I think Dr. Strange's abilities should be made more consistant, and that he should be written efficiently and it recalled that while he is the Sorceror Supreme, he is still human and thus has the same failings as they do. But that all comes to writing. "Depowering" a character many times quickly becomes shorthand for an inability to write the character properly or be able to construct plots and villians worthy of that sort of challenge.
To me, that was always the charm of DBZ. They had a ridiclously over the top powerful hero, and what did they do? Truck out stronger villians that he'd have to up his game to match. There, done. It's so bloody simple, why the hell can't they do that for Superman or something?
Not every character needs to be "low power street level" to be written well or interesting. Neil Gaiman, for instance, has made a career of writing demigods and near-omnipotents and not denying for a second how powerful they were in stuff like SANDMAN and ETERNALS, and it's still great stuff. Thor is a god and he's had some great runs, same with Silver Surfer. They just require more effort, more imaginations, and more metaphors, something that I suspect a lot of current writers are, IMO, weakest in. They can write a story about drug dealers just fine, but ask them to come up with a mystical/sci-fi metaphor for that kind of tale for, say, a SILVER SURFER script, and they'd look like deer in the headlights.
DR. STRANGE just needs the right writer and artist. Hopefully Marvel's next stab at it with Vaughan does the trick.
