Marvel has announced their new Sorcerer Supreme! During the recent events of Blood Hunt, when vampires took over the planet, Doctor Stephen Strange was forced to make a hard choice for the greater good and passed the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme over to Doctor Doom, kickstarting One World Under Doom, the current crossover event that sees Victor von Doom rise to become emperor of Earth with his increased mystical powers.
However, even the mightiest of empires can collapse, as Doom’s time as both emperor and Sorcerer Supreme are numbered. A new candidate is set to fill his shoes as the next mystical protector of Earth and Marvel has recently announced that spot belongs to Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch.
While we wait for Wanda to step into her new role in the upcoming Sorcerer Supreme #1 by Steve Orlando and Bernard Chang, let’s go back to the early days of the Marvel Universe and witness the origin of the first Sorcerer Supreme.
It was in Marvel Premiere #10 when Doctor Stephen Strange first became Sorcerer Supreme, following the death (and spiritual ascension) of his former master, the Ancient One. The title granted Stephen authority and responsibility as Earth’s chief defender against dangers of mystical nature, an office he held for many a year to come, but one he also lost on a few occasions.
Regardless of who holds the title, the mortal realm needs a Sorcerer Supreme to safeguard it, which means that before Doctor Strange and even before the Ancient One, there was always a Sorcerer Supreme, a line of spell-casters that can be traced back to the dawn of civilization. And it all started with a man called Agamotto.
THE LEGEND OF AGAMOTTO, THE FIRST SORCERER SUPREME
The character of Agamotto is steeped in mystery, but legend says he was birthed from a tear that rolled down the face of the elder goddess Oshtur, the giver of justice and lady of the skies. The legend is recorded in full detail in the journals of the sorcerer Ian McNee, in Marvel Tarot. According to it, Oshtur was moved after seeing the unbridled joy of a young boy playing hide and seek with other children by an acacia tree in spite of his blindness. Her tear drop gave birth to the then mortal Agamotto.
Oshtur and her son grew close. His deep curiosity led him to acquire a great deal of knowledge from his mother, including that of sorcery. Once Agamotto had become a young man, Oshtur left him so he could find his own path and disappeared into higher planes.
The boy, confused, waited for his mother to return, but she never did, so he sat under that same acacia tree to wait for her, leading Agamotto through a long journey of spiritual discovery into his own psyche. While he searched, Agamotto matured and discovered the three paths of magic. With each path unlocked, a new item in the form of an eye materialized in front of him: the Eye of Power, the Eye of Prescience, and the Eye of Truth. The latter would one day be known as the Eye of Agamotto.
Another account related to Agamotto’s eyes is given in Avengers Assemble, the finale to Jason Aaron’s Avengers run. Agamotto, alongside his fellow “prehistoric Avengers” joined the present day Avengers from Earth-616 and from other universes to stop the multiverse-spanning threat of the demon Mephisto and his army.
During one of the battles against a variant of Doctor Doom, Agamotto had his eyes wounded and lost his sight. Once Mephisto was defeated, the Sorcerer Supreme returned to his original era and forged, from fire and magic, the three Eyes of Agamotto, ensuring that the masters of the mystic arts after him would be capable of foreseeing and stopping any evil from rising.
Regardless of which version of the story reflects what really happened, it is a fact that the Eye of Agamotto became an important artifact for the Sorcerers Supreme to come. As for Agamotto himself, he help the development of our ancestors while he became the world’s first Sorcerer Supreme. He would eventually transcend his mortal form and unite with his mother Oshtur and the hoary Hoggoth to become the Vishanti, the trinity that oversees the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme.
SORCERERS SUPREME THROUGHOUT HISTORY
Despite becoming a mystical entity, Agamotto chose to entrust his office (and the Eye) to other practitioners of the mystic arts, kickstarting a line of succession that exists to this day.
While there is some contradictory information about the history of the title, it is said Agamotto’s first choice was the Atlantean sorceress Zhered-Na, who died around the time of the fall of Atlantis. After that, he appointed Shamhat of the race of bird-men of the floating city of Akah Ma’at to fill the role.
That, too, didn’t go well as an ideological civil war broke out in Akah Ma’at between two factions and Shamhat was involved. The goddess Ma’at (who is a manifestation of Oshtur), banished them from the mortal realm.
Finally, Agamotto went up to the powerful wizard Genghis to ask for help in finding the next Sorcerer Supreme, but Genghis didn’t know who to recommend. Instead, he proposed a contest that later became a tradition among the masters of the mystic arts every hundred years (see Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment).
For this first trial, Ayesha, The Rain Queen of Balobedu (and ancestor to Storm of the X-Men), came out the victor, becoming the first human to hold the office of Sorcerer Supreme.
