Doctor Strange: The Oath...

[fajrdrako]

Sometimes I like Brian K. Vaughan's work, more often I don't. I found Y The Last Man a dead bore. And just looking at the Marcos Martin art, I didn't think Doctor Strange: The Oath would impress me: it looked like a Steve Ditko copy, a reversion to old comics and old styles.

But this entertained me far more than I expected it too. It was written with a sense of humour - something Doctor Strange stories sometimes lack. At the very first few pages we get Iron Fist and Arana in the waiting room for the superheroes' emergency clinic run by Night Nurse, who is actually a doctor. They are interrupted by the appearance of Wong with an unconscious Doctor Strange - Strange has been shot. And so begins a plot that is actually about Wong's medical condition: he has incurable cancer, later cured.

An example of the dialogue:

Night Nurse: Take a deep breath, Mr Wong. Who's your friend?
Doctor Strange in his astral form: That handsome devil is Doctor Steven Strange. And unless we work quickly, he's going to be a handsome angel.

Astral Strange, who is a bit of a flirt, enjoys teasing her:

Doctor Strange: I'm sure that cape is just part of your Florence Nightingale fetish.
Night Nurse: Keep it up, and I'll leave an earring in one of your arteries. Besides, I'm not sure anyone with his own personal slave boy should be talking about other people's fetishes.

Doctor Strange tells Night Nurse his life story: "For a time, I was one of the finest surgeons in our country... but I was also an arrogant wretch."

When he is finished, Night Nurse says, "You're serious? You call yourself the "Sorcerer Supreme"? And you say you used to be arrogant?"

The story features a revisitation to the origin of Doctor Strange, bringing it around to a hitherto unknown friend, colleague and antagonist for Strange, in a bizarre plot to find a cure for all disease (easy) and destroy it (more problematic, but they manage). There's more violence than I expect with Doctor Strange, where and somewhat less colourful spellcasting, which I liked.

And it ends with a kiss.

This is one of those comics that won me over in spite of myself, and raised my opinion of Brian K. Vaughan.