Doctor Strange

Origin

The Sorcerer Supreme

At a young age, Stephen Strange had dreams of becoming a doctor. The eldest child of three, Strange was born in 1930 while his parents Eugene and Beverly Strange were vacationing in Philadelphia. At the age of eleven he aided his younger sister Donna when she was injured, which proved to be a formative experience for him, and he was inspired to attend med-school after high school. Ironically, it was his inability to later save her from drowning when he was nineteen and on leave from college that undermined his belief in life’s meaning and the value of idealism. Nevertheless, he rapidly finished med-school at a young age and became a successful neurosurgeon.

Strange displayed phenomenal talent in his chosen field, and quickly attained wealth and notoriety. The more successful he became, the more arrogant he grew. Eventually this led to estrangement from his family and the undoing of his relationship with a United Nations translator named Madeline Revell to whom he had proposed marriage. So distant and self-absorbed did he become, that he refused to visit his father on his deathbed. His enraged younger brother Victor Strange berated him for this, and then was killed as he ran into traffic. Stephen then placed the body of his brother into cryogenic storage. At a much later stage Stephen attempted to restore his brother through magical means, but instead imbued him with the curse of vampirism.

A car accident that damaged the nerves in his hands changed everything for Stephen Strange. He was no longer able to be a surgeon, and arrogantly refused to become an assistant or consultant as he squandered his money traveling the world searching for a cure. One day he heard a rumor of a mystical personage known as the Ancient One in Tibet. Marshalling the last of his inner and outer resources, Strange diligently searched until the fortress of the Ancient One was revealed to him. Though initially outraged that the aged mystic refused to cure his hands, Strange’s anger was quickly replaced by amazement when the reality of magical forces was demonstrated before his eyes as he witnessed an attack on the Ancient One.

Circumstances revealed to Strange that it was none other than Baron Mordo, the Ancient One’s chief disciple, who was the perpetrator of the attack, and who continued to plot the destruction of the antediluvian mystic in an attempt to gain power. To his horror Strange learned he was unable to reveal this after Mordo easily ensorcelled him. Realizing the Ancient One was a force for good; Stephen selflessly abandoned his quest to restore his hands and committed himself to magical tutelage with the intention of foiling Mordo’s insidious scheme. By this act Strange proved himself to the Ancient One, to whom the entire melodrama had been transparent. Thus Doctor Strange set himself down the path to become the new Sorcerer Supreme of the earth dimension, yet gained a deadly enemy in Baron Mordo.

After many years of training, Strange returned to New York. He became a mystical consultant and started having interactions with the superhero community. After the Fantastic Four formed and many superheroes began to surface, Doctor Strange found a friend in Spider-Man. Spider-Man helped him rescue a group of people from another dimension and suggested that Strange remove from their memory this traumatic experience, though this meant that they would forget his own heroism. He also formed a bizarre team-up with the Hulk, Namor, and later the Silver Surfer. These four strong personalities somehow managed to work together and started the unlikely super-team known as the Defenders. Initially tricked into conflict with each other by Loki, Thor and Doctor Strange also formed an early alliance to combat the god of mischief.

Noteworthy among the good Doctor’s numerous foes over the years as earth’s magical guardian were the Dread Dormammu, Shuma-Gorath, the Undying Ones, and Dracula. Strange’s first battle with Dormammu ensued when the powerful demigod of the Dark Dimension attempted to invade earth’s plane as he perceived the wane of the Ancient One’s sorcerous might. Strange was forced to duel Dormammu in the Dark Dimension, and though vastly out-powered by the god-like entity, Strange was able to tax Dormammu to the extent that the barrier separating beings know as the Mindless Ones from the rest of the Dark Dimension became compromised. A force of pure destruction, the Mindless Ones would have meant annihilation to the other denizens of Dormmamu’s realm, and Strange nobly contributed his power to his enemy to prevent their being unleashed. Bound by whatever strange honor as applies to his daemonic ilk, Dormammu then called off his invasion and released Strange. They were to clash many times subsequently, however, and Dormammu has been one of Strange’s most implacable and powerful foes. It was during this adventure that Doctor Strange also met Clea, a beautiful but inexperienced mystic (the daughter of Umar, Dormmamu’s sister), who became Strange’s first apprentice, as well as his lover.