CREDIT: Marvel Comics
Rating: 4/5 – Solid Spin-Off Series With Lots of Marvel Magicians.
by ComicSpectrum EiC Bob Bretall
I was really skeptical about this series. Many times in the past when Marvel has announced extra spin-off series for whatever character was having a movie come out I have been (to be kind) less than impressed with the results. Seeing Doctor Strange and the Sorcerors Supreme solicited to hit comic shops a week before the Doctor Strange movie hit theaters did not instill me with confidence, it could be another series with a thin concept pumped out to take advantage of a heightened awareness of the title character. But I was interested enough to flip through the book and give it a chance. I’m glad I did.
What hits a reader first on a comic shop flip through of a book? The art, of course. The art in this book by Javier Rodriguez on pencils and Alvaro Lopez on inks is solid. Clean with just a bit of whimsy, though lacking in background detail on far too many panels as is fairly common in many superhero books nowadays. Next up on the flip through is reading the first couple of pages to see if they grab me. Check. The story by Robbie Thompson starts off in 507 A.D. England with Merlin, Sorceror Supreme of his era. He’s facing a mystical threat and he needs some help. He announces (via internal monologue) that the Sorcerors Supreme will fix it. The plural in this statement and the title of the series is not lost on me, the trick is making the concept of gathering up Sorcerors Supreme from across the ages into a team into a solid story framework. The first few pages and the art sold me on issue #1. Reading it at home sold me on the series.
The real selling point to me on this series the the makeup of the team Merlin pulls together. Doctor Strange goes without saying, he’s in the title and has a movie in theaters. But the members who really grabbed me were the Ancient One as a young man and Wiccan as a middle aged man. As someone who has been around the Marvel Universe for a while seeing these characters out of their normal timeframe and age was very cool. We also get Sir Isaac Newton, who it turns out was a sorceror supreme as well as a physicist/mathematician, and a female sorceror supreme named Kushala (who I am not familiar with, but hope to get to know better in future issues). Thompson does a great job blending these characters together and adding in cool little touches everywhere, from Wiccan’s cloak to Newton’s companion and many more. Far from being a series that exists to grab some extra $$ for Marvel in the wake of the Doctor Strange movie, this is a solid series featuring lots of Marvel’s mystical practitioners from across the ages. I’m looking forward to next issue and beyond.
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall
(bob@comicspectrum.com)
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