Magic in the Marvel Universe tends to be Earth-centric. This isn’t just a bias towards storytelling convenience, either; the Nexus of All Realities’ waypoint into this universe is located on Earth, as is the Bridge To The World of Waking Dream (more on that later). Earth is just a more magical part of the universe than average, and that tends to reinforce itself because when magical realms like K’un L’un connect themselves to Earth you get the sort of effect when people outside a bar see that it’s lively inside and then they want to go in. And all of this means Earth has a lot of magic-users running about.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Earth is the only place in the universe you get sorcerers…
Ch’Reek’Iiliimeenii (or “Creaky,” as he is known to his friends) is a Chr’Ylite, of the same race as Sikorsky of the Starjammers. Chr’Ylites are rather unique among the Marvel universe’s alien races for being an intelligent insectoid alien race that don’t have a hive culture. Most alien insect civilizations rise from hive-races – the hivemind principles make societal advancement faster where the base level of intelligence is high enough. Chr’Ylites, on the other hand, evolved from a race of hunter/predator pack insects and as such have a species personality much more conducive to interstellar exploration and co-operation with other races; they’re independent-minded but recognize the need for familial associations. It also helps that they’re generally very friendly.
The species has a mild degree of innate empathic telepathy, which is why their healers (like Sikorsky, one of their best) are so renowned; telepathic investigation of the body as you’re healing it makes for far more knowledgeable doctors. What the Chr’Ylites generally keep quiet is the fact that their abilities aren’t just telepathic, but indeed an empathic connection to the very world around them – a sensory perception that skews much wider than average. (And why wouldn’t they keep it on the down-low? They’re subject to the Shi’ar, and the Shi’ar are, as some have noted, not the most stable or gentle interstellar empire around.)
This perception, married to the keen analytical minds of the Chr’Ylites, gave the species an additional ace in the hole: a tendency to produce wizards. Chr’Ylite mathemagic is the arcane calculus that affects the universe; Chr’Ylite patron-magic accesses a range of magical deities of which most Earth wizards are barely aware. D’nonni’Klaa, the otherworldly Master of Unreal Algebra; Fidostinaliae, The Great Seer Of Strange Probabilities; and of course 32[(xe)2ab] + KLYZ, He Who Is Not Named But Only Calculated.
Creaky, a young and talented Chr’Ylite wizard, came to Earth both because he was sent by the Irrationality Council (a staple belief of the Chr’Ylites is that irrational numbers hold the magical secrets of the universe) and because he volunteered. When people ask him about this, he steadfastly maintains that both these instances occurred simultaneously. Do not ask him to explain how this is possible. He will try to do it, and you will inevitably get a headache when he begins discussing the magical digressions of quadrubic roots. However it happened, though, he arrived, and Stephen Strange – not the sort to be scared off by a giant talking dragonfly spellcaster – promptly snapped him up as the second of his “interns.”
Creaky is, even for a magician who traveled billions of miles to explore, curious about everything to a degree that is almost terrifying. He wants to know everything, and given that he barely sleeps (Chr’Ylites only need to sleep nineteen minutes out of every 24-hour Earth day) he is the biggest information junkie you have ever met. He doesn’t confine himself to magical research either; Chr’Ylite magic has as a founding principle that magic can be found in everything, so one night he will watch a dozen episodes of The Wire and the next he is reading Joan Collins novels and the next he is replaying the same Dizzee Rascal song over and over again (muttering something about syncopation) and the next he’s studying the history of Constantinople.
And every so often? He finds something.
Top comment: I can’t help but think of “Creaky” as the wacky one in the Dr. Strange sitcom household. Right after Stephen drags himself home from a long day at work, Creaky bursts in with his latest findings.
“Dr. Strange! Dr. Strange! I’ve figured out how to make Jello shots throw lightning bolts! Wanna see?” – Kelberon
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I remember when MGK used to write about stuff other than Dr. Strange. Those were good times.
I can’t help but think of “Creaky” as the wacky one in the Dr. Strange sitcom household. Right after Stephen drags himself home from a long day at work, Creaky bursts in with his latest findings.
“Dr. Strange! Dr. Strange! I’ve figured out how to make Jello shots throw lightning bolts! Wanna see?”
Red, I don’t know about you, but I am loving this series of posts he is writing.
One quick warning: make sure you get a friend who knows a decent amount of mathematics to bounce ideas off of them before writing this character.
For example, while irrational numbers are mysterious, transcendental numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_number) are even more mysterious, and any competent mathematical culture has likely made that next step, unless they specifically care about irrational nontranscendental numbers which feels a bit silly.
