Strange #1
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Emma Rios
So for the first time in over a year, I willingly paid for a single from Marvel Comics. Only two reasons why I did this
1.) Waid (Flash) was writing it
2.) It was a Doctor Strange comic.
So, was this worth the close to 3.99 I paid for it? Almost.
The story starts out with a slight olde school insert from the old Doctor Strange comics whilest at the same time foreshadowing an event that looks to happen much later in the story (Stephen Strange looking as though he's being torturted) CUT TO ...a baseball game.
An angsty teen is twittering via her phone about having to sit thru said game, a fly ball she catches and throws back squarely into none other then Stephen Strange. The coincidence is of course not one as Stephen tries to get the girl to lead him to her Grandfather (the manager of the home team playing). Apparently the team is involved in some kind of deal with a demon and in losing the game all the souls in the arena essentially will get sucked into hell. Stephen is confronted by the dealer demon and you soon realize that Strange has become known as somewhat of a hack now, even in Demonic circles. There is more but, I don't wanna give the whole issue away.
The first issue of Strange is good but not great. Waid's storytelling an characterization is on point, the callback to the old Strange comic, the depiction of Stephen Strange as kinda a down and out master sorcerer, etc, etc, all of it is good...which leaves the artwork. Much of the artwork Rios does in this first issue is good and has a Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane / Miyazawa feel to it, until you get to the baseball game. Essentially at one part in the story Stephen Strange has to play in a baseball game with demons. In what should be some purely awesome panels of Strange rounding the bases I was left utterly confused about what the fuck was going on. Rios's depiction of the demon players was just too much or rather too busy as you had tentacles an the like flying every which way confusing me and likely every other reader on what actually was happening. I get it, their demons, they have tentacles and other weird appendages, you don't need to show ALL of them. You eventually figure out Strange is safe on home base only when the umpire says SAFE...and yeah...that's just not good. I am not trying to bash Rios here, she's a good artist, but those panels woulda benefited from a less is more strategy
Aside from the "too many tentacles" issue this first issue of Strange was interesting. I say wait for the trade to come out though and enjoy it then. With their being only 4 issues in this series and each costing 3.99 you might save more money reading this title that way.
B+
