Spider-Man: No Way Home is set to throw Stephen Strange and Peter Parker into a
whole new adventure together — but what's the comic book background to these two characters'
long-running friendship? This is the untold truth of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange's relationship.
The first time Spider-Man and Doctor Strange were shown working together on the printed page
was in 1965's Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2. This marvelous team-up featured the
webslinger and the Sorcerer Supreme pitting their wits and powers against a sinister
magic-user named Xandu, who sought to steal a powerful artifact from the Sanctum Sanctorum.
After foiling the villain's plans in an interdimensional battle, Strange pledges
his allegiance to Spider-Man, planting the seed that would grow into a close friendship.
Chronologically, however, Spider-Man and Strange's first adventure together
may have been much earlier, having been depicted in 1998's Untold Tales of Spider-Man:
Strange Encounters. In this flashback story, Strange enlists the wall-crawler's assistance
in recovering the mystical Lantern of Lantarr, which some thugs stole from a museum. Due to
an earlier encounter with the lantern-wielding crooks, Spider-Man's senses have become attuned to
the ancient object's location. The trail leads to one of Strange's most dangerous foes, Baron Mordo,
who plans to offer human sacrifices to his patron Enigma in exchange for ultimate power.
In the end, the two heroes defeat Mordo; Strange subsequently erases the memories
of Mordo's captives at Spider-Man's request, even though it means they'll forget Spidey's heroics.
This selfless act makes Strange realize that there's more to this young man than meets the eye.
Of all the tricks hidden up Doctor Strange's billowy sleeves,
his hero-summoning tarot cards are perhaps the most exciting. When faced with incredible threats
that even he can't handle alone, Strange uses his cards to assemble an impromptu team known as the
Secret Defenders. The roster changes depending on who the cards reveal; more often than not,
the selected players are the heroes who are best equipped to deal with the menace at hand.
In issues #6 to #8 of Secret Defenders, Strange enlists the aid of Spider-Man and
the Scarlet Witch to stop his persistent foe Xandu from enacting his latest plan:
to merge Earth with the Death Dimension and rule them both. The cards initially pick Ghost Rider as
the fourth member of the roster, but Strange is unable to contact him. Instead, Captain America
joins the team, after accidentally stumbling upon some magical chaos during his nightly patrol.
With the aid of the magical Wand of Watoomb, Xandu nearly succeeds in his plot. However,
thanks to a last-minute strategy that Strange and Captain pull off, Xandu's former lover
Melinda becomes the queen of the Death Dimension. Feeling disgust over Xandu's actions, she casts
him out of the Death Dimension permanently, ending his brief but tumultuous reign.
Spider-Man is used to facing all kinds of danger,
but even he acknowledges that magical menaces are a little above his pay grade.
"I mean, I'd rather just stay on the ground for a little while.
Friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man — someone's gotta look after the little guy, right?"
So, whenever these mystical threats pop up in his corner of the world,
he's more than happy to receive assistance from the Sorcerer Supreme.
One noteworthy example of this occurred in the three-part story "Happy Birthday,"
which ran from Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2 #57 to Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 #500.
After being soundly defeated and scattered across various dimensions by Strange,
the evil being Dormammu tricks New York's heroes into helping him reconstitute himself.
As swarms of his Mindless Ones overrun Manhattan,
a mystical mishap knocks Spider-Man and Doctor Strange outside of time and space.
Using a spell, Strange takes Spider-Man through his whole past up to the exact moment at which
all hell broke loose. Spider-Man successfully prevents the heroes from releasing Dormammu,
with only the sorcerer and the web-slinger having any recollection of what transpired.
As a reward for his help, Strange hands Spider-Man a tiny golden chest.
When he opens it, he receives the best surprise of his life:
A few minutes with his Uncle Ben, who tells him just how proud he is of the man Peter has become.
