Doctor Strange

Doctor Stephen Strange is a brilliant but egotistical neurosurgeon who only cares about wealth from his career. However, a car accident damages his hands, shattering the bones. The damage effectively ends his ability to conduct surgery, since his hands now tremble uncontrollably. Too proud to take on a teaching job, Strange desperately begins to search for a way to restore his hands, consulting various doctors, homeopathic treatments and traveling around the world to remote regions for exotic cures, all to no avail.

He exhausts his funds and is reduced to homelessness and is forced to perform "back alley" medical procedures for cash. Depressed and still searching, Strange locates a hermit called the Ancient One (who is actually the Earth's Sorcerer Supreme) in the Himalayas. The Ancient One refuses to help Strange because of his selfishness, but senses a good side that he attempts to bring to the surface. He fails, but Strange's goodness appears when he discovers the Ancient One's disciple, Baron Mordo, attempting to kill the old man. After Strange selflessly thwarts Mordo, (who becomes Strange's most enduring antagonist),^[31] the Ancient One teaches him the mystic arts.^[32]

As the Ancient One's disciple, Strange encounters the entity Nightmare,^[33] and miscellaneous other mystical foes before meeting Dormammu, a warlord from an alternate dimension called the "Dark Dimension". Strange is aided by a nameless girl, later called Clea,^[34] who is eventually revealed to be Dormammu's niece.^[35] When Strange helps a weakened Dormammu drive off the rampaging Mindless Ones and return them to their prison, he is allowed to leave unchallenged.^[36]