Warning: contains spoilers for Dark Ages #1!
He may be one of the most powerful superheroes on Earth, but even Doctor Strange makes mistakes – like dooming the entire Earth and causing millions of people to die in the apocalypse. The Sorcerer Supreme causes this disaster in Dark Days #1, the beginning of a new series by writer Tom Taylor with art by Iban Coello and colors by Brian Reber. When faced with the end of the world, Strange saw no other option besides the one he chose – but did he make the right decision?
When the entire Earth begins to shake, Uatu the Watcher appears before the Fantastic Four with dire news: the planet has hours to live. Ten billion years ago, a living machine called the Unmaker was created to consume black holes and prevent entropy itself, but the machine malfunctioned and began to devour everything; it was subsequently imprisoned inside the Earth by the Living Tribunal. Somehow, the Unmaker has activated again, and a team of superheroes – Susan Storm, the Thing, Vision, the Scarlet Witch, and Doctor Strange – journey to the center of the Earth to shut it down for good.
The confrontation is less of a battle and more akin to an outright massacre. The Unmaker is simply too powerful, even for the team of heavy-hitters: the Thing and the Scarlet Witch are vaporized within seconds and Storm can barely sustain her force fields. A desperate Doctor Strange opens a portal to a dimension where electricity is unable to function; he’s stabbed through the chest by the Unmaker and dies, but he succeeds in shutting down the giant machine – and unfortunately, all machines.
Because Strange was killed, the portal remained open. Pacemakers ceased functioning, airplanes (and flying superheroes such as Iron Man) fell out of the sky, and all artificial lifeforms – like Viv Vision – died on the spot. It can also be inferred that heaters, air conditioners, and medical equipment also stopped working. Thus, many people are placed in immediate danger and will most likely die in days if not hours. Doctor Strange saved billions at the cost of millions – but was there another way? The issue specifies that Strange looked into different realities, not futures as in Avengers: Infinity War, so perhaps this wasn’t the only way to stop the Unmaker – just the method that Strange found before any others.
With the Unmaker destroyed and Earth left without any functioning electricity, Dark Ages begins with a shocking loss of life. Millions are dead, including key superheroes, and the state of the world is forever changed. Perhaps the worst element of the entire catastrophe is the loss of Doctor Strange – the one hero who could have undone the very devastation he caused.
