demon from the Quadriverse (briefly inhabited Dr. Strange's body)

a demon from the Quadriverse

Real Name: Unrevealed (possibly inapplicable)

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Quadriverse) demon (or maybe it's an imp?)

Occupation: Unrevealed

Group Membership: Unrevealed

Affiliations: The Creators (unintentional)

Enemies: Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: "this little fellow" (as Dr. Strange referred to him)

Base of Operations: Unrevealed
   formerly imprisoned within Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum
   formerly within the body of Stephen Strange
   originally the Quadriverse

First Appearance: Doctor Strange II#23 (June, 1977)

Powers/Abilities: This particular demon had the ability to become intangible and enter into the bodies of humans (and possibly other species) without them feeling anything. If its victims didn't actually see it happen, then they would not even realize that they had been possessed.

While within its hosts, this demon stayed in an intangible state which did not damage any of their internal organs. However, despite its intangibility, the demon was somehow able to remain in a stationary position within its hosts (so that it didn't just fall out of them).

While it is known that the behavior of one of its hosts (Dr. Strange) became more savage, reckless and destructive during the time when this demon was within him, it is not clear if this occurred because the demon was deliberately controlling him or if its mere presence was somehow unintentionally causing his uncharacteristic behavior, perhaps by disrupting his nervous system. Additionally, if the abnormal behavior was not deliberate, then Strange might have only been affected because he was a sorcerer whose magic depended on a smooth flow between his soul and mind. If so, then other humans, those without any mystical powers, could have hosted the demon without experiencing any behavioral changes.

This demon's intelligence level has never been revealed. It could have been a sentient being with its own thoughts and plans or it could have been an animal acting on instinct.

This demon's reason for possessing other beings has never been revealed. It might have entered its hosts in order to try to control them. Alternatively, it may have entered others in order to somehow derive sustenance from them, or it may have seen its hosts as safe places in which to hide from predators. It also could have used its hosts simply to transport it between dimensions.

Height: Somewhat less than 2 feet tall
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Two, black
Skin color: Purple
Hair: None

History: The origin of this demon has not been revealed. It was first seen within the Quadriverse but, considering its abilities, it may have actually "hitchhiked" there from some other dimension.

(Doctor Strange II#23 / Doctor Strange II#25 (fb) - BTS) - When Dr. Strange first entered the Quadriverse, he arrived in its First Sector, near the location of its then-current Guardian, and this demon was on the same floating landmass on which Strange landed. Strange saw it but when he glanced away for a moment the demon took that opportunity to secretly enter Strange's body. When Strange looked back, he noticed that the demon was gone and wondered to where it had gotten.

(Doctor Strange II#23 - BTS / Doctor Strange II#25 (fb) - BTS) - During his time in the Quadriverse, Strange began to behave in an uncharacteristically savage manner, using his magic to destroy things instead of merely stopping them. Strange realized that something was happening to him but, unaware of the demon within him, he believed that he was being affected by the Quadriverse itself which he considered to be "madness incarnate, a corrupter of the mind and body -- of magic and logic -- both."

(Doctor Strange II#24 - BTS) - From within Creation II, the pocket dimension which they had created for themselves, the Creators watched on a mystic viewscreen as Strange approached the portal to their realm. One of them, Sirius, took the opportunity to provide a recap of their plans and he noted that Strange, while in the Quadriverse, had been "infected by an unknown agent" which had turned him from thoughtful and precise to savage and careless, a condition which was a definite asset to them at this stage of their plans.

