Writer: Skottie Young / Artist: Humberto Ramos / Marvel
NCBD was ripe with tantalizing Marvel books this week, and I could’ve gone would one of the current and usually excellent X-Men books. However, I just caught up on the last couple of issues of Strange Academy and felt it was the right time to focus reader’s attention back on these young magic wielders. There was a lot of buzz when Skottie Young’s book first dropped, evident by Chris blessing the interweb streets with reviews of the first and second issue, which I followed up with a Top 10 Lessons from Strange Academy article. The kids at Doctor Strange’s school for gifted young Mystic Arts users each have a very unique personality, affinity for magic, intriguing homeland, tragic backstory, parental issues, and/or reason for enrolling at the New Orleans academy taught by some of the best magicians and sorcerers in the business.
Doctor Voodoo, the Ancient One, the Scarlet Witch, Magik, Hellstrom, Nico, Agatha Harkness, and more make up the Harvard level lineup of teachers that grace these haunted hallways and terrifying grounds. The excitement that the students, all new to readers (save a few supremely deep cuts), bring to this story paired with the limitless possibilities of where Young and his artistic partner in crime Humberto Ramos can go with magic are the basis of each issue.
In Strange Academy #15, we see the fallout from Time Travel 101. Doyle Dormammu (yes, the son of that Dark Dimension asshole) travels to the future and gets a glimpse of the future he has been dreading since he got put on the wrong side of one of those horrible “the one” prophecies. I will say, despite Doyle leading a gang of the current students down the villainous path and clashing with the eventual “good guys” of the students, this future was poppin! I loved that this was our first glimpse of what the kids will eventually look like. But more importantly, I loved what this lesson in time travel taught Doyle in this issue.
Emily Bright, Doyle’s boo, rolls up to her boyfriend’s door to pick him up on the way to class but the flaming headed boy is gone. He’s left a note for her, and it sends Emily into a rage that Ms. Stanton bared the brunt of until things were revealed and teenage overreactions were realized. Skottie Young clearly understands the minds of youngsters and uses this knowledge the craft some impressively written storylines that parallel coming of age stories. It all paired perfectly with the unlimited and marvelous directions he takes each Strange Academy book. Humberto Ramos has been drawing these students, faculty, New Orleans locales, and extra dimensional spaces so well that I couldn’t picture anyone bringing these stories to life.
It has to be said that the overlap of stories that Young introduces each month are just enough to satiate readers who love picking up where the last issue left off and progressing the plot with each turn of the page. It’s never too much, always exciting, and frequently educational for young people and decades long Marvel fans alike. The way we got closure on this Doyle time travel fiasco and dove into the Calvin short cut to magic mastery troubles. We’ll see how this drug magic peddling venture works out for the boy who lost it all. Strange Academy #15 another exceptional issue, and I expect nothing to change moving forward. If you haven’t been regularly reading this book, it’s time to add this to your monthly list!
10 Magic Defense Lessons out of 10
Enjoying Strange Academy? Check out our other reviews here.
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