Astral traveling is Dr. Strange’s Batmobile if Batman used the Batmobile to do absolutely everything.. Need to see something in a hurry? Astral travel! Need to scout a dangerous area safely? Astral travel! Need to go to the store to get some milk? Astral travel there, then teleport your body, then buy the milk! It’s become a crutch.
Which is why Strange will be very surprised when he tries to access the Astral Plane one day for some mundane travel needs. For example, I have always thought that Strange, more likely than not, uses astral travel to occasionally attend Phillies games. He lives in New York, so traveling there directly is a pain. And you’ve got to figure that Strange appreciates baseball, the most mystical of all modern sports. Not that he admits this to anybody, of course, because come on, the Sorcerer Supreme has to have standards about what he does for recreation and filling out scorecards is not on the list. More people know the location of where Strange hid the Book of Behanna (containing no less than three spells capable of destroying humanity) than know that Strange uses the Astral Plane to make sure nobody hears him yell “battabattabattabattaSAWEEEEENGbatta, hecanthithecanthitSAWEEEEEEEENGbatta.”
(Yes, of course Wong knows.)
But I digress. So one day Strange prepares to enter the Astral Plane to watch the Phillies play off against the thrice-damned Yankees, and – whoops, doesn’t seem to be working. Checks his spells, his collection of mystical gewgaws, his Hello Kitty pyjamas (okay, he doesn’t have Hello Kitty pyjamas, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention), tries again – nope, no dice. Now he’s concerned, because he’s going to miss the opening pitch the astral plane is kind of like the magical equivalent of the ocean: it’s there all the time and you can swim in it whenever you like, although it might not be advisable to do so at certain times or in certain areas. The idea of the astral plane not being there is staggering.
Finally he decides to take things to the next level and, rather than spirit-travel into the Astral Plane, transport himself bodily into it, which is a bit more dangerous (as anybody who’s read up on their old Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks can tell you) but will provide him with some answers. He opens the portal…
…and the resultant explosion takes out half a city block.
Of course, thanks to preparatory magic, he (and everybody in the blast radius) comes out with only scratches and bruises, and it’s easy enough to explain it away to authorities as a massive gas leak which grew concentrated until things went foom. (Authorities like easy answers.) But that’s not what’s actually happening. What’s actually happening is that the Astral Plane has become a enormous, calamitous spirit-storm, impossible to access by normal spiritual means and almost instantly deadly to anybody who wishes to traverse it.
What could have possibly caused that? The answer is nothing good. And how can the good Doctor restore it? First he has to figure out how to survive it.
But he’s on a clock. Because the Astral Plane isn’t just a convenient travel route for the magically inclined; its slight, universal touch is what allows sentient beings to dream and to meditate and to escape the real, if only in their own heads. After the first night, every sentient being in the universe wakes up slightly grumpy (and a lot of people taking yoga classes ask for their money back). After the second, it gets a little worse. After a week, folks are getting seriously stressed, and it’s when tempers start cracking and people start losing it. And if it goes two weeks, well – that would be very, very bad indeed.
And here’s one more kicker – Nightmare. He’s desperate and begging for help after the first couple of days (begging for help from Stephen Strange, for crissake), because the dream world is withering away at a ridiculous pace without dreamers to sustain it. This is, quite simply, killing him. And you have to think that Dr. Strange would really, really hate to save Nightmare’s worthless parasite existence – but more than likely he won’t have a choice.
Top comment: It’s always a gas leak, isn’t it? How about a recurring antagonist for Strange in the form of a gas main inspector so disgruntled with a public thinking he’s doing a lousy job that he manages to see through Strange’s glamour? Rassin’ frassin’ super muk muks givin’ ME a bad name! — HitTheTargets
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I’ve always seen Nightmare as a sort of a-hole version of Morpheus. Same existence, same function, but Nightmare just can’t self-censor how much he looks down on everything the way Dream does.
Strange has the Hello Kitty PJs, for real. Just like Deadpool has the Squirrel Girl underoos.
By the way, MGK, have you ever seen TVtropes.org?
Reminds me of you:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SquirrelGirl
Fabulous stuff.
I quite like this one. Nicely done.
I’ve always wanted Dr. Strange to be a staple title of Marvel instead of a second-stringer – a cohesive smart title where they could hang all their wonderful supernatural continuity and romp around the occult corners of the Marvel universe.
