Doctor Strange vol. 4: Mr. Misery
Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo wrap up their run on this title in the same weird, queasily funny, and strangely (pun intended) violent way they came into it. The stakes are high, though, as we’re picking up from the previous volume’s cliffhanger which had Mr. Misery — the living embodiment of Strange’s pain and suffering — possessing Wong with the intent to turn him against his best friend. Which he does by getting information on several surviving brain cancer patients that were operated on by the Doctor and having their cancers grow back — with a vengeance.
Mind you, this is after Strange has a brief team-up with Man-Thing at the Nexus of All Realities to take on some Nazi Vampire Ninjas. More than anything else, this run of “Doctor Strange” has been a perfect fit for the kind of random bits of over-the-top weirdness that Aaron loves to insert into his Marvel Comics work. Doctor Strange is an, uh, weird character so it makes sense that his adventures should embrace this kind of thing. Which is why we have a volume that includes Nazi Vampire Ninjas, tumors that fight back with deadly force, a fridge that’s as dangerous as the foods it houses, and the title character disguising himself as a dog to steal a magic wand during an auction. Oh, and Thor shows up for a literal lightning round of brain surgery in a fun team-up issue.
While these displays of Aaron’s fevered imagination are definitely entertaining, the real heart of the volume is in the issue where Strange has to find a way to get Mr. Misery out of Wong. The latter’s takeover of the former at first seems wholly complete, but Strange displays some genuine cleverness in his exorcismal practices. Painful cleverness since it requires him to attack the relationship he has with the man who is in practice his servant. In actuality, Wong is Strange’s best friend and we get to see how far the Sorcerer Supreme is willing to go for him here.
That would’ve been a great issue to end the run on. There’s one more to go and, well… it basically undercuts a good portion of what that previous issue accomplished. The majority of the issue has Strange and his assistant, Zelda Staunton, stuck in Weirdworld after their attempts to heist a magic wand go awry. Strange is poisoned in the escape and it’s up to Zelda to care for him and find a cure with her limited magical resources. This is something she manages to do, but how Strange deals with the aftermath winds up putting a rift between him and Wong.
Wong objecting to Strange’s methods isn’t a bad idea for a story. It’s just that after you’ve had a mini-arc where his relationship with the Doctor was threatened and then reaffirmed in the end this kind of setup loses its impact. Things are further confused when Zelda regains consciousness for a bit to agree to Strange’s plan and Wong still objects to it. All this comes off like it was done to write Wong out of the series while setting up Zelda as Strange’s new assistant (who is also his apprentice) for the future. I can understand Aaron wanting to leave some kind of lasting impact on “Doctor Strange’s” status quo, but this isn’t the right way to do it. It’s even more disappointing when you consider that this is coming from a writer who has managed an even more radical change to a Marvel character’s status quo with his handling of the adventures of Jane Foster as Thor for the past few years.
The majority of the art in this volume comes, as it always has, from Chris Bachalo and it’s as splendidly weird as it’s always been. Bachalo has always excelled at drawing things that look like they shouldn’t belong in our world and that’s true again here with his eyeball-heavy shadowy take on Mr. Misery. I can see other artists struggling with the character’s design, but Frazier Irving isn’t one of them. Irving guest-illustrates the opening issue and while it looks a lot rougher than I’m used to seeing from him, there’s lots of shadowy and spooky goodness to be seen in his art. Kevin Nowlan even drops by again to illustrate the Weirdworld portions of the final issue and while they look great, it’s still just a little disappointing he wasn’t able to illustrate a full issue in the two times he guested during this run.
This volume also includes an Annual written by Kathryn Immonen with art from Leonardo Romero which looks to catch us up on the state of Strange’s relationship with Clea. She’s looking to formally dissolve their marriage while Strange and Wong deal with a contractor… FROM HELL! Well, not quite Hell, but pretty close I’d imagine. It’s got some appealingly clean art from Leonardo Romero, some good ideas, and I find it hard to dislike a story where demonic contracts are subverted. Yet, parts of the story — Clea’s encounter with the Empirkul to name one — aren’t as clear as they could be and it winds up being a zero-sum-game in the end. There’s also a teaser for a “Sorcerers Supreme” story at the end of the Annual from writer Robbie Thompson and Jonathan Marks (doing his best Kent Williams). I can’t say anything more about it than it was a thing and it happened.
So it’s not the perfect wrap up to the Aaron/Bachalo run, but “Mr. Misery” is still a good showcase for the things that have made it an entertaining one. The imaginative weirdness, good character moments, and impressive art always managed to hold my interest even when the plotting got a little ropey or the story decided to go for drama at the expense of logic. I’d definitely say all four volumes are worth picking up if your a fan of the creators or the character. It’s not a definitive take on the character, but it’s one what’s worth remembering.