Status Updates From Doctor Strange: A Separate ...

The Silver Dagger saga brings Strange to the brink of death and beyond to realms of unreality, meeting several familiar faces inside the Orb of Agamotto and becoming an eternal figure. His foe retains the upper hand on a stolen Eye and his captive Clea. As much as this curvy creature draws her hero back to this plane of reality, for many panels she merely is a damsel in distress as if airbrushed on the side of a van.

The Comic Code Authority must have been pressed to the limit with religious liberties in the 1970s, not just Living Buddha from a couple issues ago, but the blasphemous borrowing as Cagliostro becomes Sise-Neg and then something else. The time travel part of the story makes sense for an all-powerful magician would, with all the time there is, ultimately be a caring creator. Yet next Strange is killed by a mad hatter.

Recalling highlights from Master of the Mystic Arts then adding a trippy odyssey through the cosmos and into the Ancient One’s dying mind, Doctor Strange prepares himself to become Sorcerer Supreme while defeating the mental parasite Shuma-Gorath. The furrowed brows and dialogues on consciousness make a more headier version of comic book hero, but grounded characters like Clea and Wong bring him back home.