Doctor Strange's Partner Wong Reveals His Secret Superpower

Warning: contains spoilers for Death of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1!

Marvel's Doctor Strange may be one of the most powerful human superheroes in the Marvel Universe, but he doesn't do it alone...and Marvel has just revealed that his partner Wong possesses a power that not even Strange can muster, let alone master. The Sorcerer Supreme has protected Earth in the past, but now he is dead, and has left the world in chaos as multiple magical threats attack the planet all at once. As such, Death of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1 opens with Strange summoning some friends...but Wong notices something odd about their new visitors.

In current Marvel continuity, Doctor Strange has been murdered, killed by an unknown magic-wielding assailant. Without Strange's presence on Earth, all manner of magical threats make a beeline for Earth. A psychic message left behind by Strange summons Peter Parker to the Sanctum Sanctorum. Unfortunately, Strange - being dead - doesn't know that Peter is sick in a hospital with deadly radiation poisoning. Thus, Ben Reilly - Peter's identical clone - suits up as Spider-Man for the foreseeable future.

Related: Doctor Strange's Death Just Broke A Major Rule of Marvel's Magic Lore

Arriving at Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum along with Black Cat - who doesn't think highly of Ben Reilly at all - Spider-Man is greeted by Wong. Wong informs the pair that Doctor Strange is dead (in a sense - his time remnant walks past the pair while investigating his own murder) and gives the two a list of tasks that Strange left behind in his absence. But moments after arriving, Wong stares directly at Ben Reilly and deduces "Wait - you're not Spider-Man."

Wong is gifted in the magic arts, but deducing an identity through a mask is unprecedented. Ben Reilly is Peter's exact clone, with an identical face, body, and voice. The new suit shouldn't be that much of a giveaway, as Peter Parker frequently changes uniforms anyway. Thus Wong is able to tell that a person who sounds like Peter, looks like Peter, and moves like Peter isn't Peter at all. Wong must be supremely gifted at reading body language - and if he didn't read Ben Reilly, he certainly read the body language of Black Cat, who strongly admires Peter Parker but loathes Ben Reilly, seeing him as an inferior copy who's found himself upholding a mantle that does not belong to him.

Wong has been Strange's companion and partner in defending the Earth for a very long time. The tern manservant, once used to explain Wong's duties in the 60s and 70s, has fallen out of favor. While Wong certainly doesn't have the magical abilities of Doctor Strange, he is adept at figuring out a person's true identity from body language - something Strange cannot do.

Next: Marvel's New Spider-Man Proves Why Some Legacy Heroes Don't Work