Issue(s): Doctor Strange #61
Cover Date: Jan 94
Title: "Sacrifice supreme"
Credits:
David Quinn - Writer
Melvin Rubi - Penciler
Fred Harper - Inker
Evan Skolnick - Editor

Review/plot:
We haven't seen the last of Salome after her appearance in the last chapter.

She's causing quite an effect on Earth. Even Zarathos isn't happy about her, even though she's one of the Fallen.

Cameos by Spider-Man, Man-Thing, and Scarecrow reacting to her.

Meanwhile, Dr. Strange and Victoria Montesi are still in the ruins of Strange's home, which continues to glow with a green fire. Strange is again contacted by Caretaker, who tries to make him remember his dream-encounter with Salome. Strange is distracted by Sam Buchanan, who is still having trouble accepting all this mystical stuff, and then Salome shows up to attack Strange. Salome's dance apparently triggers Strange's memory.

As the other Midnight Sons arrive, Salome says that she wants to "reclaim" the title of Sorceress Supreme. She says she was Supreme before the ancient one and "before Green Myrrdin himself". Strange has already decided what he needs to do, and that is to surrender the title of Sorcerer Supreme, but he makes sure that all of his artifacts are destroyed as he does so.

As Victoria jumps into the mix, things get really weird. The middle two pages of this issue look like a Wikihow article on helping someone deal with being pregnant with an Elder God.

First, calm your partner by shaving off your facial hair.

Being butt-naked also helps.

Do not humiliate your partner by telling her to "relax". She is *pregnant with an Elder God*. It's kind of hard to relax.

If her Elder God is burning, try giving her some milk. And don't forget to continue being naked.

Now is not the time to think about costume changes. Yes, you will look swell in a luchadore mask. But right now focus on *her* needs.

Give your partner a mirror and wrap her in some sheets.

Pretty soon she will simply fade into oblivion. Problem solved!

Honestly, i don't know what that was. But right after that we go back to the chaos of Marvel's answer to Vertigo.

The other Midnight Sons fight Salome for a while, and then Strange seemingly returns wearing a new costume and mask.

He attacks Salome and drives her off. Note that Salome says that the entity is not Strange and the other Midnight Sons also say he acts differently than Dr. Strange.

The characters then just head off to fight Zarathos.

This new form has not said a word yet, but he'll come to be known as "Strange", distinct from Dr. Strange. And we'll eventually learn that it's a separate entity, but that's all a mystery at the moment. For now, this change recalls the previous period circa Doctor Strange #180 where Strange wore a full mask and changed identities (to Stephen Sanders). But it also just feels like an attempt to do something in the Doctor Strange comic that doesn't have to deal with any of the traditional elements of the series. It's kind of hard to do that in the middle of a crossover, though, and it's just hilarious the way all this happens to Dr. Strange and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and runs off after Zarathos. And "Strange" will continue to participate in the crossover without any examination of what's happened.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - status quo change for Dr. Strange / first "Strange"

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part fifteen of Siege of Darkness. Part sixteen is in Spirits of Vengeance #18.

References:

• The "pain" generated in Morbius #17 is apparently helping to fuel Salome.
  
• We saw the green fire spring up in the ruins of Dr. Strange's house in Marvel Comics Presents #146.

Crossover: Siege of Darkness

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Your Wikihow parody of that segment is probably the only thing to come out of this crossover.

^ I meant to type "only good thing".

I laughed out loud at the Wikihow thing, Fnord. It almost made reading these entries worthwhile. I can't imagine how it feel to write them, or read the comics. (Even though I read them in real time--except the MCP chapters, which I assumed were m8ssable, and for once it seems they weren't!)

About the Marvel's Vertigo stuff, though: I don't think Marvel wanted to do a Vertigo-like line with Midnight Suns, I think they just wanted to cash in on the Ghost Rider boomlet, or for that matter the Punisher violent-vigilante boomlet. Spirits of Vengeance is literally a second GR book. The Nightstalkers include a guy with a big gun and a violent guy with knives. Morbius is a killer vigilante, a wannabe vampire Venom. Only Darkhold, the first book to be canceled, seems like it has a different concept, but note the Sabretooth and GR guest appearances (was the Punisher in it, too?) and Sam Buchanan's brief rumored-up Punisher-esque turn.

It wouldn't surprise me, in fact, if Darkhold was a holdover from an earlier plan for a genuine horror lube, in the mold of the '70s Marvel horror books if not Vertigo. It fits with books like Hellstorm and the bookshelf Dracula revival and Legion of Night better than with the "biker demon" aesthetic of the rest of the books.

Unfortunately, Mackie didn't know how to sustain one Ghost Rider book. Once there were four-and-a-half or five of them, depending on how you count Darkhold and the GR/Vengeance serials in MCP, a multiplied mess was assured

Strange tells Salome that no one can claim the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme, although it can be given- that's a paraphrase of what Strange told Clea in Doctor Strange 28.

Just to be clear, you mean the 1977 Doc Strange #28, not the 1991 one, right? The panel is visible in Fnord's review. Although clearly the paraphrase uses a wildly different interpretation than the original statement.

Yeah, I did.