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amagicdoctor · 1 year

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Strange Academy: Finals just revealed the most anticipated backstory of the entire series. But I would argue there are more pieces of the puzzle to connect. #5 may have introduced Doyle’s mother and with her reveal, gave us some understanding of how Doyle came to be, but I have a feeling that they’re not telling us everything. And worriedly, one can ask: will they ever?

Follow me under the cut where I’ll walk you through some theories around the real story behind Doyle’s ‘family.’ Hey, and grab some tissues, it gets a little sad in the end.

Those who have been with this blog for a while now already know that Doyle is at the very top of my list for favorite Strange Academy characters. I took an immediate liking to him because of his connection to one of Dr. Strange’s most dreaded villains: Dormammu. I love super villain characters much more than I do with heroes, so I initially thought they would create Doyle’s character as some sort of heir to the throne, spelling much trouble for the students and staff of Strange Academy. But even with the marketing (prior to the first series release) setting up Doyle as a big bad, his antagonist days have not come to fruition. And honestly, I don’t mind that at all.

Throughout the beginning of the pilot series, I watched Doyle’s career grow with much interest. But with interest came questions, and one of those questions was one of the biggest 3 year secrets the writers had been hiding: what is Doyle’s true family situation?

Everyone, readers and in-universe characters alike always assumed Doyle was the direct biological descendant of Dormammu.

(from Strange Academy (2020) #1)

But as we learned in SA: Finals #5, looks can be deceiving. Doyle has a real human mother and father. So he was just a normal human when he was born! He was only reborn as a Faltine-look alike as a side-effect to healing a medical condition he once had as a baby.

That much, we know. We’ve all read the latest issue. And as big of a deal that is, there is something much more important to talk about now that she’s been revealed: Doyle’s mother herself and her backstory (and motives).

Let’s take a quick step back into the early days of the series. Family (and lineage) became a big deal to the Strange Academy cast when we read the fated “Parent’s Day” issue (see Strange Academy (2020) #9). While many students were able to bring their parent’s to school, we never saw anyone show up for Doyle. Dormammu, we can understand (more on this in a bit), but where was his beloved human mother who was always in his life? I know adults can be busy with whatever, but it sure is interesting that not only has Doyle’s mother not shown up for an important event, but neither has Doyle’s (surrogate) father, Dormammu.

Remember in the first big event of the series when Doyle was killed? Remember how Dr. Voodoo, school headmaster, put his own life in danger to directly ask Dormammu to save his only son and Voodoo was met with rejection?

While a simple Parent’s Day social event pales in comparison to the priority of a student’s death, neither of Doyle’s ‘parents’ came in to save the day. Or to see if he even recovered following his death on campus. They sure as hell are passive, especially Doyle’s mother since she already saved him from early death once. But what does this all mean?

Dormammu is complicated (we’re gonna get to him in another minute). But his mother.. Maybe you’re asking: does his mother actually care about him? You may say “yes” just on the account of the flashback (which is from her POV only, also problematic when trying to get the full story. Doyle was too young to remember himself. She could have conveniently skipped over something, more on this soon). She did everything she could just to save his life from that inoperable tumor. But that’s exactly the problem. She did everything and went down every path, even the wrong ones.

People become desperate when they’ve hit the wall. To a single mother, alone, raising a child who’s barely even grown out of diapers, you want to do anything for him. Absolutely anything. To cure her son, we saw that she went to traditional help first: the medical doctors, even to a former neurosurgeon who, as we know, went through the desperation of fixing his own disability. But the difference between her and Dr. Strange is, he ended up not going down that dark path: to Dormammu.

Similar to Dr. Strange’s issue though, she did try to find magical fixes, which is OK. This is a story we’ve heard before. But why Dormammu? This is equal in magnitude to selling your soul to a demon, but in this case, she sold her son.

Doyle's mother claimed she went as far as finding a cult that 'worshiped' Dormammu. Yeah, she may have been desperate, but I also feel as though she may have liked that option as well. Listen to me, this may seem like a stretch, but look at the way both Doyle's mother and Dormammu look at Doyle. They look like two consensual parents who are raising a child together.

They’re both smiling, joyous, happy, proud.

And notice this: Doyle looks a bit older than he does in the earlier parts of the flashback. He could still be a toddler, but he’s not being wrapped up in blankets anymore, some time has obviously passed. Romance or not, there is something deeper, more intimate happening here. And think about it like this: We do not yet know how long this transformation process took when Dormammu ‘healed’ Doyle. If longer than a few days, I could argue there may have been some baby daddy weekend custody situation going on, just so Dormammu can visit and see that his magic is working.

I’m also not saying it’s too early to ship it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Dormammu revealed that Doyle’s mother was actually his wife. Maybe she has an alternate form too.

