The Mystic Hands of Doctor Strange One-Shot (2010)

This comic was an oversized black and white with four stories by some fairly well-known creators. In particular, Ted McKeever gets to create a story and Frank Brunner’s art appears to support a script by Peter Milligan. I’m excited to read this! Story #1 appears to take place a long time ago, back when Dr. Strange and Clea were running together. Strange interferes with a Mephisto-worshipping “doktor” who exchanges her soul for the power to reshape the world. The world is actually better off in some ways–she creates peace and cures illness–but Stephen prefers to allow free will. Given that the world gets reimagined in this story, it’s probably not canon, but then again it could be, since Mephisto has displayed the power to erase history and change the world in Spider-Man’s “Brand New Day” arc (where Mephisto erases the past of Peter Parker and Mary Jane being married, and restores Aunt May to life). The Milligan/Brunner story is also pretty cool–it has Doctor Strange actually doing mystic “doctoring.” A man is haunted by past memories that are so powerful that they draw some of Nightmare’s demons to him, so Strange has to exorcise them. The art is great and I really like the idea th...