(Doctor Strange II#24 - BTS/Doctor Strange II#25 (fb) - BTS) - At the entrance to Creation II, Strange met Apalla the Sun Queen, a star in human guise, who saved him from Vismajoris, the guardian of the doorway. With Strange still unknowingly under the influence of the demon, the duo then entered Creation II and began battling the Creators in a lethal fashion. Apalla spotted the Cosmic Wheel of Change and directed Strange towards it. Strange managed to reach the Wheel but then he recklessly fired twin bolts of destruction at it, destroying the Wheel. Shocked, Apalla berated him for his stupidity, and pointed out that, since the Wheel had reached the climax of its function, its alteration of the universe was now self-sustaining and that, with the Wheel gone, they were now unable to reverse its progress and return the stars to the way they had been. As the pieces of the wrecked Wheel fell around them, Strange felt pain in his head.

(Doctor Strange II#25) - Overcome by the idea that he had caused the ultimate tragedy and feeling that there was no reason to do anything else, Dr. Strange lay in a stunned state in Creation II with a vast number of unconscious former stars around him. Clea and Wong arrived and found him just before the absence of the Creators caused their realm to begin to collapse. Shocked back to full awareness, Strange drew upon Clea's strength to open an escape way from Creation II back to Earth's reality, pulling Clea, Wong and all the former stars with him. Strange set the stars into orbit "around a large planet of the star which was once Alpha Centauri" and then he and his two companions settled onto a nearby asteroid. As he rested, Strange revealed his recent activities and how his irrational destruction of the Cosmic Wheel had completed the Creators' plans instead of thwarting them.

Deciding that it was time that he learned the reasons for his recent bizarre behavior, Strange levitated himself and began to silently meditate. Hours later, the Eye of Agamotto emerged from his amulet and bathed his body in its light, revealing the demon within his body. Strange then used a spell that enabled his hand to enter his chest cavity, grasp the demon by one of its arms and pull it out of his body. As Clea and Wong reacted with shock, Strange explained that he has seen "this little fellow" when he first entered the Quadriverse but then he had glanced away and when he looked back it had been gone and he had wondered where it had gotten to. Strange then encased the demon in a mystic cage so that he could take it back to his sanctum sanctorum for further study.

As Strange prepared to return them, Clea stated that there might not be a home for them to return to, and revealed that she and Wong had been watching him through the Orb of Agamotto. As soon as she saw him destroy the Cosmic Wheel, Clea had instinctively reacted by casting a globe of protection around herself and Wong just seconds before the world exploded into a billion pieces, and then the explosion reversed itself and the world reformed into something different.

(Doctor Strange II#25) - Arriving back on Earth, Strange was horrified to see that New York City was part of a world gone mad, with the people transformed into animal-men, given knowledge of Strange's existence, and their minds made savage and murderous. Strange speculated that the Creators had done this so that their followers, who would remain mentally stable, would be able to take over positions of governmental control.

Once they reached the mansion, which Strange was surprised to see had not been altered by the Creators, Strange, Clea and Wong entered, bringing the trapped demon with them. Once inside, Strange announced that he would have to prepare himself to wage war against the stars themselves.

What happened to the demon after that has never been revealed.

Comments: Created by Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin & Rudy Nebres.
Made significant (possibly) by Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom & Pablo Marcos.

This demon appears on the first two pages of Doctor Strange II#23 in a story written and edited by Marv Wolfman. It is later in that issue that Strange begins behaving erratically, even killing his opponents, and he comes to believe that the Quadriverse itself is affecting him because it is "madness incarnate." Strange's reckless behavior continues in issue #24, written by Jim Starlin, and the demon is finally exposed and removed in issue #25, also written by Starlin. So, my question is, was the demon always going to be responsible for Strange's behavior and did Starlin just continue with what Wolfman had planned? Or was it Wolfman's idea that the Quadriverse was to blame and Starlin changed that by shifting the blame to a small background character (the demon) who Wolfman had meant to be just an innocent bystander? Inquiring minds want to know.

