Doom wants the title. He’s always wanted the title. And on November 4, Marvel is finally letting him fight for it in a book built around nothing else.
Marvel’s November solicitations include a first look at Challenges of Doom: Doctor Strange #1, written by Al Ewing with art by Christian Rosado. It’s part of the Challenges of Doom series, which throws the Latverian monarch at his biggest foes and rivals. This time the rival is Stephen Strange.
Here’s Marvel’s synopsis, in full:
“SORCERER VS. SORCERER!
Two of history’s most skilled practitioners of magic: DOCTOR DOOM faces DOCTOR STRANGE in a battle metaphysical, physical, current, future, past… encompassing the enormous realms of their intellect and ability! These incredible foes will go to the limits of their powers and beyond to determine who is truly the greatest sorcerer — but what else will be revealed in the process?!”
Why Doom takes this personally
Strange is one of the most powerful magic users in the Marvel Universe and Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, the guy who holds the line against magical threats like Dormammu and Nightmare. The title isn’t handed out. It’s earned, and the fact that Strange has held it as often and as long as he has says everything about his skill.
Doom is also highly skilled in magic. But magic was never the point for him. It was a tool, a route to freeing his mother’s soul from Mephisto, and that single obsession pushed his studies further than most sorcerers ever get.
Doom comes from a long line of magic users. Strange doesn’t. Combine that lineage with Doom’s arrogance and you get a grudge with roots: he believes the title of Sorcerer Supreme is rightfully his, and being the perpetual runner-up to a man with no magical bloodline has curdled into something personal.
He already took it once
In 2024’s One World Under Doom, the villain finally got what he wanted. He tricked Strange into relinquishing the title, became Sorcerer Supreme, and used the power to take over the world.
The heroes stopped him. But the title didn’t go back to Strange. It passed to the Scarlet Witch, and Stephen ended up as Sorcerer Supreme of Asgard instead.
So no, Marvel isn’t billing this one-shot as a rematch. It doesn’t have to. That event hangs over every page of this thing whether the solicitation says so or not.
The word “past” is doing a lot of work here
Marvel’s solicitation says the fight will encompass “past, present and future,” which reads less like a fight scene and more like an excavation. This isn’t just settling One World Under Doom. It’s the whole rivalry, top to bottom.
And that closing line, “but what else will be revealed in the process,” is the part worth circling. The plot information Marvel released hints the book will stretch across both men’s histories and potentially reveal new truths about them.
Which raises the obvious question the solicitation is daring you to ask. What are these two hiding from each other, and what’s about to come out?
Two covers, two very different moods
Marvel also released a look at two covers: one by Fabrizo De Tommaso and another by Peach Momoko. If you know Momoko’s work, you already know how differently she’ll approach a Doom-Strange face-off than a traditional superhero cover artist would.
It’s been done before, and done well
This isn’t the first book to lock these two in a room together. In 1989, Roger Stern and Mike Mignola gave us Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, in which the two formed an uneasy alliance to free the soul of Victor’s mother.
Doom double-crossed Strange along the way, because of course he did. And in doing so he proved exactly why he can never hold the Sorcerer Supreme title, or at least not for long. Skill isn’t the whole job. The heart has to be in the right place too.
Triumph and Torment is regarded as a modern classic now, which means Ewing and Rosado are working in a shadow. Big shoes, and the comparison is going to get made in every review whether it’s fair or not.
Reed Richards has competition
Reed will always be Doom’s primary adversary. That’s not up for debate. But there’s a real case for Strange as the runner-up, and it’s a more interesting one, because Reed represents everything Doom failed at while Strange represents everything Doom was supposedly born for and still lost.
Both characters have been through a lot lately. This one-shot is the climax of those recent arcs, which means it’s carrying more than a fight.
Where they land by the final page is anyone’s guess. Even if Stephen doesn’t get his revenge, the scope alone earns the price of admission, and the spectacle has the potential to be character-defining for both.
Challenges of Doom: Doctor Strange #1 goes on sale November 4 from Marvel Comics.
