Is Dr Strange being toned down too much?

I realize that toning him down is in general a good thing, to bring him away from the DEM plot device that he's been in the past... but lately in the New Avengers, his abilities have seemed lame to non-existent. Example: In the latest New Avengers (#32 I believe), the plane they're in is crashing, and Strange is asked if he can help. He says "no", and my thought is "uh, why not? You're Dr Freaking Strange. Even if you can't do anything to fix everything instantly, surely there's some spell you can cast to do something to attempt to -help-"... then, when it's suggested they abandon the plane, Strange says "My Cloak of Levitation won't work in these conditions"... :S Yeah, I'm totally baffled. In his current over-gimped power levels, I honestly have to wonder... is there anything he -can- do? I guess battling cosmically powerful threats to the very fabric of existence is one thing, but preventing a plane from crashing? Hoo boy, that's just too taxing for the Sorcerer Supreme. Using a magical cloak of levitation to, you know-- levitate? Wayyy too much to ask of his power. I pray the writer is actually going somewhere with this and isn't just ineptly attempting to show a more down to earth version of the good doctor.

he is a Skrull?

I did think about that, but he -is- linked to the Orb of Agamotto... I doubt a Skrull is capable of such a feat.

That does seem an extreme reach, since even though his cloak can't levitate others he's got plenty of spells available that'd work for the plane, including levitation spells on the other or calling upon the Winds of Watoomb to lift and support the plane. Even Shaman can do that and he's no where near as powerful as Dr. Strange and limited to nature-oriented magic.

He also routinely would levitate the group and fly them places while in the Defenders, so looks like some writer should have a look back to some of his standard group appearances and oh, show some _continuity_ and let him do something more useful than being the group's Invisible Woman.

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Strange just almost got killed like maybe an hour or two before. he probably was a little bit wiped out to try and cast a big teleport spell that wouldn't kill everyone if not himself.

Granted, but that still doesn't explain why his cloak of levitation can't do the thing it's made to do, and levitate.

Particularly since it doesn't require anything more than a thought to instruct it from Dr. Strange to do its thing, and doesn't drain any energy whatsoever from him. It's like they lower his powers down to match their perceived notions of how powerful the group he's with is, so that if he's hanging with the Silver Surfer, Hulk, and Namor he's ultra-tough, put him with low or mid-level characters and he can barely handle a single grunt thug let alone deal with a serious threat. VERY poor writing.

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sigh you guys still don't get it. It is what I an others have said of strange all along,. he is powerful but with a ton of limitations. One, its a cloak of levitation not of flight. meaning in a air plane going done with a ton of G forces working against it pretty tough to levitate,.

Two he did cast a spell during the crash which is likely the reason that the crash was such a soft crash everyone will be able to walk away from it.

Three spells require energy, time, concentration and drain the cast of their strength. Pretty tough to do if a plane is grashing with a ton of G forces to concentrate, also hard to muster strength when you almost died.

Dr strange is perhaps the most versatile hero out there but he has drastic limitations. When it is all said and done he he only human.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2007 12:40PM by junderway.

you mean Dr.Wimp cant fight his way out of a wet paperbag.:(:(

Junderway makes a very good point. Strange has been shown with numerous limitations on his powers in the past, chief among them a need to gesture or chant and a need a call on the powers of otherdimensional entities. And these have all been fairly well explained over the decades.

But, over the past several years -- perhaps due in part to the popularity of the LotR and Harry Potter franchises -- he's gotten more and more powerful, with fewer restrictions, all to sell the "magic is kewl" edge. Strange got overhyped, and became a Deus Ex Machine not unlike the way Professor X was portrayed early on. He also didn't have much real "on-air" time, relegated to only showing up as a cameo, and the lack of a regular title focusing on him made it even easier to forget the subtleties and nuances to him.

Now he's back in the forefront, but Quesada & Co. don't know what to do with him, b/c what the most recently remember of him is that he's incredibly powerful. But Quesada & Co. don't want to/can't write for characters like that, so they put in seemingly arbitrary restrictions.

If what you say is true, Doc ( and I agree )

That would mean they are conceding a lack ( at least a partial lack ) of power continuity... from his strange tales comic days or even the Jackson "butch" Guice self titled comic of the 80's.

It'd not be the first time a character was changed b/c the current writer didn't know how to do 'im.

I'm quite sure I get it, I've been reading him off and on for nearly 30 years now, and watched his evolution to Sorcerer Supreme and even a crashing plane shouldn't get a 'well gee sorry guys not a thing I can do' response out of him. Also while it's called a Cloak of Levitation it's clearly granting him flight and not just levitation, so the name of it is misleading. Even drained after the mental combat inside the Hulk's mind when he went mindless for a while he could still cast a Shield spell that could at least temporarily handle the pounding of a mindless, enraged hulk. Limitations he might have but he's not THAT limited.

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Well that's really my point. I understand some limiting to make him more heroic in the title he's currently in, but we should ask ourselves how limited is too limited? Since he joined the New Avengers title, he has almost constantly corrected people about his limitations ("Can you do this, Doc?" "No, I cannot." "Can you do this then?" "Nope, sorry.") and proven largely incapable of providing all but the most simplistic of help to the group. The -only- thing he's been shown to be a badass in has been against other magic (when Brother Voodoo attempted to pierce Strange's enchantments)... against anything non mystical, he's been shown to be near useless. If this is some company wide thing Marvel is planning on doing to make magic only work against other things mystical, they need to come out and say so, but right now it does seem like at least semi shoddy writing.

Yes, let's not forget the freaking stats on that cloak...

"Cloak of Levitation: Its origin completely unknown, perhaps with the exception of Enitharmon the Weaver, this ancient Cloak is a powerful item. Like the name suggest it has the ability to levitate. Nearly indestructible (equivalent to Unearthly material Strength), it was woven by an entity that is almost forgotten. The wearer will be able to fly magically at without taxing his own personal mystical powers. It is operated by mental commands, and even responds when separated from him by vast physical distances. The maximum rate of speed at which the cloak can carry it's wearer is Shift-X airspeeds. The maximum weight the cloak can levitate is equivalent to Incredible strength."

Very shoddly writing if so, because magic, particularly the magic Strange specializes in, has very broad-reaching effects and isn't limited like nature or faerie magic. The idea magic's only good against magical creatures ends up on the ludicrous end, when magic's all about restructuring the world around you. Plus at one point we see Dr. Strange telling someone (Spider-Man or Reed Richards perhaps) that there is NO DIFFERENCE between magic and science, it's simply a matter of which you use to reach the desired effect, and that was within the last year or so.

He may have more trouble directly affecting technology because of that, since in his perspective it'd be a very structured magic he's not experienced in, but he shouldn't be so impotent against it either. A crashing plane is little more than a hunk of metal and plastic, well within the range of what magic could affect.

"A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it."

-- Peter David

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2007 10:49PM by Nightmask.

you're still forgetting he just pulled himself away from the brink of death.

I do own the DR. Strange Essentials( Strange tales and other stuff ) years of comics. I was considering reading and writing down all his spells and their effects. Like an AD&D spell book.

But I wonder if I would just end up getting confused and upset with the stats and continuity.

Yet part of me is curious to see a master list of his past spells.

H ealso took out the might avengers when the New avengers were ambushed with a fear type spell. So id say he is still being portrayed as pretty powerful. Has he started mumbling a few words and all the might avengers whent "oh @#$%&". Then some dialouge after the fact saying, "did we know they had Dr starange?"

What issue was that?! :S