Strange Tales: Clea, Wong and America Infinity Comic (2022 series) #1

America Chavez comes knocking at Dr Strange's door at 177A Bleecker St but the door opens before she can do it to reveal Clea Strange (wearing Stephen's Cloak Of Levitation and Amulet Of Agamotto) and Wong (with a hat and jacket over his usual garb). America thinks they detected her approach by magic but Wong claims they were on their way out to lunch (hence his cap and jacket). Coincidences like that happen a lot where magic is around. America declines the offer of tea as she passes a mirror ...

... in which we see a man who looks rather like Stephen Strange. He tells us cryptically of a 'lady with a new past' entering a 'house with a new tenant', both looking for something lost. The tenant will welcome the chance to 'play the doctor instead of the warrior' to 'honour the memory of lost love'. He introduces himself to us as the man in the looking glass, the player on the other side and say his name is Strange. And this is the 1st of many tales he has to tell.

America tells Clea and Wong how she's found out that her early memories were a lie and that her powers are the result of an experimental treatment which is now wearing off. So her powers are weaker now and in particular she can no longer create portals to other realities. But she's also discovered that she has a sister Catalina who's lost in the multiverse, and she wants to find her. For that she either needs her full powers back or help from someone who *can* move between dimensions, so that's why she's come here.

Clea says that she *came* from another dimension so she could be the means of transport, but doing it without a clear destination would be dangerous. So she casts a 1-use spell to temporarily restore America's powers and tells her to concentrate on her sister. Chavez says she can feel her anger on the other side of a barrier so she creates a large 5-pointed star portal on the floor and then breaks through it ...

... but instead of just passing through it the 3 find themselves standing on fragments of the star in a void which Clea senses is still within DrS's Sanctum Sanctorum. She leaps across to America's fragment and starts to create a spell to put things right. But interdimensional parasites have detected this weakness in 616's spacetime and are eager to take advantage. America easily beats them off to give Clea time to succeed but she fears bigger stronger ones may turn up, and Wong is menaced by 1 such like a dragon. But he leaps onto its head and slides down its back and then flips from its tail to where the women are. With the other 2 running defence Clea finishes her spell and they fall off their fragment through a magic portal ...

... which deposits them unceremoniously on the Sanctum floor. Clea apologises for the failure but can't understand why it didn't work. Chavez figures that magic doesn't fit well with the new her, and she walks away swearing to keep looking for Cata.

The man in the mirror comments to us that he knows what it's like to lose a sister. And the bigger picture he can see explains why the spell failed. He can see Catalina Chavez lost in the multiverse but trying to emulate her sister's portal creation power to get home. She picks a fragile spot in reality's wall touched by magic and directs her electrical power at it. But both sisters hit the same place from opposite sides at the same time. And that joint energy is what shatters reality - on her side as well as America's.

The man tells us it's another example of magic coincidences. And he says maybe he'll tell us how Catalina gets her revenge in another Strange Tale.