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 that people come to Doctor Strange for “mystic health care.”
The McKeever story is suitably bizarre–an alcoholic is possessed by a demon who has to be ignored to be dispelled. Then finally Marcos Martin illustrates an all-text piece by Mike Carey. Not a fan of those, but it’s only 3 pages. Also, I get that Marvel is trying to mimic the old magazines of the ’60s and early ’70s where there was a requirement for a certain number of text-based tales.
In all, a really good issue of Doctor Strange published at a time when he didn’t have his own ongoing series.