Snap Into Marvel: Dormammu Summons A New Gameplay Mechanic

First Appearance: Strange Tales #126 (November 1964)

First Multimedia Appearances: Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994) voiced by Ed Gilbert (animation), Doctor Strange (2016) voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch (live-action film)

Powers and Abilities: A near god-like being and sorcerer of immense power, Dormammu can travel across dimensions and through time, alter his size, manipulate matter, project bolts of energy, and imbue others with his power. He is particularly strong in his Dark Dimension home, where the presence of his worshippers empower him further.

Comic Book Chronicles

One of the last remaining Silver Age “Big Bads” to enter Marvel Snap, Dormammu is one of the key antagonists of Doctor Strange. After having Doctor Strange’s then-rival apprentice Baron Mordo mention the name, readers were intrigued enough to prompt Stan Lee to come up with the character behind the name.

In the process, he created one of the earliest recurring foes of Strange. Backed by a visually compelling appearance and a personal connection to the hero (Dormammu is the uncle of Strange love interest Clea), Dormammu makes repeated appearances throughout the Silver Age, including a notable story in which he engages the cosmic being Eternity, the physical embodiment of existence, in single combat.

Dormammu pops up in other places as well. He was the Doctor Strange-led Defenders’ contribution to the “Avengers-Defenders War,” an early multi-part, multi-title crossover story, teaming up with Avengers’ villain Loki to try to take down both teams. He crashed and delayed Scarlet Witch’s wedding to the Vision. He briefly conquered Limbo, before being thrown out and seemingly killed by Limbo’s former ruler, Magik, in a 2010s issue of Uncanny X-Men gorgeously illustrated by Frazier Irving.

As in the MCU Doctor Strange film, Dormammu is often forced to act through others due to barriers preventing him from crossing into Earth’s dimension. Perhaps the most notable — certainly the most sustained — came via the Hood aka Parker Robbins, a low-level criminal who stumbled across a hooded cloak imbued with Dormammu’s essence. Dormammu — through the enchanted hood — granted Robbins the power to unite the underworld, gaining more and more control over Robbins the more he used the power.

Upon learning the truth, Robbins briefly resisted Dormammu, but the lure of his power proved to be too strong. It took an alliance of Doctor Strange, Daimon Hellstrom and Brother Hood to free Robbins and fully banish Dormammu back to the Dark Dimension. Most recently, Dormammu is once again probing the strength of the borders between Earth and the Dark Dimension. Realizing that the current Sorcerer Supreme — Doctor Doom — is focused on his domination of Earth in the “One World Under Doom” crossover event, Dormammu presses his advantage, forcing his way back to Earth.

Fit & Finish

Curiously in this day and age, Dormammu debuts with just one variant, not the standard two. It’s a pretty basic alt image from Creative House Pocket.

It’d be fun to get a variant with Dormammu in his OG purple Steve Ditko togs with the collar spikes someday. And the cover to Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme #1 would make for a fun Bronze Age variant.

Form & Function

On the surface, the inspriation for Dormammu’s card is pretty straightforward: he’s a magic-based character, so his card utilizes the “puts spell cards” in your hand dynamic of other magic-user character cards like Merlin or Agamotto (sidebar: how much of a shame is it that Doctor Strange is just a mid-level at best Move card instead a card that can also do a bunch of spells, just because he was an early add to the game?).

But Dormammu goes a little bit deeper to that. Playing off both Dormammu’s role in the Doctor Strange film (in which Earthbound evil wizard Kaecilius is working to summon Dormammu in the Dark Dimension) and his comic book tendency to empower and ensnare people from afar, the spells the Dormammu card drop into your hand are all need to be played in order for Dormammu itself to end up in the game — and true to Dormammu’s evil nature, all require sacrifice to achieve their effect and summon the link in the chain.

It may ultimately be too clunky a mechanic to make Dormammu a dominant card — played right, it can grow quite large, but in order to get it there, you may well end up only being able to win the Dormammu lane. And like other Big Bads such as Thanos or Galactus, the fact that you’re playing Dormammu will usually be pretty easy to suss out, making it easier for opponents to counter it with Cosmo, Armor, Shang, etc. But as a translation of Dormammu’s narrative schtick into gameplay, it’s a pretty clever mechanic.