Stephen StrangeDoctor Strange

As Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange wields arcane spells and mystical artifacts to defend the planet against malevolent threats.

With These Hands

Recognized the world over as one of the most brilliant neurosurgeons, Stephen Strange’s arrogance and self-centered nature grew alongside his skill until his ego far outweighed his career, proceeding to close himself off from only the most wealthy and influential patients. Everything changed for the man one fateful night when a near-fatal car crash left Strange with severely damaged nerves in both hands and a diagnosis of never being able to operate again.

Knowing his reliance on his medical abilities to support his affluent lifestyle, Strange began to seek a source of healing for his hands until the quest drained him of his resources and he faced a dark and uncertain future. Having crossed off all grounded cures from his list, he followed a path of rumor and legend to Tibet for a more esoteric shelter. There, high in the mountains, he met the Ancient One, a master mystic, and caught his first glimpse of a much larger universe.

Strange embarked on a journey to learn the art of magic under the Ancient One’s tutelage when he realized that the art of medicine would remain closed off from him forever. The former medico excelled at his lessons and grew to be as adept at spells and sorcery as he once was at surgery. The Ancient One saw in Strange a most gifted pupil and after years of schooling him, presented him with powerful artifacts with which to protect the Earth from many and varied menaces.

Returning to the West, Strange set up a new practice in New York City, and settled into his destined role as a sage, an occult advisor, and a Master of the Mystic Arts.

Magic Man

Doctor Strange’s powers and abilities originally stemmed from tapping into otherworldly entities and planes, chief among them the Vishanti, a triumvirate of powerful beings who granted magic-users temporary access to their essences through spells. Strange called upon the Vishanti throughout his early years as a magician to aid in his battles against various forms of magical danger and creatures, culminating in him receiving the title of Sorcerer Supreme when the Ancient One relinquished it upon his death.

As his career advanced, Strange lost and regained both his title as Sorcerer Supreme and his connection to the Vishanti several times due to injuries or extreme challenges to his authority. During these times, he sought other forms of sorcery to wield, including so-called catastrophe or chaos magic, blood spells, and demon possession. Ultimately, the doctor has found himself returning to more traditional wellsprings of magic after bouts with darker forms, each dalliance with the dark inevitably impacting him one way or another.

Strange’s primary artifact is known as the Eye of Agamotto, an amulet endowed with the might of the being it was christened for and the ability to impart powers of light, truth, and planar travel, among others. In addition, the doctor also makes use of his Cloak of Levitation to fly and maintains a sprawling library of mystical tomes in his New York home. Recently, he’s taken up the ancient Axe of Angarruumus for both offense and defense purposes.

Direct Opposition

A man in Stephen Strange’s important position is sure to create many enemies, and so it is expected that the Sorcerer Supreme may claim some of the most terrifying foes of any champion. Baron Mordo became Strange’s first opponent when the two studied simultaneously under the Ancient One and Mordo proved he cared more for selfishly gaining power than for helping others. As Strange learned to let go of his own ego he saw the same darkness in his fellow student and warned their teacher of it. Mordo swore eternal enmity against Strange and went on to transform himself into the doctor’s longtime foe.

Perhaps the greatest and most powerful of all of Strange’s enemies is the dreaded Dormammu, a magical entity from another dimension whose lust for power and rulership over Earth’s plane placed him in direct opposition with the Sorcerer Supreme on multiple occasions. Strange has managed to defeat Dormammu at almost every turn, but sometimes by the skin of his teeth, owing to the Dread One’s near-omnipotent might on his own plane and his deft manipulation of earthly lackeys and sycophants.

Doctor Strange’s other enemies include the sorcerer Yandroth, the demons Nightmare and Shuma-Gorath, the Earth despot Doctor Doom, and Umar the Unrelenting, the sister of Dormammu.

Allies and Affiliates

Though a loner by choice, Strange has opened his heart and home to a precious few he can call friends. Chief among these individuals is Wong, a seemingly simple servant on the surface, who is in fact a martial arts master and accomplished scholar. Wong tends to Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, a stately mansion in New York’s Greenwich Village, protecting it and its master from outsiders while advancing his own skills. Together, Doctor Strange and Wong have traveled the dark and light together as employer and employee, but also as brothers.

During Strange’s initial forays into the Dark Dimension and his earning of Dormammu’s wrath, he met a young woman named Clea who would become not only his student and partner, but also his beloved. Eventually, Clea left Strange’s side after many adventures to ascend to the rulership of the Dark Dimension, but the two have found each other again and again to renew their bonds in even the most strident situations.

After a short period of non-activity as a sorcerer, Strange came in contact with two individuals who would shape an important corner of his life, Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Hulk. Together, the three men -- joined soon after by the Silver Surfer as well -- formed the basis of an experiment in teamwork known as the Defenders, a group of heroes formed by Strange to address missions on a sporadic basis and without any formal structure. Many versions of the Defenders followed the original “non-team,” with Strange at the forefront of a good number of them as “members” came and went as they would.

Strange also allied himself with a phalanx of supernatural champions called the Midnight Sons, as well as took part in a secretive conference of some of Earth’s most intelligent and well-reasoned champions. These Illuminati came together only under the most extreme of circumstances until torn apart by internal strife and disagreements. Strange himself questioned his own participation in the group on several occasion and though he called some of its members friends, never fully warmed to its intended purpose.

Though he himself only briefly dallied with the idea of operating as a traditional “super hero,” Doctor Strange’s ties with the ranks of costumed and codenamed champions around the globe have been fairly strong. In particular, his many team-ups with Spider-Man have produced a lasting friendship, and his relationship with the Avengers led to actual membership for the doctor in more recent times. More often than not though, Strange has mostly gone it alone, knowing well that his expertise as a singular mystical warrior makes for a sometimes lonely path.

The Chronicles

Stephen Strange’s list of accomplishments and adventures stands as a testament to his diligence as Earth’s magical protector, some of them even crossing over into the realm of legend.

When the infamous Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, became too powerful and cast his shadow over the planet, Strange assembled a spell dubbed the Montesi Formula and cast it to seemingly destroy every vampire on the earthly plane. Later, the doctor heeded the call of the Vishanti to become a soldier in the War of the Seven Spheres, a conflict he fought for five thousand years in another reality, yet which only transpired over several months on Earth.

During a reunion with the original Defenders, Strange and his allies unknowingly transformed themselves into a totalitarian regime called the Order until the threat of a new ploy by Strange’s old adversary Yandroth forced them to reclaim their proper attitudes and defeat the sorcerer. Following that adventure, the doctor took possession of the powerful Soul Gem as a member of the Illuminati and joined forces with a small group of Earth’s heroes to rid the world of the rampaging Hulk once and for all. When later the Illuminati assembled once again, Strange tested his abilities against a series of Incursions by other universes until the prime universe dissolved after one such encounter and was remade by Doctor Doom as his “Battleworld,” complete with Strange as the patchwork world’s sheriff.

Returned to his proper status as Sorcerer Supreme in the wake of Doom’s defeat and the remaking of the universe, Doctor Strange continues his vigilance for supernatural threats and menaces to Earth while he hones his mystical abilities to fight them.