who is Dormagus’ father.

 

So, this one is easier than you might think. Let’s take a look at the not so subtle and numerous clues from throughout Doc Magus’ appearances: Firstly in his debut in A-Next #3, the former Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange refers to Doc Magus by his real name Dormagus upon his encountering him. The pair are on very familiar, albeit somewhat antagonistic or strained terms with one another. Doc Magus refers to Stephen Strange as ‘Old Man’ and is well aware that the Doctor was ‘fired’ as the MC2’s current Sorcerer Supreme. Dormagus refers to Doctor Strange as ‘the Old Man’ a few more times and later states he’s become ‘more ruthless and bitter with age’, meanwhile Stephen reminds the young Sorcerer Supreme that his ‘skills were honed in this realm long before [Dormagus’] birth' so evidently, they have a pretty personal knowledge of one another’s history.

 

While in an unknown dimension alongside the Avenger J2 battles a Darkling posing as the original Juggernaut, the dark lord Nemesus taunts Dormagus’ about the mystic’s strained and dysfunctional relationship with his own father. When he is thwarted and retreats, Nemesus’ parting words to Dormagus are ‘give my regards to your own dear father!’ (J2 #4).

 

Doc Magus later summons Zane and informs him he has found his father being held in a small, unexplored pocket dimension for years. Ignoring a protective warning from Doctor Strange (whom Dormagus calls ‘Old Man’) to wait for reinforcements, Dormagus and Zane make their way to the pocket dimension to rescue Cain Marko aka Juggernaut. Despite reuniting Zane with his father, Nemesus appears and reveals Doc Magus had fallen into his trap and closed the heroes gateway home, trapping them. Fortunately, Doctor Strange appears alongside his fellow Defenders the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner to help the others escape from Nemesus’ dimension. Nemesus comments ‘I should have known you wouldn’t let Dormagus fall into my hands without a fight’. With their escape route seemingly blocked, Dormagus begins what he believes may be his final words with ‘We may have had our differences over the years, but I want you to know that I’ve always been real proud of the fact the you’re my—’ before he is interrupted. With their escape secured, Dormagus responds to Doctor Strange’s comment about closing the door behind him with the quip ‘Really? My father must have skipped that lesson.’ I think these *ahem* clues are adding up now (J2 #12).

 

Around this time, Doctor Strange made an appearance in Wild Thing #0 where he makes a knowing comment to Wolverine: ‘Independent children can be such a trial, eh, Wolverine?’ This is remark is not well received by Logan, but it’s also very telling of Doctor Strange.

 

When next he appears, Doctor Strange is greeted by Doc Magus with far more appreciation due to his lack of expertise when attempting to save the demonic hero Darkdevil. Even so, Dormagus still calls Strange ‘Old Man’ and when asked for help, Stephen responds ‘And you shall have it, my boy!’ (Spider-Girl #83)

 

Let’s finish this out, shall we? When Doc Magus rebuffs Doctor Strange’s offer to work together to solve the mystery of various kidnapped heroes, Strange quips ‘You certainly have the arrogance of youth, my son.’ Yet again, Dormagus calls Stephen ‘Old Man’ (Last Hero Standing #2).

 

By now it should be pretty darn clear that Doc Magus aka Dormagus’ father is none other than Doctor Stephen Strange. The real mystery is what has transpired between the two that makes them so often unkind to one another. It’s obvious that Stephen keeps an eye on his son and is prepared to jump in to protect him despite all their animosity. For a future post I’ll be covering the inevitable follow up question of who Dormagus’ mother could be...

 

Until I stop pointing out the obvious, albeit not explicitly stated, I remain

 

frogoat