A car accident that damaged the nerves in his hands changed everything for Stephen Strange. He was no longer able to be a surgeon, yet he refused to become an assistant or consultant, instead squandering his money traveling the world and searching for a cure. One day he heard a rumor of a mystical personage known as the Ancient One in Tibet. Marshaling the last of his inner and outer resources, Strange diligently searched until the fortress of the Ancient One was revealed to him. Though initially outraged that the aged mystic refused to cure his hands, Strange’s anger was quickly replaced by amazement when the reality of magical forces was demonstrated before his eyes as he witnessed an attack on the Ancient One.
Circumstances revealed to Strange that it was none other than Baron Mordo, the Ancient One’s chief disciple, who was the perpetrator of the attack, and who continued to plot the destruction of the antediluvian mystic in an attempt to gain power. To his horror, Strange learned he was unable to reveal this after Mordo easily encircled him. Realizing the Ancient One was a force for good; Stephen selflessly abandoned his quest to restore his hands and committed himself to magical tutelage with the intention of foiling Mordo’s insidious scheme. By this act Strange proved himself to the Ancient One, to whom the entire melodrama had been transparent. Thus Doctor Strange put himself on the path to become the new Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth dimension, yet gained a deadly enemy in Baron Mordo.