Something that has been cropping up in the comments every so often is the observation that most of these posts are, thus far, “dude-centric,” and there are no female characters being mentioned and so on and so forth. And the thing of it is that when I think about how to write Doctor Strange, this is far from the case.1 It’s just that once again the pre-arranged nature of these posts means that sometimes I’m not anticipating potential reader needs (even as regards what’s essentially just a series of loosely constructed, unfinished pitches) as well as I would like.
But rest assured that out of all the ideas I’ve put forward so far, this is my favorite – the last of Strange’s three “interns,” and I personally think it’s the strongest. Sir Humphrey and Creaky are entertaining and interesting, and that’s valuable for supporting cast members, but I think this has more meat on the bone, so to speak.
First off, before we go any further: Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo is dead. He is dead. Conslusively so. After a long, mostly bad life, he died trying to atone for his sins, both in the general sense and specifically those he committed against Stephen Strange, a man who once his great friend. Astrid Mordo, his daughter, is also (very probably) dead. And Astrid, who was crazy as sin and evil as the Devil, killed everybody else on the planet with Mordo blood in their veins, so determined was she to become the sole remaining Mordo in the world.
Well. Almost everybody.
See, Karl Mordo had many personal failings, and one of them was a tendency to dog the ladies as much as possible. Luckily, out of all the potential bastard offspring he ever could have had, in the end he sired only two – Astrid, and Indrani, his daughter by a Dalit prostitute in Chennai. From a very early age, Indrani knew two things: she was in a very bad position, lifewise, and that she could do real magic. The Brahmin sorcerer-circles in India – steeped in tradition and privilege – frowned upon the lower castes doing magic, to say the least, so she could not find a teacher. Not that this was her primary worry at the time, for her mother died when she was six, stabbed by one of her clients, and Indrani found herself on the streets – and young girls usually don’t last long on the streets.
But Indrani survived, partially because of her nascent magical abilities and partially because she was in many ways the human personification of “no, fuck you,” and she taught herself whatever she could whenever she could. She stole money and food, learned English and eventually went abroad, where she found out that every other mage on the planet was just as unwilling to deal with her as the mystics in India were. Of course, this had nothing to do with caste; it had everything to do with her being a Mordo.
Karl spent a lifetime ruining his reputation in Earth’s mystical community, and Astrid’s short but utterly psychotic career destroyed whatever remaining goodwill might have existed towards the name in the first place. (Most of the other Mordos Astrid killed weren’t really prizewinners either. Karl Mordo did not come from a particularly humane or idealistic family, which explains a lot about him.) And Indrani’s noteworthy temper didn’t help her overcome that reputation, to say the least. Nobody was willing to risk teaching “another goddamned Mordo” one single thing about magic.
Nobody, that is, except for Stephen Strange.
Stephen looked at Indrani and saw the raw talent, of course, and he saw the driving ambition and fierce pride that were both hallmarks of Karl Mordo’s personality. But he also saw Indrani’s capability for compassion, the sort that a lifetime of hardship can provide like little else. He wanted to preserve that, to nurture it. And there’s something else, not that he’d ever admit it or even realize it.
See, Stephen Strange is a man who found himself comparatively late in life, thanks primarily to the Ancient One knocking a lot of sense into him. He grew into adulthood believing that children were a bother, that he didn’t want children, that he didn’t want to be a father – and of course part of this was his firm belief that he would make a poor parent, a facet of his deep self-loathing. It comes as a bit of a shock, then, in your late forties when you’re pretty much a confirmed bachelor, to suddenly realize that you would have liked to be a father. And by that point it was too late – not just because it’s a bit late in the game to start thinking about a family, but by then he knew he was on track to become Earth’s next mystic defender, and having children would be a callously irresponsible act given the threats to their safety and the possibility – no, make that likelihood – that he might orphan them.
So he mostly put that idle wish of how things could have been aside and forgot about it. And that was fine. But along comes this walking bottle of spit and vinegar, the daughter of a man he once called brother. (Good heavens, she’s practically his niece!) It would be irresponsible not to make sure she learned what she needed to know – and after grasping her mystic potential, that becomes all the more important, because Indrani’s native ability is definitely on the high end of the scals (much like her father’s – and Stephen’s, for that matter). So it’s clearly necessary.
Right?
