Doctor Strange is one of my favourite characters in the Marvelverse. Unlike icons such as Spider-Man, whose portrayal has been relatively stable (with great power yadda yadda, oh the teenage/20s angst yadda yadda), the master of the mystic arts has had a number of different treatments over the years: from the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko days (which I'm not so familiar with), to the cosmic adventures of Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner/Gene Colan, to the partly successful recent reinvention by J. Michael Straczynski. (I'm still not sure if that last was supposed to reboot the Doctor in the regular Marvel Universe, if it was supposed to be an Ultimate version (though different to the character who made an appearance in the Ultimate Team-Up title), or some strange Marvel Elseworlds incarnation lost between continuities. One thing I do know is that a Trinity-like, leather-clad, karate-pounding Clea just isn't Clea!) I even read that a couple of previous versions of the character took an all-out humorous tone which seems wrong to me, given the epic nature of Strange's powers and auspices.
Anyway...
"Every comic creator has a Doctor Strange pitch", says Brian Michael Bendis, and Brian K. Vaughn's has made it into print with a six-issue limited series, Doctor Strange: The Oath, with art by Marcos Martin.
The tone Vaughn adopts reminds me of Roger Stern's memorable run in the early 80s. (And in fact, Martin's art is reminiscent of Tony Salmons who was one of the revolving stable of artists during Stern's tenure.) There's still dimension hopping and mystic battles with demons, but the focus is more down-to-earth and down-to-Earth. Vaughn downplays Doctor Strange's formal speech patterns (which, in the old days, could get very over the top) and injects more banter. More importantly, he puts the doctor back in "Doctor Strange" - the oath of the title is the Hippocratic Oath, not some sorcerous one. The relationship between Wong and Strange rings true, except that I'm not sure if Wong would address his master by his first name as often as he does in this issue, which is to say, twice. The revelation at the end promises good things to come and - like many other aspects of The Oath - grounds Strange's magical adventures in the "real" world.