Full Review can be found here:

https://nordie.wordpress.com/2017/03/24/doctor-strange-vol-2-the-last-days-of-ma...

The Empirikul are on earth as they try to eradicate magic; Dr Strange and some of the other magicians on earth may have opinions about this. Most of the action is the Empirikul getting rid of magicians. Again with the punching and Dr Strange, I've had hand damage, you just don't, also as someone who values their hands, you don't.
Larry Niven did a series with the death of magic and the rise of Science, and often there are issues with magic having a price that err on the side of draining others but overall it's an interesting look at the character and the cost of magic ( )

Absolutely loved the art in this one, and I think the writing was a touch better, if only because we saw the more serious Stephen Strange, my main complaint from the first volume being his flippancy.

That said, this story asks the question, what if Superman was a worshipper of science and wanted to rid the universe of magic? Yes, the Imperator was Superman. Period.

He did blather on quite a bit about science, which would have been fine, had he been actually talking real science. String theory. Quantum mechanics.

Instead, he came across much more like Thomas Dolby in his most famous song, occasionally shouting, "Science!" and that's about it.

Having said that, whenever the action moved away from him and over to Strange building an army of resistance fighters and scrounging the last vestiges of magic? Yeah, well, then the book was...well...magic.

Wish there was more of it.

However, it does set up an interesting new scenario, where the world of magic has been drastically scaled back.

Stand by for a storyline in about a year or two's time that wipes that limiting factor out and brings it all back again. Which, of course, it my main problem with Marvel comics. I just wish, when they did this earthshaking stuff, that they'd commit to it.

Overall, though, a decent enough story and lovely art. ( )

This volume collects issues 6 through 10 of the recent Doctor Strange comic book, detailing the culmination of Strange's battle against the Imperator and his Empirikul army, along with the standalone Doctor Strange: Last Days of Magic which belongs between issues 6 and 7. The latter in particular features a range of minor magic-powered superheroes. Jason Aaron's writing plays up the pathos of the destruction of magic, but is sometimes quite funny. Chris Bachalo's art is solid.

Zelda Stanton, the librarian whom Strange has taken on as an assistant, has several important roles to play in this plot arc. The flavor of the thing as a whole reminded me of the David Tennant Doctor Who episode "The Last of the Time Lords," with Zelda in the Martha Jones role.

Concludes the dark Empirikul storyline; super-science vs magic in the ultimate showdown. Definitely an entertaining read. ( )

Dr. Stephen Strange has usually been portrayed as an upper-crust magician. The elite, high-paid surgeon transitioned into an elite mage above the need for money with his mansion and manservant and endless supply of tea sets. Writer Jason Aaron has now stripped away all those high class trappings. This series revels in manly magic with much use of magic guns and arrows and many references to punching people with magic. Grim and gritty Dr. Strange is a fun, but I wonder if it is sustainable? Guess I'll have to wait for the next book to see. ( )

A chaotic and incoherent story about technology-worshipping robots 'purging' our world of magic. A whole lot of no-name magicians wait around for Dr. Strange to save them, which he apparently plans to do by biffing the head robot. The only part which made much sense was the last story, not part of the original, which introduced a number of quite interesting magical practitioners (only to have them all executed by the robots). ( )

I loved everything about this. Bachalo is one of my favorite artists and the story was so good, this is definitely in my top 5 graphic novels ever. ( )

At the beginning of this comic, the world is under attack from the Empirikul under the leadership of the Imperator. The Imperator was given over to a group of his kind and ferreted away on a starship in an effort to save him from death by his parents who were about to die for their beliefs in science over magic in the harsh world they lived on serving under the creature known as Shuma-Gorath. Even Doctor Strange has fought against him, though that means nothing to the Imperator who has made it his life-long mission to rid the universe of magic, world by world. And the earth is next on the list.

Doctor Strange pulls every bit of magic from the earth that he can and it is not enough to defeat them. He is tied up to the tree outside when Monako comes up with his magic cane and uses it to release him into the catacombs below where there are others waiting. It will cost Monako his life but teach the rest a lesson that there is still magic left in the world in small pockets of magical items that they need to find. So they split up to find these objects.

What they discover as they criss-cross the globe is that lots of them are gone or don't work anymore and the ones that do are in poor shape. They aren't left with much to fight off the hardened Empirikuls and are pretty disheartened. While this is going on, Doctor Strange's assistant who is in charge of organizing his library, Zelma Stanton has managed to rescue one book from the collection and hide inside a refrigerator and remain undetected by the Empirikuls so far. But that changes and she runs for cover and is rescued by Wong, the librarian in Tibet who takes her there using a magical item, where she tells him the Empirikuls have just opened the cellar door, which is bad news because something evil lurks down there. Something that should never be released. Will the wielders of magic be able to defeat the Empirikuls with their weak weaponry and what about the monster under the cellar?

The coloring in this book is very stark and visceral. When there are the few moments of happiness or hope the colors light up like a sunrise. The drawings are very harshly drawn for it is a harsh storyline about the end of magic in the world for which the characters is like having their souls ripped out of them, so the hard lines show this and the fight they are doing to get it back. Overall this is a very well written and well drawn comic and I can't wait for volume two to come out so I can find out what happens next. ( )