Top comment: If I complain that there aren’t enough kittens in your ideas, will that get me a kitten story? Because you are completely (and chauvinistically? eh? eh?) lacking a kitten point of view here, buddy. — Cookie McCool
- My not wanting to use Nico Minoru in the book, incidentally, isn’t because she isn’t awesome. It’s because I think using her would be the final admission that Runaways, as a franchise, is being put out to pasture. [↩]
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Well, maybe it should be ‘put down’. Waiting around didn’t exactly do the Young Avengers any favors.
So how old would the Mordo girl be when she meets Strange? And how much would she know about his relationship with her family?
I don’t know if you can honestly go out and classify Creaky as a “guy” so to speak. At least, no any more than you can claim Shuma-Gorath is a guy because he’d be the one attacking all the females in the inevitable Dr. Strange Hentai spin-off.
That said, hurray for pseudo-family Batman motifs!
You are knocking this stuff out of the park, MGK. Well done.
I wonder if this would bring down a lot of magical BS on Strange’s head-how dare he teach one of the Mordos, and so on. Mostly because I love the idea of petty magical politics popping up, even if only in the background, as a way to start filling in more of Marvel places with established magical characters that aren’t just created to be killed off.
Not related to this current post (which, like all of the others, is made of distilled awesomesauce), but as you mentioned reader expectations, I want to throw something out, to see what you might do with it…
From what I remember of the Marvel Universe, healing magic is pretty darned rare. Rarer than other magics, I mean. Most mages can do a variety of magical effects, but stopping that artery bleeding after you’ve been stabbed with a sword is not something that most magicians can manage.
As it turns out, even Stephen Strange can’t do it. Fortunately, he has his medical training to fall back on, but still…
Maybe healing magic just isn’t part of the Sorcerer Supreme ‘skill set’. Maybe the Ancient One had trouble learning this particular part of the trade, and so never passed it on to his student.
But maybe there’s a reason why Stephen Strange can’t do healing magic, despite the fact that you would suspect that he might have some natural inclination in that direction. He was one of the world’s greatest surgeons, after all. So perhaps there’s a story there, waiting to be told.
So, is there a particular reason Doom didn’t try to recruit her as an apprentice/minion? He’s not the type to go “Fuck no, you’re a Mordo.”
Granted, it does sound like she’s the type to go “Fuck no, you’re Doom!”
Nice touch with the name “Indrani,” too. It requires thunderbolts.
From what I’ve read Kathryn Immonen is supposed to be taking over Runaways.
This is a perfect idea for Marvel, what with them Rule 63ing a bunch of their other villians such as Loki and Sinister.
That’s exactly why he can’t do healing magic. Magic requires a dramatically different method of thought to work; cooperation with reality rather than attempted command of it.
It took Strange years to master thinking that way with other areas such as magical zappy bolts, but you seriously think a trained medical doctor is going to be able to forget his natural inclinations as to how he regards the practice of healing?
(See The Oath, wherein Wong expresses his acceptance of his impending death and Strange’s response is dismissive of “that Zen crap.” Because he’s a doctor and in this area he doesn’t do acceptance.)
How did she end up with his name, though? Karl doesn’t sound like the type to make a prostitute “a honest woman.” Did the other magicians somehow discern her parentage from her mystical aura? And after her the first dozen refusals Indrani took the name to shorten the process? Why couldn’t Astrid find her aura?
Dang it Tornado, that’s what I was gonna ask. Not to insult her mother or anything but if she was a professional, couldn’t the list of potential fathers be in the dozens?
If she’s going to know her parentage, why not have the mom be a former honest woman who turned to the streets after the Baron left her to pursue a new fling. That would add a bit more flavor to her feelings towards her daddy, and to Doc’s desire to make ammends with the ghost of his estranged friend while dealing with someone who loathes her father for oh so many reasons.
Well, a good teacher should have multiple students.
If I complain that there aren’t enough kittens in your ideas, will that get me a kitten story? Because you are completely (and chauvinistically? eh? eh?) lacking a kitten point of view here, buddy.
Cookie McCool totaly missed the foreshadowing in the Vincent Strange image.
I’m 100% behind Cookie’s idea. Especially if that “kitten” is named Fireheart. After all, not all magical protectors are wizards … and they’re not all nice guys either.
Cave to our demands, MGK. Cave!
One small tiny winny comment.
