WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Savage Avengers #23, available now from Marvel Comics.
The Savage Avengers have been chasing one dead end after another in their hunt for the evil sorcerer Kulan Gath. Marvel's most brutal heroes have fought everything from dragons to superpowered hate-mongers in their quest to oust the ancient wizard from their time, but Gath has only gotten stronger.
Doctor Strange is running out of options, and his latest last-ditch effort has gone sideways in Savage Avengers #23, by Gerry Duggan, Patch Zircher, Java Tartaglia, and VC's Travis Lanham. And in a shocking moment, Strange mercy-kills his old foe Shuma-Gorath, ending the dramatic, tragic decline of one of Marvel's most powerful entities.
When the powers of Agamotto prove useless in seeking out Kulan Gath, Doctor Strange seeks out his longtime foe Shuma-Gorath with some help from Man-Thing. As horrifying as Shuma-Gorath is on its own, nothing could have prepared the Sorcerer Supreme for the Lovecraftian horror's ailing condition.
Like the Many-Angled Ones who famously crafted the Cancerverse, Shuma-Gorath is almost incomprehensible in its totality. This impossible being from before time itself was first mentioned in 1972's "Dig Me No Grave" by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in Journey into Mystery #1. A year later, Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner would introduce Shuma-Gorath to both the Marvel Universe and Doctor Strange in the pages of Marvel Premiere #10. At the time, the Ancient One was still Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, though they were also made into Shuma-Gorath's personal gateway into our dimension. Strange was forced to kill the Ancient One in order to stave off the threat and ascended to the role of Sorcerer Supreme. Since then, Shuma-Gorath and Doctor Strange have crossed paths over and over again, almost always as enemies.
The Shuma-Gorath that Strange encounters is no longer the mighty immortal being that he has fought throughout the decades, but rather a bloody, skinless vision of its former self. As Kulan Gath turned unwitting drug users into Shuma-Gorath-esque zombies, the cannibal sorcerer consumed Shuma-Gorath's body and power one bite at a time. Despondent in its near-death state, Shuma-Gorath declared that Kulan Gath has won his war, while Doctor Strange tries fruitlessly to stem the bleeding. While Strange had come looking for an unlikely ally, he has found only tragedy -- one that Conan walks into the middle of upon reaching the Sanctum Santorum.
After passing Doctor Strange his blade, Conan tells the Sorcerer Supreme to end things where they stand, something that Shuma-Gorath demands as well. With a devastating thrust and a vicious slash, Strange ends Shuma-Gorath's existence, with the caveat that the being owes Strange in its next life.
Despite their long-standing antagonism, Shuma-Gorath and Doctor Strange were among the only beings who understood precisely what Kulan Gath was doing and how to stop him. While Strange is still able to take some potentially useful Shuma-Gorath blood, the Sorcerer Supreme and Conan will have to figure out how to defeat JUlan Gath on their own.