Cover Date: August 1980
On-Sale Date: May 13, 1980
With a wonderful, textless (except for the title logo and miscellaneous legal stuff) cover of Doc fighting a fierce looking fiery dragon, we head into Chris Claremont's second and final Doc arc. We will say farewell to the delightful Madeleine St. Germaine (who mysteriously acquires a 'de' in her name in a caption), delve deeper into the life and times of the lovely Sara Wolfe, find out more about how rich Doc is and we'll be introduced to four new sorcerers who aren't the main villains. Refreshingly, Doc does fight the dragon depicted on the cover. Yay!
Before heading into his new adventure, Doc must tie up a few loose ends from his last ordeal. Thus, we see Doc and his companion, still in her sacrificial gown, flying into Miami airport. With no plane! The delightful Madeleine needs to get back to Paris, but Doc won't be flying here there under his own steam. He must still be tuckered out from nearly being killed multiple times of the past few days. Ah well. Such is the life of a sorcerer supreme.
Naturally, Doc casts a spell on the crowd to non-consensually mess with their minds so they don't remember a dude with a giant red cape and lady in a lavender dress flying with no visible means of propulsion. As the pair heads to the gate for Maddy's flight, a mysterious recognizes Doc and we find out he's a tabloid dude.
Not much else happens here except Maddy heads to her flight, but appears to have some regrets.
This is probably the first time Doc has acknowledged this depth of feeling for a woman who isn't Clea. It's this moment that makes me wish we could see Mrs. St. Germaine return for a story or two. There's obviously more going on here that depicted, and I want to know what!
Doc arrives home and we discover that the tabloid man has set something in motion that we'll find out more of in the few issues time. In the meanwhile, Doc is under surveillance. I'm sure if he were at the height of his powers, this wouldn't be an issue.
Inside, Doc finds the unexpected. His neighbor Sara is asleep wearing Clea's tight fitting outfit, and there are pizza boxes and soda bottles all over the place. "I saved the world and all I got was this lousy house pest."
Sara eventually wakes up and Doc takes the opportunity to provide a nice dinner. He also gives Sara more fitting duds.
Once dinner is over, Doc questions Sara who recaps the events of the last couple of issues. Clea was searching for Wong. Clea was running from wraiths. Clea and Sara switched bodies so Clea could sneak past the wraiths. Clea disappeared and Sara fell asleep. There we go! All caught up. Sara wakes up and Doc lights a fire. It's a good thing. Sara was looking a bit chilly.
Sara decided to pass the time by being nosy and checking out Doc's paperwork. Apparently both he and Wong are terrible bookkeepers and Doc's finances are a mess. Doc's broke, Sara thinks. But things aren't always how they seem.
Man, I didn't know Doc was a disaster prepper with all that gold! Doc proposes to Sara! Not like that. Sara will be Doc's business manager so Wong can concentrate on cooking meals and picking up the Cloak of Levitation from the dry cleaner.
Doc has tracked down Clea's trail to a mysterious deserted house in the Adirondacks. Worried that he isn't detecting any magic stuff, Doc rides around in an adorable Jeep when he encounters someone who doesn't like to share the road with fellow drivers.
The truck manages to run Doc off the road and it goes up in a big ball of fire. His pursuers comb the area to make sure he's dead. We get a peek inside the supposedly deserted house and it's not as empty as Doc thought.
Outside, we learn Doc has managed to survive. This is not surprising for Earth's most powerful sorcerer armed with a cloak of levitation. What is surprising is the group of thugs fighting back with some mystical abilities. They're challenging for Doc, but not too challenging and Doc guesses correctly that his true foes are inside the house.
At last, we get to see the dragon fight we were promised on the cover. Gene does a lovely job of rendering the beast.
I also need to give a shout out to letterer Jim Novak who cleverly put the captions inside the dragon's flame. It's a simple effect that avoids the jarring nature caption boxes would have had here.
Doc fights the dragon for a few pages and slips away for a moment to search the house. He thinks using his astral body will be quicker and goes ghost, but this turns out to be a mistake.
His true foes have trapped him. Fortunately, Doc can still control his cloak and it flies to the quartet of other-dimension sorcerers and yanks one away. Fortunately for Doc, this breaks the spell and the pesky dragon vanishes.
Doc binds the sorcerers in the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak and searches the house. He finds no trace of Wong or Clea. What now? Let's activate this black mirror that happens to be lying around. Surely it's shady reputation won't have any effect on me! Doc proceeds and winds up in the world where Clea and Wong have gone. Sadly he wasn't prepared for his welcome.
So this is pretty good. The next two issues will be better. Chris begins by tantalizing us with Madeleine St. Germaine only to banish her to the island of obscure characters never to be seen again. I think I've made it abundantly clear multiple times that I would love to see more of her.
Chris found a clever way to add a new member of the Doc cast. Doc didn't happen to advertise for a business manager. Instead, his long term neighbor happens to stumble into multiple magic mysteries and seems to be able to handle it. That's a pretty important prerequisite for any job with Doc.
We also get to see how utterly charming Doc can be when he wants to and he can also be a bit of a flirt. If Clea is observing this it's no wonder she can get frustrated when Doc doesn't always give her the same charm.
Speaking of Clea, we only get to see her in one panel. Chris and Gene have chosen to garb her in sexy barbarian but keep her in her signature pink and similar shades. This is definitely one of her most revealing outfits. We get to see more of this in the next two issues! It's always nice to see our silver tressed sorceress being a lovely fashion plate.