Couldn’t her mother have been a hotel maid? A backroom worker in a rathole laundry? A shit-shoveler? Something other then a prostitute?
Maybe it’s just all my years in tabletop RPGs, but my instinctive response to a firebrand ass-kicking young girl of remarkable talents who has any connection to prostitution whatsoever is to start screaming.
There’s got to be a non-whore/non-rape background that results in ‘no, fuck you’ kickass chicks.
And, honestly, I’d love to see the love story of Mordo and the Indian shit-shoveler.
Beachfox: I don’t see Mordo as the type of guy to spend the time wooing a girl to get her to sleep with him. He’d be more likely to just pay for it or use spells to make her sleep with him, i.e. rape. So while I see your point, as long as she wasn’t raped herself (as that is the dumbest, laziest cliché of female characters in comics), I see where MGK is going with it and it makes the most sense.
Lister: Missus Sinister? Are you kidding me?
Christ, every time I hear something about how Marvel is revamping characters it makes me glad I don’t read comics anymore.
Thok: Has Doom ever taken on a mystical apprentice? To me Doom has always been more of a scientist that only acknowledges the power within magic when his science can’t afford him an immediate response. After all, he can’t exactly use magic directly on Richards without appreciating the reality that he couldn’t beat him using science.
In retrospect… I can think of a really good reason that I would not like MGK to write Dr. Strange.
I enjoy reading MGK’s “Why I should write _____”. And sometimes he just comes up with these awesome visual ideas that you just want to see (“Stone knows not the pulse of heart, nor quickening of breath – only Justice!”). But the thing is… I think MGK’s greatest strength is the amount of analysis that he puts into his characters. The characters that he makes or re-introduces in a new light all have a lot of thought put into them. The whole analysis of Braniac or Stephen Strange with regards to him being a Doctor and not being able to accept healing magic: that’s just great to read. I derive enjoyment out of what I would guess classify narrative exposition (English lit majors please start protesting now).
But I digress. Comics are a combination of literary and visual media. That tends to mean that sometimes you just need a set of action panels and sometimes you have to limit the amount of text/ dialogue you go through because otherwise you’ve got a panel with nothing but word bubbles.
I guess my mental comparison would be to Kevin Smith never directing Green Hornet because it would literally be him and Kato sitting there against the car talking and the action beats would literally be off camera.
Maybe I just feel like I lack the mental capacity to “get” the awesomeness MGK has from the comic version of his plot devices without having him explain “and this is why so-and-so character is awesome”. And he’s right, that character IS awesome, I just happen to require someone to give me a nice text cliff-notes prior.
It’s a concern I had myself, so when I first started practicing writing comics scripts a while back, I pulled out a few issues (using a Kevin Smith Green Arrow as the unreasonably high upper end limit and generally aiming for an amount of dialogue in an issue of Paul Dini’s Detective) and mapped out how much dialogue can fit in a given panel and bubble. And yes – it’s a lot less than most people think.
But after you figure out the limits of the form, it’s not that hard. Economizing use of dialogue and storytelling through action is something you learn when you learn to write film scripts as well (and I did so, back in the day), which is one of the reasons there’s so much crossover between screenwriting and comics these days.
Zenrage: Miss Sinister. Shes a clone of Sinister alla X-23, the same but female, though not a younger version.
She’s got a snippet in Sinister’s wiki.
You’ll have to Google her for a pic.
To quote /co/: “Carey is trying to out Claremont, Claremont.”
Perhaps you missed his bit on Dormammu, a piece that boiled down to, “I want to do a comic about how Dormammu punches shit repeatedly, thereby scaring the ever loving shit out of everyone inside three zip codes.” If that isn’t, like, twelve pages of raw action comic right there, I don’t know what is.
“Perhaps you missed his bit on Dormammu, a piece that boiled down to, “I want to do a comic about how Dormammu punches shit repeatedly, thereby scaring the ever loving shit out of everyone inside three zip codes.” If that isn’t, like, twelve pages of raw action comic right there, I don’t know what is.”
In retrospect, I have no idea how to do the quotes thing so hopefully that works.
And I agree, Dormammu punching the shit out of stuff is totally awesome. That’s not my point. I pointed out how awesome Blok beating up crap would be.
But I think some of MGK’s greatest ideas aren’t “What would look visually stunning” but character development in either protagonist, antagonists, or even random side-characters (Ex. Ancient One’s predilection with socks is awesome). And it’s hard to do that if you’re limited to text.
