New from Titan Books: A Doctor Strange Origin Story Novel

Out in bookstores March 26, ‘Doctor Strange: Dimension War’ explores the mind-bending original adventures of Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme.

PRE-ORDER DOCTOR STRANGE: DIMENSION WAR FROM TITAN BOOKS NOW!

In bookstores March 26, 2024: In an all-new origin novel from New York Times-bestselling author James Lovegrove (The Age of Odin), the earliest days of Doctor Strange—and his origin as the Sorcerer Supreme—is revisited.

First Look: Cover to Doctor Strange: Dimension War.

When arrogant physician Stephen Strange lost the ability to wield a surgeon’s knife, he embarked on a path of self-reflection and discovery. Now equipped with magical powers, he battles tirelessly to defend the Earth from arcane threats that few humans can conceive of—facing rival sorcerers, thwarting Nightmare the malevolent ruler of dreams, and daring to defy the terrifying despot of the Dark Dimension, Dormammu.

Introducing the foundational characters who have defined Doctor Strange through the years, such as the Ancient One, Wong, Clea, and his many adversaries, the novel follows Strange’s adventures to some of the weirdest places in the Marvel Universe—the dream kingdom of Nightmare, the Dark Dimension, and beyond!

“I would have been seven or eight years old when I first read the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko DOCTOR STRANGE [comics],” reflects Lovegrove of his connection to the character. “I was instantly captivated by its intrinsic weirdness, its blurring of the line between superheroics and the supernatural. There was no other comic strip that looked like it, disorientated like it, revelled in its own extraordinariness like it. There was nothing stranger than STRANGE.”

Strange meets the Living Tribunal in STRANGE TALES (1951) #158.

“I’ve come back to those tales several times since that first youthful immersion, and while revisiting them yet again in preparation for writing Dimension War I found them just as fascinatingly tricksy and woozily dizzying as I did when I was a kid,” continued Lovegrove. “It’s almost impossible to re-create Ditko’s mad, daring artwork in prose form but I challenged myself to offer readers at least a taste of it while also giving them the opportunity to relish Lee’s exuberant, alliterative spellcasting chants and oaths [for] an unparalleled sense of cosmic grandeur and eldritch absurdity.”

“My take on the early adventures of the Master of the Mystic Arts removes some of the original’s more outdated tropes, throws in a dash of Benedict Cumberbatch, and a pinch of wider Marvel lore. Dimension War marinades it all in modern sensibilities, with results that I hope will both satisfy purists and be appetizing to newcomers.”