I suspect that more then what he finds interesting will be the stuff he starts screaming “Get it away! Get it away!” “Creaky, it’s just a tube of lipbalm.” “GET IT AWAY!!!”
I’m kinda curious. Suppose Marvel calls you up tomorrow, tells you they see what you’ve been writing here and are very interested to see these concepts explored further, and offer you a MAX series, akin to Ennis’s Punisher. How many issues worth of story would you have ready to script up right now?
“the next he is replaying the same Dizzee Rascal song over and over again (muttering something about syncopation)”
You’re starting to sound like Kieron Gillen. Not that that’s at all a bad thing. Been reading Phonogram?
Is Dizzee Rascal that well known outside of the UK?
I’m really enjoying this series of posts…
“I remember when MGK used to write about stuff other than Dr. Strange. Those were good times.”
Damn him for using pre-prepared articles so that he can study for, and thus pass his exams! Why are we non-paying consumers his top priority? Food is for losers!
Spooky. The cross-cultural thing. I just posted some Tibetan Monks doing a sand painting for Easter, now this.
Speaking of Easter, I had always thought that the term “egg hunt” was the perfect metaphor for sex. Then I realized how intolerant I was being.
As for Creaky, I fear we are slipping into A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Dr. Who territory. Bad thing, or not?
For every bit of high-melodrama produced in the MU, there really should be a nice counterpoint of goofiness and fun. For every Death of Steve Rogers, there should be a Creaky.
On second reading, without the annoying narration, this is brilliant stuff.
I will translate the Creaky myth into Vs. System and alert you when it’s finished.
Egg Hunt!
It’s a good thing. Also how much would a case of ligthning bolt throwing jello shots cost? You see I need them immediately to make work enjoyable for a multitude of reasons.
Of course, what really defines the character is that he keeps his nymph-form skin in a jar and talks to it when no-one’s looking…
“Nymph-form Skin in a Jar.”
That’s the name of the first plot twist card.
Damn, sir, these articles are fantastic. I never really got around to reading Strange, somehow, but these make me want to start, even if you /don’t/ get the job. Quick question, though: did ever read anything by Diane Duane? One of her series has a very similar view of magic to the stuff mentioned here, and an alien insect wizard of a very similar disposition.
As one of the few magic heavy non-Earth groups this should all lead to a return of the Dire Wraiths. Which of course would require a certain silver-plated some-ones return as well…
Wow. Previous ones have made me want to buy the comic, if, you know, it ever started existing, but now, well…
Now it’s starting to look like one of those books you pester everyone around you into reading. I mean, I’d probably buy an action figure of Creaky if it hit the market.
BringTheNoise: When did he mention that? I guess I might have missed it, seeing as I skim read a lot of his posts.
Also if we’re non-paying consumers then how does our opinion factor into him earning money for food?
Speaking of Easter, I had always thought that the term “egg hunt” was the perfect metaphor for sex. Then I realized how intolerant I was being.
Considering the fact that the whole eggs & bunnies motif comes from pagan fertility rites, I don’t see how that’s intolerant so much as it is apt.
Creaky action figures, check.
As soon as I finish the cards.
Wow.. a Magic Bug Zapper.
Ehhhh… I’m always reluctant to embrace the idea of math-as-magic, but rather than bog you down with my thoughts I’ll just ax you this: How does it relate to the idea presented with Sir Humphrey that science and magic are mutually exclusive?
shades of Anathem in the magical calculus. Even if that was quantum and not mystical. Of course, math and magic are entwined from way back, at least until the time of Pythagoras. The movie Pi touched on this.
Still, I like the idea of alien magician. Both the Shi’ar and Skrulls have their magic traditions. So why not an intergalatic wizard council?
Somewhere in between 30 and 40.
I don’t know if you’ve mentioned this before, but I’m getting a very strong “House” vibe from your Dr. Strange stories. Which I am very much in favor of.
Transcendental numbers, though, are all irrational anyway (and most irrational numbers are also transcendental). So partly it’s because there’s overlap and partly it’s because the old hidebound older space dragonflies will complain your ear off about how these kids today aren’t satisfied with just studying the square root of two like they used to.
In the Sir Humphrey entry, the point was that magical force was dissimilar from forces found in standard universal physics.
This is about methods of thought, which is an entirely different kettle of fish altogether and which can be much more fluid.
Me wanty this!! Me wanty this!! This would be so much cooler than what Marvel’s been doing the last few years…
“This is about methods of thought, which is an entirely different kettle of fish altogether and which can be much more fluid.”
Hmmm. That could work, but I think you’d have to show that it’s math applied in a way distinctly different from how it is on Earth. It would have to have foreign, untranslatable concepts.
