Written by: Jed MacKay
Art by: Pasqual Ferry
Colors by: Heather Moore
Letters by: VC’s Cory Petit
Cover art by: Alex Ross
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: July 3, 2024
Doctor Strange #17, by @Marvel on 7/3/24, saves Wong, saves Doctor Strange, and returns just about everything to the pre-Blood Hunt status quo in one mighty swipe.
Is Doctor Strange #17 Good?
When last we left the Sanctum Sanctorum in Doctor Strange #16, Wong held vigil over Stephen Strange’s body as it was encased in a magical prison. Strange had no choice but to spiritually leave his body after Blade turned him into a vampire. Sensing an opportunity, Victor Strange took possession of his brother’s body and began to chase Wong through the Sanctum Sanctorum in the first of this two-part Blood Hunt tie-in.
In Doctor Strange #17, hang on to your hats for a god-sized deus ex machina. The Sanctum’s chatty snakes, Bats the ghost dog, and Baron Mordo find themselves trapped together in the Crypt of Shadows, that liminal space behind the Sanctum’s mirrors. Only Baron Mordo has an idea about how to escape, and it involves Bats uttering an incantation, which is nothing more than a story that invokes power.
Bats tells the story of how early humans were so afraid of the things that wanted to eat them in the darkness beyond the firelight. Their collective fear was so strong, it gave birth to a god of fear in the shape of the tigers humans feared.
Dogs soon became man’s best friend, who guarded the humans against the things in the dark. Humanity’s collective love for dogs gave birth to the dog god. Bats’s story serves as the incantation Baron Mordo needed to summon the dog god. The powerful entity praises Bats for being a good boy and chooses him to be the god’s avatar for a short time.
On the other side of the looking glass, Victor catches Wong. Before he can drain Stephen’s longtime friend, all the mirrors in the Sanctum break, and Bats appears as a gigantic, ghostly dog god avatar. He snatches Victor’s ghost out of Stephen’s body, magically curing the body of vampiric infection.
Now, all is right with the world, seeds are planted for more dog god and tiger god shenanigans in the future, and Baron Mordo escapes with Victor’s ghost to fight another day. The end.
What’s great about Doctor Strange #17? In all fairness, this end to the Blood Hunt tie-in absolutely could not have been guessed. Jed MacKay pulls out a Deus ex machina that few writers would have had the courage to attempt, so give MacKay bonus points for creativity and courage.
What’s not so great about Doctor Strange #17? A god dog? Really? That’s what we’re going with here? MacKay earns bonus points on pure gumption, but most of those points get deducted for the pure silliness of it all. This issue reeks of making something up on the fly because Blood Hunt was thrown together at the last minute.
There’s not much more to this review because there’s not much to this comic. MacKay gets readers from point A to point B, but you might as well have had Glinda the Good Witch show up to wave her magic wand, and it would make about as much sense.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Final Thoughts
Doctor Strange #17 is certainly an imaginative way to end this two-part tie-in to Blood Hunt, but imagination unfettered isn’t always a good thing. MacKay throws a whopper of a Deus ex machina at the wall to put all the toys back in the Marvel toy box, leaving you feeling impressed with the ballsiness of it and simultaneously let down by the silliness of it. Give bonus points to Pasqual Ferry for his excellent art.
5.8/10
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