Inspired by Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribić, and Ive Svorcina’s epic 2015 Marvel Comics crossover event, Secret Wars, in which Doctor Victor Von Doom and Doctor Stephen Strange play god, well. Yet, their fall from grace is frustratingly brushed aside once the event ends and reality restarts. Their sins are great and many, yet the metanarrative is never confronted or questioned – this aims to.
Two desperate men, a scientist and a sorcerer, try to avert the end of all things.
When failure is the only option, they break the rules.
Harnessing power beyond reckoning, they save what little they can
One becomes a god, the other his prophet.
There was chaos, then there was order, and it was good.
But that was then…
Before god let petty emotion strangle his pale benevolence.
When his insecurity poisoned all that still was, and fear became law.
Ere god’s greatest enemy returned to end the charade and bring back infinite everything.
And in the twilight of his glory, god wept as something better grew from the ashes.
In the beginning, everything was born anew.
Yet, the scientist remembers, and so does the sorcerer.
They cannot forget what they did when all was lost.
One was corrupted by absolute power, the other murdered for making it plain.
Infinity does not know how close it came to ending.
Only the scientist and the sorcerer know.
And this is now…
When one staves off psychological demons by fighting ones in the flesh.
As the other disconnects from himself, bereft of meaning after losing divinity.
And one struggles to maintain composure, obsessed with how pointless he feels.
While the other falls apart because he cannot comprehend what he has lost.
No one knows what they carry, the pain and anger and overwhelming guilt.
No one can ever know that they did.
Yet, one cannot sleep knowing they will not answer for their sins.
While the other makes a choice: die a man, or rise again.
When they meet again, a strange doom will fall.
The closure necessary to break the cycle of in spite of itself.
A final reconciliation that one will not survive.
Redemption will come, but the cost will be too high.
Fate and destiny will die at their feet.
And their war will decide what everything means.
THE SUPERFLUOUS 