I am loving this series.
See, this is a PERFECT mini-arc. As self contained as it needs to be, but it can easily link to any hero or other on-going story arc!
VERY cool.
It’s always a gas leak, isn’t it? How about a recurring antagonist for Strange in the form of a gas main inspector so disgruntled with a public thinking he’s doing a lousy job that he manages to see through Strange’s glamour? Rassin’ frassin’ super muk muks givin’ ME a bad name!
OH! You’re friends with Spider-Man? Well that explains everything; guy’s a friggin’ MENACE!
@Rian Fike – I’m still waiting for a full-length writeup for Squirrel Girl vs. Rex the Wonder Dog.
Rex is in TROUBLE if that ever happens.
i didn’t think i’d enjoy anything as much as your “I should write the Legion” series
glad to see i was wrong.
loving this 🙂
Not only would I buy the monthly to read this, but I’d then buy the collection in hardback when it came out. This is good shit.
Nightmare showed up in that bizarre Nightcrawler series, and he was note-perfect in there, and I couldn’t believe it took a *Nightcrawler* series to make me want to read more *Nightmare*. But there you go.
I think Bendis established that Doctor Strange is, in fact, a fan of hockey.
Obviously, the Hockey Night in Canada theme song is the reason why.
Hockey makes sense. After a day of being all spiritual and totally contemplating the nature of multiple realities, you need to see some physicality, not a bunch of steroids with legs.
Besides, it’s not fair for only the batter to have a big stick. Give the shortstop a baseball bat, then you’ll have a sport.
One minor correction – baseball may be the most mystical of sports on that side of the Atlantic, but like all things mystical you have to head east for real enlightenment.
Which in the case of sport means cricket. It is only in a sport in which one can play for five days, only for the result to be a draw, that one finds true enlightenment.
On the other hand, I think it’s probably a step too far to assume that the good doctor acquired an appreciation for a Googly, Silly Mid-on or a doosra in his travels to find the Ancient One.
This also raises the question of whether the native denizens of the Astral plane can survive whatever’s going on. If they can’t, or at least not without help, then will Strange have to help restore the Astral ecosystem even after the immediate danger is over?
Or, like most superheros, will he blow stuff up and then not sit around and fix anything?
Rex is in trouble if he fights Squirrel Girl?
More like the entire universe is in danger if that happens. We’re talking fires, earthquakes, terrible floods, slash fanfics, all the signs of the apocolypse.
I believe Joe Kelly had Shadow King do something to the Astral Plane circa X-Men #78 or so. Nothing as involved as this, they just said that Telepaths could no longer be all telepath-y.
This is brilliant, though. I look forward to see more of these!
Strange knows all about the dangers of physical plane travel, having appeared on the D&D book in question.
Out of curiosity, who penciled the image for today’s Reason? I feel compelled to do some downloading.
Bret is correct. Rex fights Squirrel Girl on December 21, 2012.
That’s why it is the last day on the Mayan Calendar stone.
Ah, but in this case there is no need to download, as this issue (which was pencilled by Steve Leialoha) was collected in the Montesi Formula trade paperback, which collects all the Dr. Strange versus Dracula stories and is dirt cheap and still in print.
@Magic Love Horse
Too bad they’re not using that theme song anymore. Legal scuffling ended up in CBC dropping that song and holding a contest for a new one….
http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=566125
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Night_in_Canada#Theme_music
Did Dr. Doom ever consider using My Little Pony clones/skrulls/etc. – NOT his actual collection- to take out those vexing squirrels?
Those vexing squirrels trump everything. Doom knew better than waste his ponies.
I agree with this post for only one reason and that is because I have yet to have anyone actually be able to tell me what exactly the astral plane is supposed to be.
It always just seemed to be a place where any random nonsense can happen.
For some reason this reminded me of Crowley’s plot in Pratchett/Gaiman’s Good Omens to mildly annoy millions of people via tying up phone lines and causing traffic jams, thus incrementally gilding the spiritual coffers of the infernal realm.
Hunh.
I’m not versed in my Gaiman (in fact, I may be allergic), but is this quite similar to the first arc of Sandman, except you cleverly substitute bombastic heroic pragmatism for Preludes and Nocturnes’ mopey pretentiousness?
