For the 2016 MCU film, see here.
YMMV for The Comics
- Arc Fatigue: "The Last Days of Magic", with previous arcs leading up to it and various tie-ins, not helped by many readers seeing it as a badly Recycled Premise of Jason Aaaron's God Butcher storyline. The story arc quickly burned out any hype and left fans sick and tired of Empirikul and wishing it to just get over with it.
- Audience-Alienating Era: In the mid-90's, Strange was rebooted into a young, long-haired business executive without the familiar supporting cast. Fans were eager for a new interpretation of Strange, but were lost at what was essentially a new character.
- Awesome Ego: As much of a Complete Monster as he is, there is no denying that Dormammu's smug sense of superiority is cool as this
◊ shows◊. - Badass Decay: Dormammu has arguably been subjected to this to a more ridiculous degree than any other Marvel character over the years. In the old days he was able to one-shot the Phoenix Force, absorb many universes into his own realm, defeat the multiversal incarnation of Eternity (with help from his sister Umar), and likely killed The Trinity of Ashes and Slorioth, who threatened Eternity just by existing. He was also more than a match for several Hell-lords combined during a campaign to conquer their realms, and they had to use a specific weakness of his as a cheat in order to prevail. All of this outside of his own realm, wherein he is far more powerful. However from 2007 or so and onwards, he has usually been treated as a pushover that has been defeated or severely damaged by objectively enormously less powerful characters, such as Cyclops and the Howling Commandos.
- Complete Monster: See here.
- Evil Is Cool:
- Dormammu, Strange's arch-enemy. Unbelievably vile, sadistic, and spiteful — but possessed of such infectious evil charisma that it's hard not to enjoy him (more so than, say, the sickening, evil rapist Nightmare is by comparison) and possessed of an awesome design to boot.
- The villain Shuma-Gorath took on great popularity after he was used in Marvel Super Heroes. While the fact he's so incredibly powerful means he doesn't make too many appearances, fans usually squeal in joy when he does.
- Friendly Fandoms: Fandom is pretty friendly to fans of other magic-oriented Marvel characters and discussions about Strange often turn into ones about Marvel Magic as a whole, because the feelings are quite mutual. For example, fans of horror-themed characters are fond of some team-ups their favorites had with Stephen, while fans of Teenage Marvel like to discuss which of its young magicians should become his student (if they don't want him to just take them all and start a Wizarding School).
- Hilarious in Hindsight: This◊ panel from Doctor Strange: The Oath, where Strange is jokingly referred to as Sherlock Holmes. In the MCU movie, he was played by Sherlock himself, Benedict Cumberbatch.
- Like You Would Really Do It: "The Last Days of Magic" story. "Magic is dead! Empirikul destroyed it! It's gone forever! There is no magic left in the world!" Somebody could actually believe that, if not for Doctor Voodoo, Wiccan, White Tiger, Nico Minoru, Magik, Scarlet Witch, Thor, Loki, Doctor Doom, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Hercules, Shiklah, Agatha Harkness and all other magic users and magic-powered characters, who kept showing up in other Marvel books completely unaffected (the first four even being in various Avengers teams at the time) or having been confirmed to get books after that story would end. The fact that Hercules and Scarlet Witch dealt with two other crisises of magic, both completely separate and unrelated to Empirikul or one-another, certainly didn't help.
- Moment of Awesome: At the end of the "Great Fear" storyline, Nightmare and the Dweller in Darkness have dissolved their partnership and turned on each other. They're too evenly matched in power, however, so fellow demon D'Spayre—who by his own admission is much weaker than either of them—suggests a contest. He'll side with whoever proves better at scaring the populace of Earth. They agree, since even D'Spayre's power would be enough to tip the scales for the winner, and they immediately set about mystically terrifying the whole planet. This goes well at first, and all the fear generated powers up both demon lords. But then suddenly all that power goes away. They did their job too well, and the people of Earth are no longer experiencing fear but despair. So guess who's getting all that power now? D'Spayre is now so incredibly powerful that both Nightmare and the Dweller immediately flee the dimension, and even Doctor Strange can't hurt him. He's normally a Smug Snake, but for that one story, D'Spayre was The Chessmaster.
- Periphery Demographic: The Doctor Strange comics were unexpectedly popular among the '60s counterculture, thanks to their emphasis on Eastern mysticism and surrealist imagery, both of which resonated heavily with the psychedelic movement. Among other examples, Pink Floyd referenced the franchise twice during their early years as a Psychedelic Rock group; in turn, the MCU film pays homage to the comics' counterculture fans by including "Astronomy Domine" as part of the soundtrack.
- Quirky Work: Despite the psychedelic imagery that lured in the counterculture fans, Steve Ditko was a staunch conservative who eschewed drugs and was against everything for which the counterculture stood.
- Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The Last Days of Magic arc does a poor job making a case for magic's importance, given the nightmarish effect it has on Strange.
