June 1975: In a Mirror Darkly

Battling bodies careering into and right through arcane architecture — this superhero feature was clearly something different.

“One of the aspects of early Dr. Strange that Marvel Studios’ eponymous movie got right were the eerie clashes between Strange and various astral plane assassins,” observed comics historian Mark Engblom.  “I felt like I was watching a (Steve) Ditko story come to life!”

In his first recorded exploit, Dr. Stephen Strange fought one of those conceptual, extradimensional entities who’d secretly harry our plane of existence throughout his career.

In his second adventure (Strange Tales 111, Aug. 1963, reprinted in Marvel Treasury Edition 6, June 1975), the Master of the Mystic Arts battled one of the mirror-image foes so common to superheroes — in this case, a treacherous, power-hungry sorcerer of equal ability who’d also been trained by the Ancient One. While Strange is pledged to use his power to protect people, his enemy intends to enslave them.

The villain introduced here had a name that fairly rumbled from the lips, “Baron Mordo” (with its suggestions of “morbid,” “morose” and “mordant”). JRR Tolkien also recognized the ominousness of the sound (“Mordor”), and so did Jim Shooter (“Mordru”). 

Comics historian Jeff Rovin wrote, “Among the countless dark powers (Baron Mordo) has at his command are astral projection … altering his physical appearance; mesmerizing others while he’s in corporeal or spiritual form; summoning up a paralytic vapor and creating another vapor which can remove an entire apartment building from this realm and drop it into limbo.

From his European castle, Mordo projects his astral form to Tibet, where he telepathically commands the Ancient One’s servant to poison his meal. Sensing the danger in his Greenwich Village sanctum, Dr. Strange sends his own spirit soaring to the scene, where he engages Mordo in battle while arguing their philosophical differences. Strange defeats Mordo with shrewdness.

“I really liked the balance between the surrealistic mystic environs and the noir-ish street scenes,” recalled comics historian Vincent Mariani.

June 1968: The Machine and the Magic

Whether by accident or design, Marvel’s mid-1960s dual hero titles were subtly thematic.

You had Tales of Suspense featuring Iron Man and Captain America, two out-and-out superheroes. You had Tales to Astonish featuring the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner, two super-antiheroes. And finally you had Strange Tales featuring Dr. Strange and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, two characters who operated on the periphery of the superhero world.

Fury and Strange were thematically similar and yet opposite. Both operated in secret to protect humanity, but one employed magic and the other super-science.

By 1966, Marvel characters were increasingly popular, and being recognized as such on college campuses and in the national news.

So why, you may well wonder, did such popular characters have to double up in the same magazine? That was because publisher Martin Goodman had made a colossal mistake, one that had forced him into a 1957 distribution deal with DC-owned Independent News. The catch was that Marvel’s titles would be limited to eight per month.

Beginning in 1964, with demand for Marvel obviously exceeding supply, that number was grudgingly increased, little by little. Nevertheless, Marvel’s popular superheroes were forced to bunk together until 1968.

This ad announces that the two characters get their own titles as part of a major expansion of the Marvel line.

“Marvel’s titles had been selling so well that in 1967 Goodman was able to twist Independent News’s arm into allowing him to release even more, “ Reed Tucker noted in his Marvel-DC book Slugfest. “Suddenly the characters who had previous been forced to share the so-called split books got their own stand-alone titles.”

Other among the flood of new titles at Marvel were Captain America, Captain Marvel, Capt. Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders, the western Ghost Rider, Groovy, Incredible Hulk, Mighty Marvel Western, Not Brand Ecch, Silver Surfer, Spectacular Spider-Man and Sub-Mariner.

Fighting supernatural menaces all day long leaves you wanting a cigarette, apparently.

June 1968: Smoke Gets in your Eye of Agamotto

Constantly having to save the world from Lovecraftian horrors can jangle one’s nerves. The heavy responsibility can even cause Dr. Stephen Strange to lose sleep, and light up a cigarette in the wee hours.

