Snap Into Marvel: Clea Fights To Stand On Her Own

Real Name: Clea Strange

First Appearance: Strange Tales #126 (August 1964)

First Multimedia Appearance: Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022) played by Charlize Theron.

Powers and Abilities: As one of the extradimensional Faltine, Clea possesses innate durability and the ability to fly, as well as limited ability to negate magical spells. She is also an accomplished sorceress, having trained under Doctor Strange, rising to the rank of Sorcereress Supreme of Earth of the Dark Dimension.

Comic Book Chronicles

In the simplest/most reductive terms, Clea is Doctor Strange’s girlfriend/wife. In the decades since her introduction, she has certainly risen to be more than that, yet at the same time, has struggled to establish herself as a character in her own right, free of her (often complex, occasionally problematic) relationship with Strange. The daughter of Dormammu’s sister Umar (and thus niece to Dormammu), she first appeared in Dormammu’s introductory story. Yet despite making repeated appearances and proving herself a steadfast ally of Doctor Strange, she wasn’t named for almost two years after her first appearance. Thus, Clea was both alike and different from the typical Silver Age love interest, more actively involved in the world of the hero than, say, Thor’s Jane Foster, but still existing first and foremost as a supporting character whose entire schtick is defined by their relationship to the hero.

Eventually (after getting named, amongst other things), Clea came to Earth, and began training under Doctor Strange, creating an awkward situation in which Clea was both Strange’s student and his lover. In perhaps her greatest moment of independence and self-determination, Clea came to realize that her feelings for Strange were greater than his for hers. Rather than stick it out with someone whose affections were lukewarm (and was also technically her teacher…), Clea opted to return to the Dark Dimension to become its ruler. Yet even this wasn’t enough for Clea to escape her origins as “Doctor Strange’s girlfriend” and establish herself as a character in her own right. Inevitably, she was drawn back into Strange’s orbit, with the pair eventually getting married.

It took the (temporary) death of Doctor Strange for Clea to come into her own, largely under the guidance of writer Jed MacKay. With Strange dead, Clea became Sorceress Supreme of both Earth and the Dark Dimension in his stead, and finally got to headline her own series. Yet even then, she remained cloaked ((literally) in the trappings of Doctor Strange, wielding the Eye of Agamotto and wearing his Cloak of Levitation, while taking his last name in his honor. Doctor Strange eventually returned, and the pair settled into a status quo in which they’re more akin to equals, with Clea popping up to serve the “master of the mystic arts” roles in some stories (such as in the recent New Avengers book) while Doctor Strange does it in others (with both currently stripped of their Sorcerer/ess Supreme title thanks to Doctor Doom). It’s not quite an existence of full-throated independence from Clea, but it’s at least a step from her days namelessly helping Doctor Strange while being referred to only via a series of adjective phrases.

Fit & Finish

Clea launches with three variants, two more than her uncle, though all of them are off a piece with her base card: very purple and bare-shouldered, with at least two leaning heavily into a manga influence. All of them are also original pieces, as far as I can tell, not taken from any existing artwork.

As usual, I stan for the older versions of characters — let’s get a Ditko-esque Clea with the little curlicues in her hair! I’d also love to see a “Sorceress Supreme” variant showcasing her modern “I’m the Doctor Strange now!” look.

Form & Function

Like most of the cards this season, the general idea here is “is a magic user, casts spells.” But like her uncle Dormammu, Clea’s card taps into her Faltine heritage to give a bit of color to her specific spells. The “Flames of Faltine” is an established spell within the Marvel Universe, available to any magic user who can master it, but its especially suited to Clea given she is half-Faltine herself.

In the comics, it is deployed as a general energy bolt/offensive attack. In Marvel Snap, the spell’s specific effect — reducing the power of another card — seems to tap into Dormammu’s general spiel a bit, in that it takes power as an offensive attack and requires energy (in the form of an in-game buff to Clea) to appear, which is a clever way to mimic the characters’ comic book relationship.