Manic Monday--Identity Crisis, 31 Years Early

At the climax of The Avengers-Defenders War (in Avengers #118 (1973)), the teams are confronting a now-all-powerful Dormammu, and he's getting a little bit pissy about it:

Well, [SPOILER ALERT], the good guys win. But what about Tony and Don's secret identities?

Uh...well, OK, I guess. It was just the two of them, it was correcting something an interdimensional god did, and presumably they agreed to it.

But, in the epilogue (In Defenders #11 (1973)), they return to Earth, and hook up with S.H.I.E.L.D., who had been keeping the chaos under control. But Nick Fury has questions...


Wait...what?

EVERY LIVING BRAIN?!? Doctor Strange just unilaterally decides to go and muck with every mind on the planet...for his personal convenience?????

(And the Avengers acquiesce to this? And Iron Man actually THANKS Strange for LETTING them remember?!? Earth's Wussiest Heroes, indeed)

(And I'm pretty certain that at some point, Nick Fury would have wised up, and his first step would have been to put a bullet in Doctor Strange's brain. Someone write that story, please)

Perhaps I'm old fashioned. But I've always been of the opinion that the Charles Xavier/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Doctor Strange style of altering the people's minds to be both offensive and unheroic. Overriding the memories and free will of people is something villains should do, not good guys.

For all its many (many, many many) faults, at least Identity Crisis presented such mind-altering hijinks as morally questionable, and having pretty terrible consequences.

Of course, Strange never learned any lesson, as in One Moment In Time, he and Stark and Richards erased Peter Parker's identity from the mind of every person on Earth, making Zatanna look like a birthday party hack magician. And not a single consequence.

(Hey, Dan Slott, here's a story idea for you...it turns out that everyone on Earth is getting seizures and strokes and turning evil as a result of Strange's tinkering with their brains, and Peter has a choice to make...which hopefully includes beating the crap out of Strange as part of the solution...)

Anyway, our lesson?? Don't piss off Marvel, or they'll have their "heroes" muck up your mind. Then again, if it could make me forget Fear Itself...? Hmmmm....