I recently handed Strange: I Belong to Death to one of my dear friends. He had expressed excitement that Clea Strange, a long-standing supporting character, was (rightfully) in a starring role. He asked after her efforts, and I had to tell him this:
“There’s a point in every issue where Clea exclaims ‘I will brook exactly none of your bullsh*t.’”
I wasn’t being literal, of course—at no point in the first five issues of Strange where Clea utters those words—she says ‘brook’ not even once. Nonetheless, there are moments in each issue when Clea comes up against somebody who displeases her, and she makes it known that she will not be indulging them.
The thing that defines Clea Strange in Strange is powerful, justified defiance.
These are not small, everyday pedestrian acts of rebellion. Clea finds herself in opposition to major forces, impossibly powerful beings. . . and fundamental aspects of reality.
In the first issue, she awakens to a discourteous knock at the door of the Sanctum Sanctorum, where she now resides under the title of Sorcerer Supreme. Who should be at the door (seeking that very title) but Doctor Doom: prototypical supervillain, icon of evil, comic-book shorthand for Very Bad Dude. It is this monolith of bad guy that Clea shuts down first—handily, with minimal effort. She dresses him down and sends him away, cowed, by the sheer force of her being.
Marvel Comics
This is how the book begins, with Clea handily dispatching one of Marvel Comics biggest villains; it continues with her subsequent conflict with supernatural crime organization the Blasphemy Cartel, ongoing conflicts with horrendous revenants of notable—but forgotten—dead superbeings (Thunderstrike, the ghoul that became of Marc Spector’s brother), and even an emotionally trying domestic visit from her mother.
Marvel Comics
Clea’s prime defiance, however—her most indignant, passionate purpose—is against death itself. To the basic-bitch concepts of human mortality, Clea calmly utters a resounding “No.” Mortality has always been only a thin veil for superbeings, anyway, and it is Clea’s belief that death is anything but eternal.
In Strange, writer Jed MacKay and artist Marcelo Ferreira produce a stronger, more consequential Clea Strange than has ever been. She is wholly realized, profoundly powerful, and firm in her beliefs. After decades of being a somewhat shallow presence in Doctor Strange books (or being fully ignored by them altogether), she is now something more than a flimsy girlfriend, something more than a mere helping hand. She is not one but two Sorcerers Supreme (for Earth, and for her own Dark Dimension), and she is deeply unconcerned with even her most harrowing troubles. Cool, efficient, smart.
Marvel Comics
The book’s contributions to the darker sides of the Marvel Universe are likewise excellent. The supernaturally hidden magic farmer’s market that is The Shrouded Bazaar implies the nearness of the otherworldly; the Blasphemy Cartel is a terrifying force made up of faceless Nobodys touting accursed military tech. Best of all, the Revenants promise to explore a new angle of the problematic superhero mortality: what happens to those heroes who do not get resurrected cleanly? Those characters whose profit-value is not as astronomical as your Jean Greys or Steve Rogerses? Something horrible, certainly.
Whatever else she faces, Clea Strange will brook none of that bullsh*t.
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