 “Dan Adkins just drew it that way, and I wrote it,” Roy Thomas recalled. “Somehow, it seemed right to me that Stephen Strange was a smoker... and it wasn’t as reviled in society then as it is now.  

“Actually, it chagrins me that such a scene probably couldn’t be drawn in today’s supposedly more ‘adult’ comics at Marvel or DC. In fact, I know it couldn’t, having tried to write scenes with cigarettes a time or two in recent years.”

That scene came during the great Marvel expansion of 1968 in Dr. Strange 169, the first issue of the sorcerer’s own title (with numbering continuing from Strange Tales, where he’d been appearing since issue 110). 

I remember being a little surprised by it at the time. Superheroes so rarely smoked. Dr. Strange had just been awakened by a nightmare, so this is a scene of quiet vulnerability in a superhero, another thing that was rare then.

“I remember Adkins showing him smoking more than once,” recalled Nils Osmar. “It humanized the character for me; he was so perfect otherwise, it was hard to relate to him.”

But the scene didn’t work for other readers. “Sure, before he became Sorcerer Supreme, Strange was a smoker,” wrote Jef Willemsen. “But after studying with the Ancient One and learning how to hone and care for his body, I really can't see him indulging in drugs or narcotics of any kind. He has to stay alert and vigilant, in constant tune with the magicks of the universe. The highest he gets is when he inhales the Vapors of Valtorr.”

“Given the character’s somewhat peculiar adventures, I’d ask whether that’s really a ‘cigarette’ he’s smoking,” quipped Matthew Grossman.

December 1963: The Unlikely and the Unlikeable

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!”

In Strange Tales 115 (Dec. 1963), we learn how, after an accident damages the nerves in his hands, a humbled, desperate Strange finally seeks help at the Ancient One’s secret lamasery (here said to be in India, later in Tibet). 

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.

June 1940: The Doctor Is Strange

This house ad appeared in the pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Strange doctors have been prowling around superhero comics almost from the beginning.

The first Dr. Strange, or Doc Strange, debuted as the lead feature in Pines/Nedor’s Thrilling 1 (Feb. 1940), the creation of writer Richard Hughes and artist Alexander Kostuk.

In the wake of the spectacular, multi-media success of Superman, rival superhero characters could have powers similar to Superman’s, or a costume similar to his, but they’d better not have both.

That mistake made Fox’s Wonder Man a 1939 one-issue wonder.

“Just as Fox had wasted no time before launching his Superman rip-off, DC wasted no time before suing him,” comics historian Don Markstein noted.

Powered by a solar atomic drug he called Alosun, Doc Strange acquired Superman’s abilities — super-strength, flight, invulnerability — but wisely eschewed the fancy dress.

Strange also appeared with Captain Future, The Black Terror and Fighting Yank in Nedor’s version of World Finest Comics, called America’s Best Comics. His last adventure was published in November 1948.

In 2001, renamed Tom Strange, the character was revived by the inimitable Alan Moore in his superb Tom Strong title.

Doc’s first name was Hugo, and that may ring a bell. Coincidentally, Prof. Hugo Strange was an early Batman villain, introduced in Detective Comics 36 (Feb. 1940), and the first foe to figure out Batman’s secret identity.

In May 1963, Marvel Comics got into the act — but not yet with Dr. Stephen Strange. Tales of Suspense 41 introduced Dr. Carlo Strange, a lightning-born criminal genius who threatened Earth until his daughter betrayed him by aiding Iron Man.

Stan Lee must have liked the sound of the name “Dr. Strange,” because two months later (Strange Tales 110, July 1963) he reused it for the first appearance of Steve Ditko’s legendary superhero magician, Dr. Stephen Strange.

Of course, you could argue that there’s yet another Dr. Strange, whose first name is Adam. The intrepid archeologist-spaceman almost certainly has his Ph.D, but just doesn’t make a big deal about it.