Or maybe I’m misremembering, or this was a Swamp Thing arc, or, I dunno, summat. I like these Reasons though!
from Neil:
[i]One minor correction – baseball may be the most mystical of sports on that side of the Atlantic, but like all things mystical you have to head east for real enlightenment.
Which in the case of sport means cricket. It is only in a sport in which one can play for five days, only for the result to be a draw, that one finds true enlightenment.
On the other hand, I think it’s probably a step too far to assume that the good doctor acquired an appreciation for a Googly, Silly Mid-on or a doosra in his travels to find the Ancient One.
[/i]
VERY true. Scoring for cricket, in particular, is confusing. It would be easier to actually calculate pi to its end than it would be to keep track of cricket. But then what do you expect? It’s a game that continues after everyone says, “Over”.
A Phillies fan? Really? Either Dr. Strange is a self-hating Mets fan or a front-runner. Besides, he probably had courtside seats to the Knicks before his accident. He doesn’t use them anymore because . . . right. The Knicks.
He lives in New York, but Strange is a Philly brat who moved to Nebraska mid-childhood. In my experience, kids who grow up where there is a serious sports team and then move to the middle of nowhere passionately glom onto that sports team.
read the old Mage: The Ascension books… there’s a Technocratic sourcebook that has enough ideas for a zillion stories, including a sort of Astral Plane Star Trek…
It is at this point that one of the Strange Interns (pun intended) will require a metaphor to understand the Astral Plane that accidentally sinks into a baseball metaphor (See, getting into the Astral Plane bodily is like stealing 3rd with a man on first. You really have to be careful the pitcher isn’t looking otherwise he’ll own your ass) and then that will lead to the awkward moment of the Strange Intern asking, “Why do you know all these things about baseball?”
Of course, I don’t know anything at all about baseball and hence a better baseball metaphor will have to be produced.
I like the metaphor about giving the shortstop a bat.
Make mine hockey.
According to the Wikipediomicron, Young Stephen moved to Nebraska from Philly only a few months after his birth. The official Marvel website goes even further, saying his parents were only in Philly on a vacation. Thus he is that most curious of creature, a COLLEGE FOOTBALL FAN.
Bam, Lawyer’d!
Okay, then he’s a Husker fan, and the one most responsible in helping this guy lose about 800 pounds so he can attend games in person. Strange could still be a Phillies fan, but he’d be a total frontrunner.
Actually, somewhat related to AERose’s question, which of the more recommended Strange runs are in print? I know about the Essentials and the most recent mini by Vaughn, but outside of that I’m somewhat new to Doctor Strange.
I really like this one, because unlike some of the others, where the problem is so essoteric that Strange is maybe the only guy who even notices that there is a problem, like you said the astral plane is like the ocean. Anybody who can get to it normally is going to notice that there’s a serious problem here. Which means that every minor mystic and psychic is going to be probing around the edges of this, which as I figure is like having a peanut gallery staring over your shoulder while you try and perform brain surgery.
I’d just like to point out that this is probably the only good thing to ever be done with the Avatar Storm.
Cool idea, but it unfortunately won’t work because the nerd collective will accuse you of having stolen it from the avatar storm fiasco when Mage 2nd edition transitioned to Mage revised edition. The gaming flame wars of today pale before the vitriol of yesterday.
Lots of mutants use the Astral Plane too…Xavier, White Queen, Selene….well a bald guy and some omnipotent hookers.
So you already got a X-Crossover built in…good on you!
“After the first night, every sentient being in the universe wakes up slightly grumpy”
It annoyed me when DC did this in the “World Without Kids/Grownups” specials in the [i]Sins of Youth[/i] crossover, and when Philip Jose Farmer did this in his [i]Dayworld[/i] series of novels… and in both those cases it was limited to a single planet. Starlin got it right when Thanos killed half the population of the universe, because it happened ALL AT ONCE.
Think [i]time zones[/i]. Morning doesn’t occur simultaneously worldwide, dammit. You cast a spell so that all the babies on earth will vanish the next morning… people on one continent will start panicking, and they’ll start contacting people on [i]other[/i] continents, places where it’s not morning yet, places on the [i]other side of the international date line[/i]…
forewarned is forearmed. You’ll be tracked down and neutralized within less than a day.