From there, and throughout all of history, Earth was not without a Sorcerer Supreme for long. Figures like Hermes Trismegistus, Isaac Newton, King Solomon, Merlin, Zoroaster, Kushala The Demon Rider, Nina the Conjuror, and many others are said to have been Sorcerers Supreme.
For more information, look for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z (2008) #7 and read Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme.
MODERN SORCERERS SUPREME
The first Sorcerer Supreme to be introduced in the comics was the Ancient One, who’d already held the title for a long time prior to his first appearance in Strange Tales #110 (or should I say Amazing Aventures #1, if you count the retcon?). That issue also marks the first time we meet Stephen Strange, who soon became the Ancient One’s disciple.
Stephen was given the Amulet of Agamotto (the original Eye of Power forged by Agamotto) by his mentor, but didn’t receive the Eye of Agamotto proper—as well as the Cloak of Levitation—until Strange Tales #127.
With the passing of the Ancient One, Stephen became the next Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, his tenure lasting many years of comic book publication. He lost the position a couple times, however. In one such occasion, he was stripped of it after refusing to fight for the Vishanti in the War of the Seven Spheres (Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #49), but eventually regained the position and patronage of the mystical trinity.
After abusing his powers and choosing to resort to what he called “darker forces than I normally use”, Strange stepped down in New Avengers Annual #2 , seeing himself as unworthy of the mantle. The Eye of Agamotto then teleported and found Jericho Drumm, Brother Voodoo.
Now calling himself Doctor Voodoo to go with his new position, Drumm fought to protect the mortal realm from the forces of the dread Dormammu, Nightmare, and other entities that would see it destroyed. His last adventure as Sorcerer Supreme happened in New Avengers (2010) #1-6, where Agamotto, having been cast out from the Vishanti, sought possession of his Eye as it was the only artifact that could now kill him. Drumm challenged Agamotto for a sorcerer’s challenge, which led him to sacrifice himself to defeat Agamotto. With the Eye gone in the process, Earth was, for a while, without a Sorcerer Supreme.
Eventually, in New Avengers (2010) #34, Stephen Strange again reclaimed the mantle after defeating Daniel Drumm, Jericho’s brother, who sought revenge against him for Jericho’s death. Strange once again turned to dark magic to best Daniel, but didn’t corrupt himself in the process. A transcended Ancient One approached Stephen and returned the Eye of Agamotto to him, proclaiming him worthy of being Sorcerer Supreme once more.
Loki, god of mischief, tricked Doctor Strange into giving him the mantle for a time by casting an illusion in the form of the Vishanti telling him to relinquish the title. That story happened in Doctor Strange (2015) #381 and ended in issue #385, with Loki revealing the truth of his schemes and restoring Stephen to his position.
Earth once again lost its Sorcerer Supreme when Stephen was murdered in Death of Doctor Strange. With Death claiming Stephen for herself at the end of the event, he left the Eye of Agamotto for Clea—his wife and Sorcerer Supreme of the Dark Dimension—making her also the sorceress supreme of Earth during his absence. Stephen was resurrected at the end of Strange (2022), Clea’s solo series, and was the Sorcerer Supreme again by Doctor Strange (2023) #1.
His renewed tenure was short-lived when the spirit of Varnae, the first vampire, possessed Blade, and brought about a vampiric apocalypse across the world in Blood Hunt. Doctor Doom was the only one who held the knowledge of the spell capable of ending the eternal night and Varnae’s rule, but only a Sorcerer Supreme could perform the ritual. With Strange stuck in his astral form and his physical body turned into a vampire, handing the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme over to Victor von Doom was deemed the only course of action.
Doom kept his promise of defeating the vampires, but betrayed Stephen by refusing to return the mantle to him. Now empowered by the Eye of Agamotto and the Cloak of Levitation, Doom made himself emperor of Earth in One World Under Doom, while Stephen, defeated, left Earth to try and become Sorcerer Supreme of Asgard.
And thus the history of the sorcerers supreme comes to a (temporary) end. With Doom no longer holding the office of Earth’s mystical protector, the Scarlet Witch will take on the role in Sorcerer Supreme this December.
SO WHAT’S NEXT?
While Wanda is set to start her tenure as Sorcerer Supreme soon, she surely won’t be the last. The Eye of Agamotto has previously shown other potential candidates for the role. People such as Nico Minoru, Ian McNee, Selene, Wiccan, Ghost Rider, Storm, and a plethora of other magic-based heroes and villains could potentially be the next to rise to protect Earth. Some alternate futures also have their own sorcerers supreme, such as Krugarr of the original Guardians of the Galaxy or the girl codenamed Strange from the original 2099 universe.
Regardless of who will bear the Eye and the title in the years to come, the Marvel Universe will always need a magician to fight on the side of good, keeping the tradition established by Agamotto at the dawn of humanity.
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