It's worth noting that there is a time jump within this storyline. When Strange finds the Ancient One in issue #26, he is surprised when his mentor claims to have been waiting "weeks" for him to return. From Strange's perspective, he had only been away for less than a single day, having entered the Quadriverse on June 15th, but he then finds a newspaper dated July 29th and realizes that the Creators had manipulated his "time flow" so that Earth sped weeks ahead of him while he was in the Quadriverse and that they must have done the same to Clea and Wong. The question remains, where exactly does this period of slowed down time begin for Strange, Clea and Wong? Does it start with issue #23, as Strange enters the Quadriverse? Or does it takes place between issues #24 and 25, after Strange smashed the Cosmic Wheel on the last two pages of issue #24 (and after Clea and Wong observed him do so from Earth in a flashback in issue #25) but before the trio returned to Earth on page 9 of issue #25? Of course, since the demon was inside Strange during this period, he would have been subjected to this distortion as well.

Strange, Clea, Wong and the demon were not the only ones to have been the victims of temporal manipulation. When Apalla the Sun Queen contacted Clea to learn Dr. Strange's location, she was surprised to find that he had already reached the doorway which led to the world of the Creators. Apalla immediately realized that it was later than she had thought and that "He who stands in shadow and light" (the In-Betweener) had distorted her time sense.

For those readers who are curious as to how this storyline ended, Doctor Strange was almost immediately attacked by an agent of the Creators, Doctor Stranger Yet, who was a semi-humanoid warthog Master of the Mystic Arts. Strange defeated him and learned that the Creators had been empowered by a mighty deity known as "He who stands in light and darknness" and that his mentor, the Ancient One, was no longer one with the universe and had been existing in corporeal form in NYC for weeks. Strange quickly found the Ancient One and learned that his return to mortal form had been forced by the universal change caused by Strange. After they defeated four more of the Creators' agents, the Ancient One escorted Strange to the power behind the Creators, the All-Powerful In-Betweener, who explained that his actions had been to serve the goal of balance. Since Adam Warlock had refused to become the Magus, the In-Betweener believed that he needed to find another way to counter the death-force of Thanos the Mad Titan, and he had chosen the so-called Creators. Once the In-Betweener revealed that only one aspect of the Cosmic Wheel of Change had been destroyed by Strange and that it still existed in his own realm, he granted Strange's request to bring him to it. Once there, Strange battled and defeated Stygyro, the Creator-turned-star who had chosen to guard the Wheel against Strange, and then learned that the In-Betweener refused to allow him to tamper with it because he believed that Reality-616 had achieved its life-death balance. With the ankh, the symbol of Life Enduring on his brow, Strange managed to overcome the In-Betweener by calling upon the power of his creators, Lord Chaos and Master Order, together. With the In-Betweener bound, Strange explained that the ankh was a sign that his universe had not been out of balance in favor of Death and that, now that the Creators had been transformed, his cosmos was now overbalanced in favor of Life. Strange then CAREFULLY spun the Cosmic Wheel and restored his cosmos to normalcy. Strange returned to the restored Earth, the Ancient One became one with the universe again, and Strange saw that the true stars once again shone in the heavens.

Profile by Donald Campbell.

CLARIFICATIONS:
This demon from the Quadriverse has no known connections to

The Possessors, a species of sentient extradimensional humanoids who can become immaterial and enter the bodies of other sentient beings to control them -- Strange Tales I#118
or any other creatures, from any reality, who are able to enter the bodies of other beings and use them as hosts

images: (without ads)
Doctor Strange II#23, page 2, panel 2 (main image)
Doctor Strange II#25, page 7, panel 1 (head shot)
      page 6, panel 3 (inside Strange)
      page 6, panels 5-6 (being removed)
      page 12, panel 5 (imprisoned)

Other Appearances:
Doctor Strange II#23 (June, 1977) - Marv Wolfman (writer/editor), Jim Starlin & Rudy Nebres (artists)
Completely BTS in Doctor Strange II#24 (August, 1977)
Doctor Strange II#25 (October, 1977) - Jim Starlin (script), Al Milgrom & Pablo Marcos (art), and Archie Goodwin (editor)

Last updated: 02/09/15

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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