Clea Dormommu is the Sorceress Supreme!
Clea Dormommu is the Queen of the Geek History Lesson podcast!
Clea Dormommu is incredibly powerful!
For the decades of her existence Clea has been immensely powerful. As the daughter of Umar and Prince Orini she has immense dark magic at her control. In the comic book world of good triumphantly over evil her power has always been curbed because Doctor Strange is going to win the day. Comic books are a perpetual second act. The drama is predicated on not when or if the good superhero characters are going to win. It’s how. And at what cost. Doctor Strange has always been destined to win out against Clea because her powers come from dark magic.
Until now!
Yesterday, Strange #1 ushered in a new era. Doctor Strange died in The Death of Doctor Strange and someone had to assume the role of Sorcerer Supreme. Clea did, making her Sorceress Supreme.
Strange #1 variant cover by: Shannon Maer
This isn’t the first time Clea has assumed the role most famously associated with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Stephen Strange. In the alternate universe of Earth X Clea first donned the title and all of its responsibilities.
How powerful was she before she eclipsed her famous boyfriend? Let’s get into it …
If you only know Clea from the Geek History Lesson podcast character you don’t know the full story. She’s not actually Dormammu’s daughter. She’s technically his niece. Her other Umar is Dormammu’s sister. It’s still a fairly excellent parentage where dark magic is concerned, granting her historical access to tap into the Flames of Faltine. These manifest as green flames (so you definitely know they are magic!), and have been harnessed against the Living Tribunal in the past. The restrictions on the Flames of Faltine have never been addressed.
So, in the same vein as Starfire, Clea has mystical green fire power! Badass!
Clea has other fun powers, like being able to turn people into animals. This is a classic witch or female magic wielder archetype going all the way back to to Odysseus and Circe. Men into pigs? Clea’s got your covered.
She can peek into the past.
And the standard telepathy.
And scarier powers which put her more on par with Wanda’s unregulated power set as the Scarlet Witch than Doctor Strange’s.
Since her introduction in the Silver Age Clea has joined forces with Doctor Strange, along with various other magic wielders from time to time, in attempts to take down her famous uncle, Dormammu. She also beat up her mother. Soundly. That’s two very powerful evil magic family members Clea has been able to subdue. In fact, Clea is often the lynchpin in the we’re-fighting-Dormammu lineup. The most capable of going toe-to-toe with the big purple baddie. So, we know she can kill people. She can kill mystical beings. Yeah, it’s scary, but that’s fairly par for the course when it comes to the Marvel magic superheroes. So, she destroyed the entire Dark Dimension once.
You read that right. In a previous Doctor Strange Holiday Special when we brought the whole world down around us we were pretty much keeping to Marvel Comics canon.
“Cute,” you are saying to yourself, “What else can Clea do?”
She can resurrect people.
Which is the whole crux of Strange. If you had the power not only over life, but over death, would you not try to bring back the most important person in your life? The being your love more than all other beings who have ever been?
This is all to reveal, Clea is impossibly powerful and strong. Much like the Mera/Aquaman relationship, Clea is arguably more powerful than Stevie depending on what the plot demands at any given time and who is in charge of the book. What’s best of all about this is Clea knows exactly how powerful she is.
She’s spoken the words from her very mouth, expressing the breadth and width of her powers. In fact, Clea has canonically even compared her powersets to the ruler of the Dark Dimension, himself, Dormammu.
What a badass.