Comic Review: Doctor Strange (2018-) #11

Doctor Strange #11

Marvel Comics

Writer: Mark Waid

Artist: Jesus Saiz

In the newest chapter of Mark Waid’s run of Doctor Strange, we pick up where the last issue left off at a burning, Faltine-infested New York.

In this issue, Stephen decides to serve as a distraction for Dormammu while his friends are sent back to The Accountant’s office to try and find a solution to this current problem. Although I was glad (at first) to see the classic Doctor Strange villain, the change of setting for Waid’s run wasn’t my favorite decision. He was doing a good job taking Stephen into a cosmic environment and showing new kinds of alien magic/technology, and the run took a bad turn when Stephen got back to Earth and he continues to let this reviewer down every month. The conclusion to this two-part arc was bland and quick providing the reader with a fun but forgettable read.

Waid’s writing is not bad. As I previously mentioned he was doing a tremendously good job mixing up Doctor Strange’s mysticism and science fiction. It was an instigating and innovative approach on a magic centered character, especially because he seemed to be undoing the whole “magic has a price” thing that has been the core to every Doctor Strange story since The Last Days of Magic. But, as soon as Strange got back to Earth the same theme returned, now introducing an actual accounting firm for magic use, which apparently was the idea from the very beginning of his run and that feels extremely disappointing. For this issue, the writing didn’t improve. Last month, Waid set up a threat and made it look highly menacing and serious, this issue contradicts that set up giving Dormammu a poor motivation for his new move on Doctor Strange and resolving the situation completely with a single course of action from the characters.

Jesus Saiz’ pencils fall short on this issue. Probably because Saiz appears to give more attention to little details in character and equipment design. This issue, with giant Faltine people, requires a bigger scale, making Jesus’ art look boring and only sufficient. The artist doesn’t seem to care much for movement portrayal as most of the fight scenes in this issue are composed with a different fight stance to each panel without any movement line whatsoever, failing to represent the transition between said stances.

Even though the penciling for this issue isn’t as good as it was for the previous because of the scale problem, the coloring remains excellent.  The use of warm colors serves to provide the reader with the awareness of the burning city. And, like it has been since the beginning of this run, the contrast between the predominant opaque colors against the bright shades that compose the magical circles/beams and fire give these elements more lighting which make them feel more powerful and special.

I did not like this issue as I didn’t like the previous one that took place on Earth, but Galactus should appear on the next issue making me hope Waid takes Doctor Strange back to space and gives this series that fresh sensation it gave the readers on its starting point.