At the newly christened Marvel Comics, even unlikely and unlikeable characters could become heroes.
That was true to some extent of the selfish and self-pitying teenager Peter Parker, and it was especially true of the arrogant neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange.
“Doctor, your patient wants to thank you!” an assisting surgeon tells him.
“I can’t be bothered!” Strange replies. “Just be sure he pays his bill!”
The mage rescues Strange from his power-hungry student Baron Mordo, testing Strange’s character in the process.
“Though he hated to ‘intervene,’ the Ancient One was forced to save Strange in some of those earliest clashes,” Jock Hughes observed. “In later battles, Strange was able to outflank Mordo by himself, and prove Mordo was dysfunctional; a la the movie The Craft.”
The lead Human Torch feature, now drawn by the workmanlike Dick Ayers instead of the audacious Jack Kirby, had lost some of my interest. But Steve Ditko’s surreal, moody art was a perfect fit for Dr. Strange, and the addition of an origin indicated that the company’s commitment to this backup character had strengthened.
While Dr. Strange appeared in Strange Tales 110 and 111, he disappeared from issues 112 and 113, returning only in 114. And he didn’t rate a cover mention here in 115.
Stan Lee may not have considered him series material, and mentions that he was waiting for reader feedback after Strange’s first appearances. I suspect that when Marvel committed to the series, they started making changes in the character that included finally providing him with an origin and establishing him as Caucasian.
“The origin turned him from an (Asian-looking) character into another middle-class white American,” James Beers noted.
Vincent Mariani:
ReplyDeleteDr. Strange was essentialy a series built on the numerous mystically themed Ditko 5-pagers that had appeared in the Marvel "monster era".
ReplyDeletePaul Zuckerman:
You know I keep seeing comments that Strange was supposed to be Asian at first but I NEVER saw that. I read the book from the beginning and there was nothing that gave me the impression that he was anything but white, which was the usual standard back then, except for a couple of Native American characters, or someone like Chop Chop. Certainly not the lead!
The origin, when you get down to it, was not dissimilar from the many short stories that were appearing at the time in Marvel (and which were little different from the same kinds of stories that had populated the radio airwaves and short genre fiction stories for decades, where the greedy hero usually gets his comeuppance at the end, except, here, Strange has a miraculous change of heart and he becomes a rather one-note good guy after that.
Ditko's artwork was the highlight of course, though at the time I thought it was crude. A friend of mine loved Ditko and probably he helped give me a better appreciation of Ditko. DItko's work IS crude, but then again, that is part of its charm. And he was a good storyteller. There is something about Ditko's work here that reminds me of early Kubert. Probably the roughness as compared to the slicker work that generally appeared at DC then.
Ultimately, for me, the problem with all magic-based characters, is that they become too powerful and so their opponents have to become too powerful, and anything goes. That works for one or two stories, but after a while, it is ho-hum, and you lose any real sense of conflict. I was recently reading the current Scarlet Witch miniseries, in which she has claimed the mantle of Sorceress Supreme, and I just gave up on it for that very reason. The one good story recently was one where she and the Vision reunite and live out their lives together--and when they die, everything reverts back to the present. Oh well!
I replied:
I can only say that when I saw the first Dr. Strange story as a kid, it seemed clear to me that Dr. Strange was Asian — epicanthal folds.
Nathan J. Bennett:
ReplyDeleteI read how some folks wrote to Stan, thinking the various names and stuff Stephen was always invoking meant that Mr. Lee had a bigger occult library than Ray Stantz, but he just admitted he was making up names that sounded appropriate.
Thomas Tomcat:
ReplyDeleteThat cover is hot. I'd guess Kirby had done most of the Torch figure himself, but that he let inker Ditko have more input on the looks of Sandman here.
Kenneth Treece:
ReplyDeleteI could read Lee and Ditko’s Dr Strange all day!! Glorious!!
Johnny Williams:
ReplyDeleteHe certainly Did look ‘vaguely oriental’ in his earliest stories.
Such things happen. In the MCU, the wizened looking Asian male ‘Ancient One’ of comic book lore was portrayed (with brilliance I must say) as a Celtic, middle aged-looking androgynous female, by the great actress Tilda Swinton. Controversy over her casting aside, she was so memorable that she got a second chance to play ‘her’ in Avengers Endgame, and she nailed it again.