Last week Marvel announced their slate of films. New heroes joining the Avengers are Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and the Inhumans. We will take a look at the new faces and theorize how they may be brought to the big screen and how they fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Next up is Doctor Strange.
Doctor Strange first appeared in Strange Tales #110 created by the Steve Ditko, the artist who co-created Spider-man.
Doctor Stephen Strange is a brilliant but egotistical neurosurgeon who only cares about wealth from his career. A car accident damages his hands, shattering the bones. The damage effectively ends his ability to conduct surgery, since his hands now tremble uncontrollably. Too proud to take a teaching job, Strange desperately begins to search for a way to restore his hands, consulting various doctors, homeopathic treatments and traveling around the world to remote regions for exotic cures, all to no avail.
The Ancient One
He exhausts his funds and is reduced to homelessness and is forced to perform "back alley" medical procedures for cash. Depressed and still searching, Strange locates a hermit called the Ancient One (who is actually the Earth's Sorcerer Supreme) in the Himalayas. The Ancient One refuses to help Strange because of his selfishness, but senses a good side that he attempts to bring to the surface. He fails, but Strange's goodness appears when he discovers the Ancient One's disciple, Baron Mordo, attempting to kill the old man. After Strange selflessly thwarts Mordo (later to become Strange's most enduring antagonist), the Ancient One teaches him the mystic arts.
Baron Mordo
After completing his training, Strange returns to New York and takes up residence within the Sanctum Sanctorum, a townhouse located in Greenwich Village which is guarded by Strange's personal servant Wong.
Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum
Wong
As the Ancient One's disciple, Strange encounters the entity Nightmare, and miscellaneous other mystical foes before meeting Dormammu, a warlord from an alternate dimension called the "Dark Dimension". Strange is aided by a nameless girl, later called Clea, who is eventually revealed to be Dormammu's niece. When Strange helps a weakened Dormammu drive off the rampaging Mindless Ones and return them to their prison, he is allowed to leave unchallenged.
Clea
Powers: Strange is a practicing magician who draws his powers from various entities (such as Agamotto, Cyttorak, the Faltine, Ikonn, Oshtur, Raggadorr, the Seraphim, and Watoomb, and artifacts (such as the Cloak of Levitation which enables him to fly, the Eye of Agamotto whose light is used to negate evil magic, the Book of the Vishanti which contains knowledge of white magic, and the Orb of Agamotto which is used as a crystal ball) which enable him to perform various magical feats.
In addition to his magical abilities, Strange is also a skilled neurosurgeon (although he can no longer practice due to minor nerve damage to his hands rendering him unable to perform the finer details of such operations) and is trained in several different martial arts disciplines.
Doctor Strange has been described as "the mightiest magician in the cosmos", and as "more powerful by far than any of your fellow humanoids" by Eternity, the sentience of the Marvel Universe. He has held the title of Sorcerer Supreme from 1973 (with the death of the Ancient One) to the present, except during an interruption from 1992 to 1995. He relinquished the title once again in 2009, but reclaimed it in 2012 when he proved himself willing to protect the world even without the title.
The evil Dormammu
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