Actually, now that I think about it I’m strongly reminded of the math to music subplot in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
“I remember when MGK used to write about stuff other than Dr. Strange. Those were good times.”
Yes, because what we really want is stuff about Canada’s version of Britains Got Talent or whatever that similar, godforsaken show he used to blog about. Those may have been the good times, but these are the great times.
Also, in the first of the series he wrote “April is a busy month for me – final exams and all – so I decided to get most of it done in advance. And you know what that meant, right?”
“Transcendental numbers, though, are all irrational anyway (and most irrational numbers are also transcendental). So partly it’s because there’s overlap and partly it’s because the old hidebound older space dragonflies will complain your ear off about how these kids today aren’t satisfied with just studying the square root of two like they used to.”
Yes, but most (complex) numbers are transcendental. Surely it’s more interesting to study the rarer sorts: algebraic numbers. If it’s the more plentiful, then why stick to complex numebrs?
Quaternions have more intteresting properties. Alternately, you could go against the bias towards the prime at infinity and look at the adeles. That’s where real numbers are.
(Of course, the really interesting maths comes from stopping restricting oneself to such base concerns as numbers. Group Theory, like Combinatorics, Analysis, and, ooh, more or less any mathematics that isn’t Geometry, Topology or Number Theory tends to be criminally overlooked by many key magicians. One could argue that Planetary, by invoking the symmetries of a 196884-dimensional object so often, must clearly be referencing the Griess algebra, so the Monster group. And we all know how magical Monstrous Moonshine is…)
[The trouble with using maths terminology is that you run a high risk of misusing terms, and making some of your audience realise you're talking bollocks. Still, there's a lot interesting. And the above's all true. ]
(a staple belief of the Chr’Ylites is that irrational numbers hold the magical secrets of the universe)
Ahh, so that’s where Numberwang came from.
Clearly, Creaky is the Kutner analog without the suicide.
ChastMastr: exactly, which is why Marvel would never publish this. Given as how the preferred use of Doc these days is to explore how badly he wants a threesome with Clea and Wanda
(which I would buy if they followed through on that).Creakypedia?
One day, Creaky found the Disney channel.
The next day, there was no more Creaky.
anyone here play World Ends With You? there’s a mad math guy… he’s awesome
SO! ZETTA! SLOW!
note: i know nothing about math. and i would love if this blog was all Dr Strange, all the time
**sigh** You just know that in fifteen years he’d be a drug-addicted prostitute who gets his head blown off on page seven of the new crossover to show how “serious” the new villain is.
Or, alternatively, he’d be the villain, having gone insane from years of studying magic. He’d probably sodomize puppies to show that he’s really, really evil.
The trouble with using maths terminology is that you run a high risk of misusing terms, and making some of your audience realise you’re talking bollocks.
The not-trouble with using maths terminology is that you run a high risk of the overwhelming majority of your audience not caring.
I’m trying not to think about what would happen if he got on tvtropes. I’ve spent six hours on there for no reason other then following a link. I’d hate to think of someones reaction if they went there for a reason.
Charles Stross’ “Laundry” stories also tie mathematics (and its bastard offspring, computer science) to magic in a way I’ve found damned entertaining.
so did Donald in Mathmagic Land!
tvtropes.org is THE BOMB.
Does anybody here contribute to the wiki there?
It sure sounds like it.
I do, a bit
a friend used it to find romance novel tropes
i never go there for a reason but yeah
love these doc strange posts
I dig the “Finding magic in the flow of information” thing…
Has a very “Jack Frost/Invisibles” vibe to it.
Pulls a Dane, takes the first letters of the show that’s currently on TV, turns them into a Word of Power, and Suddenly HIMYM has blown up half a city block to the sounds of Neil Patrick Harris saying “LEGENDARY”
Red: http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2009/04/01/supplies/
The text above the picture.
NCallahan said on April 12th, 2009 at 10:29 pm:
> One day, Creaky found the Disney channel.
> The next day, there was no more Creaky.
Only Orz?
(And yes, TvTropes is a black hole of time. I love it.)
When you write Dr. Strange, are there going to be ANY female characters? Like, at all?
I wonder what would happen if Creaky started hanging out with the Mathemanic from the original New Warriors series. I suspect that either the universe would implode because they discover that the “grand equation” doesn’t actually balance or (far more likely) EVERYONE (except possibly Wong) will be forced to temporarily vacate the Sanctum to avoid the super-nerdy math-talk. Either way I can’t see Strange being happy about this.
I refer you to “Reason #8 Why [MGK] Should Write Doctor Strange”:
Clearly this is going to be an important plot point. Strange is going to become a woman.
I think at that point he should change his name from “Stephen” to “Karina”. Just because I happen to know someone named Karina Strange.
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