Contains a preview of Strange Academy: Finals #1!The brilliant young protégé of the late Doctor Strange, powerful the death of Stephen Strange. Strange Academy introduced a whole class of powerful new Marvel characters, like the zombie-like Zoe, Doyle son of Dormammu, and Iric and Alvi the twins of classic Thor villain Enchantress.
Throughout the 18-issue run of Strange Academy the creative and comionate Emily Bright was cast as protagonist, friend to all students with a burgeoning romance with the complicated Doyle Dormammu. However, a series of events connected to Doyle and Emily eventually caused Bright to turn towards a path of darkness - a path that is beginning to overwhelm her with evil intentions. First, Doyle saw a terrifying vision of what he thought was him, with the full power of Dormammu, destroying Strange Academy and threatening the world, then Emily was almost killed in an attack and Doyle forged a ring out of his Faltine-empowered headpiece to save her.
The final straw came when Calvin, a student at the school and friend to almost everyone, was kicked out of the Academy after using forbidden and dangerous dark magic in an attempt to gain powers after losing his enchanted jacket. Outraged, Emily convinced a large portion of the Strange Academy student body to abandon the school in protest. Now, in a preview for Strange Academy: Finals - by Skottie Young and Humberto Ramos - Emily has gone too far, stranding her and her classmates in the Dark Dimension and not letting them leave.
Emily Bright Has Gone Too Far
What started out as a reasonable protest at the unfair treatment of Calvin by Doctor Voodoo has now become something unwieldy and dangerous, as Emily Bright continues to move towards being the next "Big Bad" of Marvel's magical world. It was discovered in the finale of Strange Academy that the powerful magic ring Doyle created for Emily was not in fact destroying the Dark Dimensional energy within her, but rather bonding the evil energy to the young woman. His original vision in fact showed a demonic, transformed Emily destroying the school.
The preview for Strange Academy: Finals shows Emily and her band of deserting students still exist within the Dark Dimension, but it seems as though Bright is censoring Strange Academy students letters to their parents and also not allowing any student to leave, taking on a tyrannical position of leadership that has left many students desperate to leave her side. Confusingly, Zoe Laveau features prominently in Strange Academy: Finals and yet is also cast as the apparent "Big Bad" in the ongoing Midnight Suns comic, so it seems overall that Strange Academy is living up to it's intended goal of creating the next generation of magical heavyweights. Clearly the magic within the Dark Dimension ring is causing Emily's core essence of goodness to be corrupted, and it is an exciting twist that now Doyle is in the position of hero, while the "heroic" Emily Bright is quickly becoming a new Dormammu.
Seeing as Clea Strange, Earth's new Sorcerer Supreme, is also the Sorcerer Supreme of the Dark Dimension, it will be fascinating to see how Clea and the Strange Academy professors team up with Doyle Dormammu to stop Doctor Strange's former protégé Emily Bright and save the future of their school.
Strange Academy: Finals debuts October 26th, 2022.