Doesn’t really matter because MGK already has pointed out in the comments that he can economize use of dialogue and storytelling.
Honestly, I just wanted to type something and see if I can get the comments thing to work…
Oh and if for every story arc that MGK produced if he ever got a job at Marvel, we could get a sort of “Director’s Cut” blog post where he talks about the thinking he had producing these characters, I’d totally pay money to read that. Sort of like when you watch a DVD and the director talks along with it saying why he did X or Y and what that means.
Actually I think the obvious answer to how she knows who her father is would be that other mystics would be able to tell — and/or her own nascent abilities — or even possibly her mother telling her before her own death that the strange things she can do are very much like this one odd man she met, who is probably her father.
And oh God I wish you worked for Marvel. Though again I want the MU to be fixed first before that. None of this Illuminati garbage or Dark Reign crap, or being neutral in Civil War.
You know, with a lot of guys saying they should write such and such comic, it’s X-Men or something where you have a big franchise with big names attached. Dr. Strange doesn’t have a book or anything besides a recurring character spot in New Avengers. Joe Quesada is a risk taker, so why not give someone with this many well thought out ideas at least a mini series to try it?
So, this is like that Topaz person, except she’s the daughter of someone called Mordo?
I’m probably finding this series of posts more interesting, and the prospect of you writing Strange more exciting, than the Legion stuff for two reasons. I’m just more of a fan of the contemporary MU than of the futuristic DCU, and I agree there is a dire need to flesh out the magical side of the MU. So here’s my question… would any effort be made on your part to tie Strange’s mythos into the stuff that’s been going on in the Excalibur titles, and currently Captain Britain and MI13? The Arthurian legends and European mythology that Chris Claremont has been playing around with for so long. And of course, Alan Moore, who established the whole Captain Britain Corps and Earth-616 thing. Cause from first arc of that title, Cornell seems to think magic in the MU stems solely from that, and he doesn’t pay Strange any mind. There’s a divide there that’s never made sense to me, and I guess that’s just one of the flaws of such a massive shared universe. Unless I’m missing something, and it is tied together better than I thought. Basically, what does Merlin think of Strange, and the station of Sorcerer Supreme, and vice versa?
Great reading.
Been meaning to ask if you have any plans for Stephen Strange, the physician from before he met the Ancient One? There’s a long life there. Of course, hopefully you won’t be tempted to do some bad retconning – just use that period of his life as a springboard. Perhaps an old patient tracks him down? I dunno.
Oooh, ooh! If we’re doing requests, can we get Night… er, Dark-Crawler! I mean, look at em!
http://cosseyedcyclops.blogspot.com/2009/03/comic-marvel-fanfare8.html
More here: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/darkcraw.htm
Cat-headed people in suits are NOT kittens, and “Fireheart” is absolutely not a proper kitten name. Mr Fluffypops, Clawed LeMew, Shnookles, Princess Prettygirl, these are all appropriate names.
And another thing… if things get too “dude-centric” for people reading a dude’s blog about how he’d write a story about a particular dude in a predominantly dude’s medium, just do what girls have always had to do to even the odds. Color on some lipstick and some curly blonde hair on all the dudes and voila! Ladies are everywhere!
I would try that suggestion, but MGK is all the way in Canada.
@Zenrage: I don’t seem Doom as the type to reject a potentially powerful ally/minion/apprentice/whatever. I will admit that he probably couldn’t help her too much, but she sounds like the sort of person who just needs some of the basics, which Doom could provide in return for future favors.
Cookie:
I always thought one of the wisest things Warren Ellis ever said re: writing was that the greatest danger he faced in trying to write female characters is that if he got lazy, he inevitably produced guys with tits.
It’s a lovely thought that in a perfectly equal world you can play Mr. Potato-head with people’s bodytypes while keeping the same personality, but that simply isn’t true. Not only that we don’t live in an equal world, but that even in a society conscious striving for equality, different historical and contextual forces are going to come into play in people’s lives depending on their gender. And we live in a world were women deal not only with the remnants of old-fashioned sexism in society and unique health issues, but with reactionary responses to feminism that take their own turn telling them how they should act.
