WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Strange Academy #13, available now from Marvel.

The Marvel Universe has never been short on dark secrets, and when it comes to those Doctor Strange has more than most. In fact, the secrets he keeps are precisely what have been keeping his Strange Academy afloat. Unfortunately, they have also proven to be lethally hazardous to the children under his purview on more than one occasion. Even worse, one of his students has finally uncovered the truth surrounding just who the Sorcerer Supreme has locked in his basement, and unleashing the Imperator could very well be the end of them all.

The students of Strange Academy have been dealing with more than their fair share of terror and tragedy lately, largely due to one of their own becoming infected by one of Doctor Strange's less savory creations in the form of Mister Misery. This being created to sponge up all of the anguish Doctor Strange suffered from using magic had long been a powerfully nefarious force ever since it was simply known as The Thing in the Cellar. As Emily Bright has learned recently, Mister Misery wasn't the only thing being kept locked up by Doctor Strange, and over the course of the past few months she has built up a friendly enough repertoire with the latest Thing in the Cellar to finally come face to face with him in the pages of Strange Academy #13 by Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado, and VC's Clayton Cowles.

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First introduced in 2015's Doctor Strange #1 by Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo, the Imperator hailed from a dimension where magic was held above all else and sacrifices to Shuma-Gorath were a near-daily occurrence. When his parents refused to allow their then young son to become another living sacrifice, they became victims of the Blood Monks who ruled their world. Thankfully, their dedication to science allowed them to send their son into space alongside a cadre of Eyebots to watch over him, though the years that followed were anything but kind. The death of his parents drove the Imperator to dedicate his own life to scientific pursuits as they had before him, only this time it was in the name of death rather than life. Seeing magic as a blight upon all reality, the Imperator built a robotic army of his own to lead in his quest to snuff out all magic in existence.

This quest would eventually bring him to Doctor Strange's doorstep after wiping out nearly every other mystic landmark on Earth, and it was there that the Imperator and his army would fall. Strangely enough, it wasn't the Sorcerer Supreme who ultimately defeated the Imperator, but rather the original Thing in the Cellar, Mister Misery. When the dust had finally settled, Mister Misery was given its chance to escape, all while the Imperator became the new Thing in the Cellar. As Emily Bright has discovered, all that time spent imprisoned hasn't done anything for the Imperator's disposition, nor his seething hatred for the mystic arts. Still, she understands why he would want to strike back against the mystic forces that had ruined his own life, especially after seeing so many of Doctor Strange's secrets put herself and her friends in harm's way, which is exactly why she has made the drastic decision to help set the Imperator free.

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What this means for the future is uncertain, but it's hard to imagine anything good coming of it. Emily Bright has proven herself time and time again to be one of the most skilled and capable pupils at Strange Academy, and she seems certain of her decision to help the Imperator, so there has to be more to her plan than letting him walk out of the front door. Whatever she has planned, it had better be enough to keep the Imperator from doing any real damage. If not, keeping up with classes will be the least of anyone's worries as far as the Strange Academy is concerned.

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