She-Hulk in the MC2

 

It’s that time again; there’s a new Marvel series about to release on Disney+ and I’m scrambling to provide a tangentially related post about the protagonist. For today’s entry, we’ll be looking at the Bruce Banner’s favourite cousin: Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk just in time for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. This is She-Hulk in the MC2.

 

Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk is seen alongside various other major Marvel female heroes in Spider-Girl #60 on both the issue’s cover and within the thoughts of May ‘Mayday’ Parker as the latter reflects on her place amongst the other superheroines who came before her. The real-world reasons for these cameos was to acknowledge prior female heroes as the Spider-Girl title reaching it's 60th continuous issue, something only one other solo female superheroine title at Marvel had achieved, that being none other than Sensational She-Hulk. The Spider-Girl title would go on to surpass this, reaching issue 100, a feat still unbeaten to this date.

 

Jennifer is not seen among the gathered Avengers who travelled to an alternate earth for the original team’s final mission. So at least we can likely rule out her dying on the mission. Either way, no specifics are given, and as such her status remains unknown (A-Next #7).

 

In terms of where the MC2 version of She-Hulk potentially branches off from the Main Marvel Universe, my best guess estimate is after Fantastic Four #416, most likely around Heroes For Hire #8-#9 based on their publication date. Events following this point may have played out much the same up to an unknown point, but there is simply no information available to say one way or the other. 

      

 

Jumping around a bit, when we first meet Jennifer’s cousin Bruce, we learn that he's retired to Denver, Colorado and has a son named David. Bruce indicates he is finally rid of his alter ego for good and hasn't seen Doctor Strange in years. When Strange appears unexpectedly to reform the Defenders, he takes complete mental control of Banner and forces Bruce to once more transform into the Hulk (A-Next #3).

 

Much later during the events of the Last Hero Standing mini-series, Bruce Banner aka the Incredible Hulk is enthralled by Loki's spell and goes on a rampage against several of the Earth's heroes. Finally freed when Captain America breaks Loki's connection, Hulk narrowly avoids death at Thor's hands. Devastated by the fresh destruction he has wrought after his years rebuilding his life, the Hulk joins Loki as he is exiled to Limbo by Thor.

 

Hulk's exile leaves it up in the air who is looking after his son, David Banner. Perhaps Betty Banner (formerly Betty Ross) is alive and well in this reality? Or if not, perhaps Aunt Jennifer is raising her young nephew? We may never know!

 

Until I figure out I’m just a character in a work of fiction, 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: Sorcerer Supreme of the MC2

 

As I recently covered the MC2’s resident Sorcerer Supreme, the youthful Dormagus aka Doc Magus, in his cameo appearance alongside various other Sorcerers Supreme from throughout time and across the multiverse in Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme, I thought now might be a great time to take a proper look at the character. So, today’s post is all about Doc Magus.

 

Dormagus makes his debut in the pages of A-Next #3, when he sends his astral form to former Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Stephen Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum home. A lot of interesting pieces of information come to light in this introduction: for starters Doc Magus’s real name, the fact that he is the current Sorcerer Supreme and that there is evidently a lot of unspoken resentment, familiarity and history between Doctor Strange. More on their dynamic in another post someday soon.

 

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’.

 

Doc Magus also briefly appears in J2 #3 which retells the same events from the titular character’s own perspective, but he makes a far more substantial appearance in the very next issue. We see Dormagus unmasked for the first time here when J2 aka Zane Yama recruits the mystic’s help seeking his father, the original Juggernaut who was lost in a strange dimension on a mission with the X-Men. Following Zane into his recurring nightmare in his astral form, Dormagus finds himself alone in an unknown dimension confronting Darklings until Deacon manages to send J2 to aid the sorcerer. The two heroes discover the Darklings master is the dark lord Nemesus who reveals he plans to use Doc Magus’ point of entry into his dimension as a gateway to their plane of reality. While J2 battles a Darkling posing as his father, Nemesus drops hints about the real Juggernaut’s fate and taunts Dormagus’ about his strained relationship with his own father before retreating when temporarily thwarted. Doc Magus promises Zane they will eventually find his missing father (J2 #4).

 

True to his word, 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 warning from Doctor Strange 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 and aid in escaping from Nemesus’ dimension before they are all swarmed by legions of Darklings (J2 #12).

 

We don’t see the Sorcerer Supreme for quite some time, with only a brief appearance in Spider-Girl #58 before he makes a full-fledged return in Spider-Girl #71, once again teaming up with his buddy J2 alongside Spider-Girl for a trip to the nightmare dimension of Nemesus to close a rift Earth. While the magic of Dormagus and the helmet of J2 permit them to see through Nemesus’ invisibility spell, Spider-Girl was forced to rely entirely on her spider-sense as the trio sabotage the villain’s invisibility machine and ruin his plan with Doc Magus turning Nemesus’ magicks against him and his Darklings and folding the rift in upon itself. Sadly, the trio’s efforts go unappreciated.

 

 

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).

 

Now that he’d been firmly reintroduced, Dormagus returns for the events of the Last Hero Standing mini-series. 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).  

 

Returned to Earth alongside the other abducted heroes, Doc Magus is unable to recall who kidnapped him and compelled by Loki’s spell to become more violent leading to a clash with other heroes.Believing he knows who kidnapped him, Doc Magus falsely 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 Doctor Strange in a coma, Dormagus is unable to detect Loki’s handiwork thanks to the dark spell’s effect (Last Hero Standing #3-#4)

Thanks to the arrival of Thor and a small team of heroes led by Captain America, as well as the Grand Vizier of Asgard Eternal, Loki’s bewitchment is revealed and the day is saved, albeit at the cost of Captain America’s life. Doc Magus is among those who witness the hero’s passing and his spirit’s transformation into a new star by Thor (Last Hero Standing #5).

 

While not actually appearing on-panel himself, Doc Magus is among those who’s energy matrix duplicate (created by the magic of the Asgardian Sylene) makes an appearance in Avengers Next #4-#5, indicating that Dormagus fell victim to this spell before the Avengers managed to save the day.

 

Doc Magus briefly encounters Spider-Girl while trying to find the source of enormous discharges of psychic energy which are tampering with the astral plane. While he senses a connection to Spider-Girl’s search for a kidnapper, she fails to see how it’s possible. Later, Doc Magus is among the massive assembly of heroes who show up to aid Spider-Girl in her endeavour (Amazing Spider-Girl #15).

Finally, we have the cameo in Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme #12 mentioned at the start of this post, which brings us full circle for appearances of the young Dormagus. Doc Magus is a very fun and often arrogant character who tends to get himself into more trouble as a result of his hubris. As I mentioned above, I will likely delve into other aspects related to Dormagus in future posts.

 

Until I suddenly win the favour of the Vishanti and become the new Sorcerer Supreme, I remain

 

frogoat