Doctor Strange: The End #1 (re:view)

Welcome to a whole new adventure with... Doctor Strange! It's literally "the end" as he takes his final journey in life set in a dystopian future. Let's dive in!

It's most certainly a different Doctor Strange who I'm used to seeing going on wild adventures of epic proportions. It's sad to see him retiring into becoming a person who does party tricks for a living and a living joke on the internet (literally) but it's also nice to see him not lose his spark as he quickly dispatches a few thugs who plan to rob him. 

Strange's AI assistant Jenny is very sentient and forms their own mind but Strange doesn't treat them as such but more of an object which is strange seeing that he's lived in a world where AI have developed to points of being very much alive. It's interesting to see that Strange commands yet she speaks back in conversation and it was only in the last of Jenny's moment that for a fleeting moment he treats her as a being which is quickly lost when he shuts the thought down. It's funny how in the twilight years that one's thoughts have not evolved with the times but maybe it's just that he's lived in a world of magic (apparent in that Jenny seems to be the only thing that is technology in his home) that he cannot see anything past that. 

The art in the issue is very light darkness to it and it's very minimal. I thought for a second as to why it was done in this way and then I thought that it must have been that it's to accentuate the loneliness or the loss he feels that his life feels empty which he uses Jenny to try and fill those holes up.

It's a touching moment when he gathers up his friends and peers that have become a part of his journey in consummation to bring back an old friend of his Illyana Rasputin. I guess the retablo that he carries on his shoulder is a metaphor for the weight he feels in finding Illyana which is hauntingly touching. 

Illyana's return is shows charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent as she tells the celestial high beings the Living Tribunal to stick it. The ending is soooo Strange (excuse the pun) as Illyana now finds him immortalised as a statue which provides a true testament and beautiful end for the character.

Subscribe? Yes

A stripped-back world with a stripped back Doctor Strange serves such tender moments in a very dystopian setting.

Doctor Strange: The End #1

Leah Williams - writer

Filipe Andrade - artist

Chris O'Halloran - colour artist

VC's Clayton Cowles letterer

Marvel - publisher