This is Doctor Strange, broadcasting on all known mystical wavelengths. The Earth is under assault. All sites of magical significance are possible targets. The Empirikul are here. And they are not at all what we were expecting. Our enemies are not magicians. Their weapons are technological. But don't allow that to make you overconfident. This... is unlike any technology I've ever seen. A technology with the power to disrupt magic. 
Appearing in "Pound of Flesh"
Featured Characters:
- Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange) (Main story and flashback)
Supporting Characters:
- Wong (Main story and flashback)
- Secret Disciples of Strange (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Empirikul
- Empirikul's transport bulbs
- Witchfinder Wolves
- Imperator
- Eyebots (Unnamed)
Other Characters:
- God (Yahweh) (Invoked) (Main story and flashback)
- Dormammu (Mentioned) (Main story and flashback)
- The Thing in the Cellar (Mentioned)
- Man-Thing (Ted Sallis) (Cameo)
- Médico Místico (Cameo)
- Doctor Voodoo (Jericho Drumm) (Cameo)
- Chondu (Harvey Schlemerman)
- Monako
- Vishanti (Referenced)
- Agamotto (Invoked)
- Cyttorak (Invoked)
- Valtorr (Invoked)
- Munnopor (Invoked)
- Zelma Stanton
Races and Species:
- Humans (Main story and flashback)
- Atlanteans (Mentioned) (Main story and flashback)
- Robots
- Witchfinder Wolves
- Gods (Invoked)
- Man-Things (Cameo)
- Eyebots (Unnamed)
Locations:
- Earth (Main story and flashback)
- United States of America (Main story and flashback)
- New York (Main story and flashback)
- New York City (Main story and flashback)
- Manhattan (Main story and flashback)
- Greenwich Village (Main story and flashback)
- Bleecker Street (Main story and flashback)
- Sanctum Sanctorum (Main story and flashback)
- Bleecker Street (Main story and flashback)
- Columbia University, Morningside Heights (Mentioned) (Only in flashback)
- Bar With No Doors
- Greenwich Village (Main story and flashback)
- Upper New York Bay
- Manhattan (Main story and flashback)
- New York City (Main story and flashback)
- Florida (Cameo)
- Everglades (Cameo)
- Man-Thing's Swamp (Cameo)
- Everglades (Cameo)
- New York (Main story and flashback)
- China
- Transia (Cameo)
- Wundagore Mountain (Cameo)
- Atlantic Ocean (Cameo)
- Bermuda Triangle (Cameo)
- Weirdworld (Cameo)
- Bermuda Triangle (Cameo)
- Peru (Cameo)
- Machu Picchu (Cameo)
- Indian Ocean
- United States of America (Main story and flashback)
- Hell (Invoked)
- Valtorr (Invoked)
- Munnopor (Invoked)
Items:
- Cloak of Levitation and Eye of Agamotto (Main story and flashback)
- Staff of Legba (Cameo)
- Hellfire Shotgun
- Monako's Magic Wand
- Spells and magic
- Crimson Bands of Cyttorak (Invoked)
- Vapors of Valtorr (Invoked)
- Mists of Munnopor (Invoked)
- Atlantean Black Magic
Synopsis for "Pound of Flesh"
Doctor Strange reflects on how every use of magic comes with a cost and how in the early days of his career he would suffer horrible side-effects to using magic which he thought he usually got rid of by going to the cellar in the Sanctum Sanctorum. In reality, his assistant Wong had not been taking him to the cellar, but had been training an army of soldiers in the Himalayas called the Secret Disciples of Strange who were men that took the side-effects of Strange's spells upon themselves. Strange would usually be passed out when Wong transferred the consequences to the men, so he assumed it was the cellar's work. In the present day Wong goes to visit the disciples and tells them that he needs all of them at his disposal for the threat Doctor Strange is going to face. As he is there, large orbs containing Witchfinder Wolves plummet down to the location and attack Wong and the disciples.
All over the Earth orbs are invading, attacking any magical locations that exist. The magicians of the Earth try to fight them off. In the Temple of Watoomb Doctor Strange is fighting off his own pack of Witchfinder Wolves and orbs as all the Earth's magic is being sucked away. Realizing he needs to kill all of them at once instead of fighting them one by one, he casts an incredibly powerful spell of Atlantian Black Magic that destroys all of the black orbs on Earth and cripples Strange and the Secret Disciples.
As he looks up, though, Strange witnesses a giant spherical ship descending onto New York, from which the Imperator and his Eyebots emerge.
Solicit Synopsis
• The Witchfinder Wolves are here and Doctor Strange is in trouble.
• The Empirikul is coming, Magic's days are numbered and Strange is not ready!