Even so, why should men feel obligated to tell “women stories”? Because we are inevitably going to have to deal with women rather frequently and when you create a mono-gendered cultural bubble, you risk turning the second gender into the Other. Stories, on some level, need to reflect and meditate on how people deal with the world and to do that, we need to create a world within fiction that parallels the world we live in. Men live in a world with women. It is unhealthy for men, then, to spend their mental energies engaged in scenarios where women don’t exist. I’m all for escapism, but escapist stories should take us to a world we wish existed. What does it say if you escape to a world that lacks one-half of the planet’s population?
But on Indrani…
I love this character concept for one reason — she’s rich with the meaning of Dr. Strange’s life. Not only is she a direct link to Dr. Strange’s past, but in taking her on as a student, she becomes an canvas for his vision of the future. How Stephen trains Indrani is a direct reflection not only of how he wishes Mordo could have been, but the ideals and standards he holds himself to as a magician. This is why the “ward” archetype can always be powerful, when handled appropriately. It brings out the change the main character really wants to see in the world. Dr. Strange is too often cast in this role of maintaining the magical status quo — doesn’t he have his own hopes and ambitions?
On top of that, while cliche in some ways, Indrani does have a good backstory that bustles with potential character growth and storylines. “Indrani, Last of the Mordo” could probably stand on its own as a story for several reasons, some magical and some very mundane.
However, while I know you probably aren’t going to post up a full script any time soon, I must demand at least one dialog betwixt Strange and his new students.
Writing a man with tits is honestly much better than the way many female characters are written, to tell you the truth. Take a look at The Wheel Of Fire series, those are like the worst-written women ever in the history of women or books that won’t finish. And personally, I got no issue with a perceived lack of equal representation of genders. A good story is a good story, whether abotu it’s mostly about women, or men, or whatever (better if it’s kittens, though, obviously). Interesting people are interesting people, and I’m woman enough to like a character who doesn’t give a shit about being able to bake the perfect angel food cake or whatever. I’m sure I’d write a crap man; he’d always be thinking about baseball and breasts and why dames are always so emotional, even thogh he’d be willing to find out if Secret really IS strong enough for a man.
But a sorceror kitten who bakes would be awesome.
Speaking of a lack of female characters being mentioned, is there any room for Clea in this comic? (Or was she mentioned in one of the other writeups and I missed it?)
Aardy: Cleo has been mentioned, but only to establish that she would remain Strange’s ex, rather than suddenly coming back as his lover. I don’t think we’ve seen any other ideas concerning her yet.
when I think that you can’t have a better idea, you outdo yourself. how we can help you to achieve this?
Concerning the writing of female characters, I’m always reminded of this line from As Good as It Gets: “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.”
Now that’s a joke, but I’ve often thought that writing a woman as a man with breasts isn’t the worst way to go. I don’t subscribe to the idea that men are less complicated then women or that women are some alien race to be studied and tested. Hell, I’ve had some female friends of mine I’ve had to correct for generalizing men with a simple “Have I ever done that?” Both sexes have their complications, it’s all about internalizing the character’s struggle. Thinking ‘how would I feel about that’? Maybe that leads to Mary Sue-isum, but at least it’s a start. With feed back and a good editor you can train your mind to think as your character would, but it almost always has to start with ‘what would I do here’.
I love the idea of Strange becoming a father-figure – and I would hope there’d be no Woody/Soo Yi hijinks in the offing.
Because Marvel in particular seem to have this kneejerk panic reaction whenever connotations of aging begin to cluster around their characters, be it a spouse or offspring – and cry out ‘oh noes – the fans cannot relate to our characters! They’re too mature’.
Which is infuriating, as eventually you find you’re writing a 30-something year old as if they were a 11 year old.
This is one of the best ones yet, IMO.
Cookie McCool said:
“Fireheart” is absolutely not a proper kitten name. Mr Fluffypops, Clawed LeMew, Shnookles, Princess Prettygirl, these are all appropriate names.
My cat is named 12XU.
No, really.
You know that subsequent/lesser writers would try to turn a Strange/Indrani relationship into a romantic one.
Sorta related: Doesn’t Strange have a daughter out there somewhere (in some failed Epic mini earlier this decade)? Was that ever canon?
So, hey, if Clea is still Strange’s ex, you’d go along with ‘The Cure’ and have him hooked up with Night Nurse? Cuz that would be awesome.
Night Nurse has to be the MU character with the best theme song.