I would also like to ask you to think about the cost associated with healing her son. Magic always has costs. And no, Doyle becoming a Faltine-like thing is not a cost, it’s a side effect. I think those can be different. But look, by granting Doyle a new life, does she or her son owe their loyalty to Dormammu now? Doyle could be hiding his allegiance somehow but he’s such a sweetheart I doubt it. Strange Academy is funny with its writing but they would have alluded to him being a potential antagonist a long time ago if this was the next big reveal. His mother on the other hand is a different subject.

Maybe Dormammu felt Doyle could be his next project. He may have been bored. He thinks himself above human lives, so why else would he save a random sick human? Did he possibly fall in love with the woman who summoned him? Does he suddenly have feelings to care for an heir after completely abusing his sister and niece? I find it hard to believe he could have positive feelings about his long-term relationship with a human and her offspring. I don’t like thinking of Dormammu as someone who is capable of having those feelings. His concerns are about his own needs: conquering worlds, ruining lives, beating Dr. Strange. So he may be playing a long game at something else too. Maybe it ties into why he didn’t care enough about Doyle dying at school (or maybe he knew Doyle would survive). Maybe it ties into him seeing Doyle fall in love with a girl who has the potential of revitalizing Doyle into some warrior he prophesied Doyle would become (to take his place perhaps?). This may be why he’s so manipulative of Emily Bright’s development. Dormammu definitely does not care about her, I don’t need to explain that. But why? What does this all add up to? Theories behind Dormammu’s relationship with Emily is a different discussion, and it’ll probably be revealed in #6.

But back to the main subject. Of course, all of this is too soon to tell and I’m eating the hell out of one single page of context, but Doyle’s mother is seriously something else. I know as superhero readers we can get past the initial shock of someone selling their soul to a demon, because of course that happens. But I think it’s so SO important to think about what this really means. I don’t think Doyle is as safe with his mother as they want us to believe.

Lastly, since Doyle had a real human father, it's so weird now seeing him refer to Dormammu as a 'dad.' Is there some kind of affection between the two or three of them (see my earlier points)? Imagine a different scenario really quick: why the hell would a mother allow her son to call a bastard demon their ‘dad?’ In other horror/supernatural pieces of media, due to the power imbalance, the giver of magic/wish is usually called a ‘master.’ Why is it that the mother allows this intimate name calling to continue? Perhaps she actually wants the three of them to be a family. Perhaps Doyle’s mother is lying in the flashback, perhaps she was a member of that Dormammu worshiping cult the entire time and made the ultimate sacrifice–

And now this leaves me to ask something truly vital: what was Doyle's life like prior to Strange Academy? Where did he live? Which of his parents did he live with, if any?

This, actually, was partially answered during the Strange Academy tie-in for the Death of Doctor Strange event:

Doyle, for whatever reason, was seen temporarily living in a cabin in the woods when Strange Academy closed. I ask you, why would Doyle decide to live by himself– homeless in fact– instead of going back home to the mother who saved his life when he was a child? Back to the human mother who supposedly loves him dearly? The mother who is “the best part” of him (Doyle’s exact words btw!!!).

You know, Doyle has frequently referred to the Dark Dimension as “home,” especially in the above panel. Unless he’s still egging the Mindless One on as he did with Calvin about his connection to Dormammu, we have to believe that Doyle is a regular resident of the Dark Dimension (or at least was, in the past, possible months ago if he has been living homelessly as a regular thing on Earth). Because if someone like Doyle was walking around on Earth, with his magical signature, he would have been been a regular character to the Dr. Strange series. So did his mother and Dormammu lock him away somewhere like they did with Clea when we were first introduced to her? Why? Was it that they only let him out, or somehow he escaped to go live with his mom prior to coming to the academy?

Doyle living with Dormammu (doubt it like a prisoner, he isn’t giving off vibes in that way, but like a Rapunzel situation) is such a worst case scenario and it breaks my heart. Because this leaves us to think about all the times Clea and Stephen have gone into the Dark Dimension to fight Dormammu or Clea being LEADER of the entire Dark Dimension, freeing the Mindless Ones but not her little cousin, and not once did we EVER get a whiff of Doyle. So where was he?? What was he doing? What is really going on here, because the less context we get, the worse Doyle’s real situation is. My heart breaks for him, really.

His real mother is suspect as hell, his SURROGATE father is literally Dormammu (nuff said) and his overall home situation is extremely suspicious!! I hope this overview has raised a few red flags, more than I hope you have already had.

Anyway here’s how Clea adopting Doyle can still win–

#doctor strange #strange academy: finals #doyle dormammu #dormammu #clea strange #marvel comics #earth 616

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