Ever since this series began it has been one disappointing story after another.  But this one starts with a bloody Wong hanging from the ceiling of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

That’s a powerful start.

Next, Johnny Storm’s girlfriend’s roommate kills herself.  Someone cuts off the heads of Alicia Masters’ Fantastic Four statues.  Butterflies die during a Richards’ family outing.  And most importantly, Ben Urich finds seven bodies exhumed from a cemetery and placed around a pentacle…

I’ll cut to the chase: The Salem Seven are back. 

There’s a misdirect that Agatha Harkness, too, is back (we know she was killed by Scarlet Witch during the Avengers Disassembled/House of M debacle), but it’s really her son, Nicholas Scratch, disguised as her to trick the Salem Seven.  Oh, and that wasn’t Wong.  It was Scratch—who takes advantage of Strange’s surprise and shock to imprison both the Doctor and Wong in another dimension. Scratch also pretends to be Doctor Strange himself, so that when Valeria gets possessed and the FF go to see Strange for a cure, it’s really Scratch, manipulating the whole cast into helping him summon the demon Shuma Gorath.

While the FF fight off various magic attacks, Doctor Strange—in his other-dimension prison—realizes he is in the same place that Diablo was exiled.  In exchange for his freedom, Diablo helps vanquish Scratch who is sent back to Hell by Diablo and the Salem Seven.

While the others fight Scratch, Strange takes care of Shuma-Gorath, but the battle leaves him badly injured and warns them all of other “dark Gods” coming.

And so we end with Mephisto and Scratch forming an alliance, the Salem Seven apparently now a force for good, and the promise of a dark war coming.

At the top of this post, I noted that this series has been a bunch of disappointments.  This issue emphatically was NOT.  It was terrific, full of suspense, solid plotting and art, and multiple unpredictable misdirects.

At the same time, though, it’s much more of a Doctor Strange tale than an FF story.  Frankly, they were pretty unnecessary—it could have been just about any other group doing the same things they did.  Still, in all, a great read.