Marvel's Version of Harry Potter is So, So Much Deadlier
One looks at Hogwarts’ interiors and it’s easy to see that the UK’s only school for witches and wizards is definitely not up to modern safety standards. One student tumbles off the moving staircases, and Dumbledore’s got himself a lawsuit. A dip in the lake and that unlucky soul becomes fish food for the giant squid. In Marvel’s Strange Academy, however, it’s not architecture and cephalopods you have to worry about -- it’s studying.
Marvel’s Strange Academy is a high-energy, mystery-filled comic about a group of students attending a school for sorcerers run by the enigmatic Doctor Strange himself. The students come from all over and include not just humans, but demons, fae, the undead, and the son of Dormammu. In their free time, the students have already traveled to New Orleans, got in fights, and attracted the attention of some shady creatures with a bone to pick.
In Strange Academy #4, the students find themselves in a mess of new trouble, as only children with limited supervision and an abundance of supernatural power could. While some of the students race off to play tag through multiple dimensions, others stay behind in the Academy’s massive library. While Hogwarts has its share of monsters and dangerous books, none of them quite top the absolute chaos Stephen Strange has tucked away in his stacks. Left out of the game of tag, Doyle - Dormammu’s teenage son - snaps open an ancient book’s lock and releases a massive, angry beast that even Hagrid couldn’t tame.
After briefly pointing fingers, the kids start to put a plan together to wrestle the beast back into book-prison, calling on some of their more unique powers and characteristics - including one student’s size. The freed beast rages through the library, destroying the roof and sending books and shelves flying. He tells the students that even Doctor Strange struggled to capture and imprison him in his book. But, as Zelma Stanton so accurately puts it, “librarians go hard.” With magic, a very giant boy named Gus, and the book-prison, the students and Ms. Stanton tackle the problem with a shocking amount of ease and force the beast back in the book.
Skottie Young’s knack for writing smart young people and the exciting art of Humberto Ramos really make Strange Academy and it’s odd student body stand out from the crowd. Its unique take on the magic school trope separates it from the more familiar properties, and it’s that creativity that will probably have some sending their Hogwarts letter back. After all, what’re a few giant monsters when you’re learning from the Sorcerer Supreme?
Strange Academy #4 by Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, and VC’s Clayton Cowles hits shelves October 28, 2020.