Polite Dissent

In the previous issue, Doc had been stabbed through the chest with a mystic spear by the champion of the evil sorcerer Urthona. Luckily, Doc was able to slip away in his astral form so the wound wasn’t immediately fatal. With the help of Morgana Blessing, he was able to defeat the warrior.

In this issue, Doc’s body is dying. He is rushed to the hospital where they notice that a green ichor dripping from his wound instead of blood They send him immediately to the operating room. Doc’s astral form reaches Sara Wolfe and she tries to sneak into the surgical suite, but one of the surgeons catches her. With the help of the Eye of Agamotto, she convinces him to let her scrub into the surgery. While the surgeons are handing the medical aspect of the surgery, Sara/Doc are handling the mystic side. There are supernaturally corroding forceps, magically super-sized bacteria that attack the operating team, and a mystic poison that stops Doc’s heart from beating. In the end, Doctor Strange has to merge his astral form with the chief surgeon in order to save his own life.

Thoughts: Doc sure hangs out with an awful lot of very good looking women. Sara Wolfe, Morgana Blessing, Topaz, Clea, and on and on. A career in the mystic arts is starting to look better and better. Sure, giant bacteria could never really exist because of the square-cube rule, but these are magic bacteria. You know, bacteria have some nasty survival tricks; they’d make good villains (or at least henchman) when magically increased to human size. The OR team really needs to work on their sterile technique. I’m pretty sure touching the Eye of Agamotto (and who knows where that’s been) breaks sterility. There’s really not much point in me medically critiquing this issue. Almost all the “medicine” is magical in nature. In the end, Strange is saved when his own astral form takes over the body of a cardio-thoracic surgeon to solve a cardio-thoracic problem (and remember that Strange is a neurosurgeon; he’s lucky if he even remembers what a heart looks like). Frankly, I’m just along for the ride.