After the events of ‘Infinity’ while the rest of the Marvel Universe is dealing with ‘Inhumanity’, the Illuminati in ‘New Avengers’ are back to trying to save their universe from ending. Thanks to Black Swan and Mr. Fantastic, the Avengers have a way to look into the other worlds and see where incursions are occurring so they can track them and learn from them to keep their own world from perishing. However, while the greatest minds in the world work on solving the problem with science, Doctor Stephen Strange ventures off on his own to try to do things his way.

That’s where we pick up when ‘New Avengers’ #14 opens. While Reed Richards, Tony Stark, and the others observe another world falling apart, Dr. Strange ventures to the Sinner’s Market in the Lost Lands in order to find something that is powerful enough to save his universe from an incursion if faced with one.

In the last issue of the series, I mentioned that the Sorcerer Supreme’s storyline was much more interesting to me than anything else going on. Now, we essentially get a whole issue of Dr. Strange and it was such an awesome change of pace for this series to me. Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan Hickman has been doing some crazy stuff in this book and I don’t think I’ve ever had to think so much while reading the comic because of the high concepts contained in it, but aside from the epic chapters of ‘Infinity’, all that science was getting pretty daunting. It was still fun to follow, but there was getting to be a whole lot of it. Here, we get a small but very welcome change of pace as the approach goes from science to magic. Still fairly high concept, but slightly different from what we’ve been seeing I think. Yet it still fits the tone and plot of the story in a really interesting way.

Now that Dr. Strange is getting himself into this mess in the market, it’ll be really cool to see what his actions do to him as a person. He’s literally selling his soul to protect his world, but magic always comes with a price. After he paid such a hefty sum for this sort of protection, there’s no doubt that we’ll be seeing some kind of change in the good doctor sooner rather than later. Additionally, his scientific colleagues might have some grievances with Strange’s approach to their problems, so when that all comes to a head, that should be pretty exciting as well.

Just like another famous Doctor that we here at ScienceFiction.com enjoy, this good man is about to go to war. Whether his brothers in arms join him will be some intriguing events to follow. Considering what they’ve done to comrades who have thought differently than them in the past such as Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers, I’m so curious to see what they think when Strange returns with his plan. I’m predicting that business is really about to pick up in ‘New Avengers’ and I’ll be right there for the ride!

Final Score:

atoms_3.5

 

 

NEW AVENGERS #14
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Simone Bianchi & Adriano Dell’Alpi