During Marvel's Civil War event, Spider-Man does the unthinkable: In support of the Superhuman
Registration Act pioneered by Tony Stark, he publicly unmasks and tells the world that he
is Peter Parker. Unsurprisingly, this decision proves to be a huge mistake,
as his Aunt May is hit by a bullet courtesy of one of the Kingpin's assassins. As the life of
his longtime mother figure hangs in the balance, Peter seeks the aid of Doctor Strange to save her.
Unfortunately, Strange admits he can do nothing to save her life. He helps Peter reach out to
the Marvel universe's other geniuses, but they all give him the same answer:
Aunt May is going to die. So, out of pure desperation, Peter Parker strikes a deal
with the demon Mephisto to save his dying aunt. In return, the demonic ruler asks for
Peter's marriage with Mary Jane Watson, which he deems as the rarest, purest love of all.
To hold up his end of the bargain, Mephisto rewrites history so that
the marriage never happened. In this new reality, Doctor Strange, Mister Fantastic,
and Iron Man merge science and magic to make the world forget Spider-Man's secret identity.
In the concluding chapter of "One Moment in Time," Strange works with Tony Stark
and Mister Fantastic to infect the world with a virus-infused spell, designed to make everyone
forget Spider-Man's secret identity — except for Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Sound familiar?
"The whole world is about to forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man."
Of course, all of this is rooted in Peter's deal with Mephisto,
but no one, not even Peter himself, remembers that the demon is involved.
Regardless, this ushers in a "Brand New Day" for the webslinger, a clean
slate of sorts that would remain largely intact for over a decade in real time.
That is, until the events of Amazing Spider-Man vol. 5 #51 came to pass. In order to free his
spider-powered allies from the thrall of a literal villain-from-Hell called Kindred,
Spider-Man consults Strange, who attempts to cast a spell with a mystical item to help him.
Surprisingly, the spell fails, prompting Strange to wonder if
the wall-crawler has ever unknowingly struck any mystical deals in the past.
Strange's suspicions lead him to the door of the Hotel Inferno in Las Vegas,
Mephisto's earthly base of operations. There, he asks Mephisto point-blank to tell him
what's wrong with Peter Parker's soul. For a while, the infernal lord refuses to
give Strange any straight answers, even after losing a wager with the Sorcerer Supreme over
the outcome of the so-called Sinister War. Their game continues soon after,
however, and Strange eventually manages to put a stop to Mephisto's plans and free Spider-Man
from the demon's control. Only then is it revealed why Mephisto targeted Peter and
MJ's relationship in the first place: because he fears the power of their potential child.
Spider-Man and Doctor Strange have worked together on multiple occasions,
showing off their best and worst qualities to each other in the process. Interestingly,
the good doctor has also had the opportunity to collaborate with two of the webslinger's
most prominent copycats, both of whom were products of science gone wrong.
In the 2017 limited series Damnation, Strange's longtime ally Wong assembles a temporary team
of supernatural heroes to save Las Vegas from being overtaken by Mephisto's minions. In the
nick of time, the team is saved from certain doom by the Scarlet Spider, a.k.a. Peter Parker's clone
Ben Reilly. Together, they are able to find Doctor Strange and restore Las Vegas to its normal state.
The Sorcerer Supreme has also allied himself with another superlative-using superhero:
the Superior Spider-Man, a reformed Doctor Octopus occupying a "perfect clone" body of Peter Parker.
In 2019's Superior Spider-Man vol. 2 #5, the Eye of Agamotto reveals the true identity of
the San Francisco-based vigilante to Strange, after Strange calls for Spider-Man's help.
Initially apprehensive to work with a notorious criminal, Strange and the Superior Spider-Man
set aside their differences and save the day. Their shared adventure ends with Strange giving
some well-meaning advice to the arrogant hero about honesty and accountability.
During Spider-Man's brief but memorable time in his symbiote costume, Peter Parker went
on quite a few adventures — some of which he barely remembers himself. One of these untold
chapters of his life was brought to light in the 2020 limited series Symbiote Spider-Man:
Alien Reality, which also revealed that at one point,
he actually received training in the Mystic Arts from Doctor Strange himself.
