Writer: Jed Mackay
Artist: Pasqual Ferry
Color Artist: Heather Moore
Cover Artist: Alex Ross
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $4.99
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
While things seem to be settling down for Dr. Strange, things are never calm too long for the Sorcerer Supreme. He discovers that a giant fantastical castle has emerged in New York, and that it’s the product of a living game that threatens to interweave itself with reality. Read Doctor Strange #13 to see how the good doctor deals with this unexpected threat.
Review:
Okay, while the previous issue wasn’t all that great and got a little weird near the end, this one is taking things down a more excitable route for the good doctor and his allies. Or at least, that’s the intent of the writer Jed Mackay, who I think seems to be having more fun with this story than I did. Fair warning, there will be some SPOILERS in this review.
The issue begins with Dr. Strange and Clea investigating a giant fantastical castle that just showed up out of nowhere in the upper west side of New York City, with its own flora and fauna to boot. Turns out that the castle and everything around it is the work of a mystical board game called “Cobolorum”. It’s literally a living, tabletop fantasy role-playing board game that wants to exist and in order to keep existing it entraps several people as its “players” to keep it going. Think of it as Jumanji but with Dungeons & Dragons. But for Dr. Strange to go in and save the players, he must play the game’s rules and assemble his own adventurer party who all meet a specific criteria: a thief, a priest, a fighter, and a magic user. And Dr. Strange, Black Cat, the new Fist of Khonshu, and Taskmaster all fit the bill. Once the party is assembled, Strange leads his fellow adventurers into Cobolorum to face its trials and rescue the players trapped within.
Okay, like his recent Avengers #11, Jed Mackay has written another mixed bag of a comic that’s not terrible or great, it’s just okay. Naturally, Mackay’s strength here is that he’s good at writing character voices, giving them each an identity and nice dialogue that ranges from serviceable to sometimes being fun to read. However, the biggest problem above all other criticisms is that I feel this type of story is just too big to tell in this series. Let me explain. I said earlier that “Cobolorum” is just Jumanji but with Dungeons & Dragons, and the problem is that the comic fails to capture the type of fun and thrilling energy that comes with such a story. Like learning the game’s rules, pooling their talents together to overcome challenges, and growing together as a team. Stuff like that.
And I believe the problem is that Mackay, and by extension the series, doesn’t have the time to do any of that. He can’t have the team learn and master the game’s rules, overcome perilous traps, face unique and menacing fantasy monsters, let alone grow and develop as characters. As a result he has to have Dr. Strange and the others basically speedrun through the game’s trials to get to the big reveal: Baron Mordo is behind Cobolorum’s recent manifestation and is the game’s current dungeon master. Considering how Mackay wrote Baron Mordo in his Death of Doctor Strange miniseries, I’m not expecting much here.
A bit of a nitpick here. It feels a little weird to me that Jed Mackay chose Dr. Strange’s adventure party to be just characters he’s written books about. I say this because Strange went out of his way to visit each of these characters to enlist them to help, and while their interactions are nice, it just feels off. Like the whole Cobolorum story arc is nothing short of an excuse for Mackay to conveniently have all of the characters he’s written before, or currently writing (Vengeance of Moon Knight), show up in one title. Again, it’s a nitpick, we’ll see what Mackay does with this team in the next issue.
Final Thoughts:
Doctor Strange #13 has the good doctor deal with a living fantasy role-playing board game called “Cobolorum”. Off the bat, it feels like a fun concept, a Jumanji type story but with a Dungeons & Dragons version. However, the story’s concept feels a little too big for the series to fully explore since it kind of has Strange and his adventuring party speed run through to the end. Also, the reveal of the main villain is a little underwhelming considering how they were depicted in a previous series written by Jed Mackay. However, with the main villain now established combined with the inherently fantastical nature of this story, there’s still potential for the story to become more exciting in the next issue.
I stopped reading Dr. Strange when he was “dead” and Clea was the new Sorcerer Supreme, so I’ve been out the loop. I do remember a Waid series where Strange was focused on being a medical doctor primarily too. This comic sounds odd, like they just don’t know what to do with this character. I’ve been reading Dr. Strange for decades, like Hawkman he’s one of these popular characters who has his series canceled and relaunched often….