Waking up to a bizarre world he barely recognizes, a symbiote-clad Spider-Man rushes to the Sanctum
Sanctorum, hoping to get some clarity from Strange. What he finds there shocks him:
The Hobgoblin, his longtime foe, has become the apprentice of a different
Sorcerer Supreme, and Strange himself is nowhere to be found.
Eventually, the paths of the spider and the true sorcerer supreme cross, and Strange explains how
the world was transformed by a powerful book called the Word of God. Together,
they concoct a plan to set the world right again, which includes teaching Spider-Man
a few defensive spells to give him a fighting chance against his newly mystic-powered foe.
Strange and Spider-Man manage to defeat Hobgoblin and his master, Baron Mordo,
with some assistance from the otherworldly being called Nightmare. However, Spider-Man
retains no memory of the events that transpired — including the spells he learned under Strange.
"Alright, kid. You're an Avenger now."
In his early years, Spider-Man made a number of attempts to join the Avengers, each with
varying levels of success. Prior to 2005, the closest he had gotten to becoming a
card-carrying Avenger was becoming a reserve member in 1991's Avengers #329. That changed,
however, when he joined the New Avengers as a full-time member alongside Captain America,
Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Wolverine, and the Sentry. Not too long after,
Spider-Man found himself joining hands with his longtime magical ally, Doctor Strange.
New Avengers #27 features the debut of the latest renegade Avengers team as they rescue their newest
recruit, Echo, from Elektra and The Hand. Driven underground after the events of the superhuman
Civil War, this team of new Avengers operates from Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, while evading arrest
at the hands of the government-sanctioned team Avengers led by Iron Man.
Once upon a time, whenever Spider-Man and Doctor Strange teamed up, it was almost a
given that their adventures would involve some form of interdimensional travel. In modern times,
however, Spider-Man has found himself unassisted by the Sorcerer Supreme while
crossing the boundaries of the Marvel multiverse — or, to be more specific, the Spider-Verse.
While the concept of a room full of Spider-Men teaming up was in 1994's Spider-Man: The Animated
Series, the first time that comic books would adapt the idea on a comparable scale was in the
2014 multi-part Spider-Verse crossover. The story features the main Spider-Man,
Peter Parker of Earth-616, reaching out to various Spider-people across time and space
and enlisting their aid in a no-holds-barred battle
against the psychic vampire Morlun. But hey, with friends like these, who needs Stephen Strange?
The cooperative relationship between Spider-Man and Doctor Strange would
also be reflected in the dystopian world of 2099 by their future counterparts. In fact,
the timely interference of one ends up saving the other from predestined death.
The Spider-Man of 2099, Miguel O'Hara, is a gifted but arrogant geneticist who begins his heroic
journey after a sabotaged lab experiment grants him spider-powers. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed
Sorceress Supreme of 2099 is a young woman named Jeannie who trained herself in the Mystic Arts.
When Spider-Man 2099 and Strange 2099 first meet in the pages of Spider-Man 2099 #32, the sorceress
asks for the aid of the "S-Man" in putting a stop to a zombie invasion in Mexico City.
After this adventure, the two heroes would find themselves teaming up from time to time,
fighting against such foes as the Maestro, the murderous
future version of the Hulk. However, the most crucial piece of assistance that Spider-Man 2099
ever receives from the Sorceress Supreme happens in the final issue of his eponymous comic's third
volume. Sustaining near-fatal injuries in a present-day battle against his mutated,
hypnotized lover Tempest, Miguel is saved from certain death by a last-minute spell cast by
Strange 2099. By the time Spider-Man 2099 wakes up, his injuries have been healed, and he has
been transported to Strange's headquarters in the year 2100. It just goes to show — no matter
where and when they might be, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange are destined to be best of buds.
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