Doctor Strange Omnibus Volume 1

I felt sympathy for Stan Lee’s response to one of the fan mails sent to “Strange Mails,” the letters page for Strange Tales (the title of the comic Dr. Strange started off in). Lee admits that they “use the same characters over and over again” in the Dr. Strange stories mainly because it’s so hard to make up new names, and then adds parenthetically: “We can make ‘em up all right – it’s learning how to spell ‘em that’s the killer! We still have to look up Cyttorok, or is Cyttorak? – each time we use it!”

This is something I could relate to. The names are so off-beat and unrelated to anything I was familiar with that I had to keep looking up even recurring ones like Dormammu (or the “dread Dormammu” to friends, enemies, and indeed everybody). The flame-headed Dormammu is Dr. Strange’s archenemy, playing a leading role in almost all of these early comics, but when I started writing these notes up I was never sure how it was spelled.

The character of Doctor Strange was inspired by the radio show Chandu, the Magician, but he was always something . . . stranger than that. And he also evolved, even in the early days covered in this omnibus volume. Just in the matter of his looks, in his first few appearances he seems to have an oriental slant to his eyes, which remain nearly closed most of the time. It took a while for them to fully open.

His origin story plays to Marvel’s strength in creating less-than ideal heroes. Dr. Strange is an arrogant jerk who becomes a derelict after a car accident puts an end to his career as a star surgeon. A trip to the Ancient One, however, sets him on the road to recovery, not to mention becoming a master of the mystic arts.

But he remains a loner, occupying a mansion in Greenwich Village where he is attended by a rarely seen manservant. Otherwise he has no assistant or friends

He was also very much a second banana in these years. As noted, the comic he appeared in was Strange Tales, but despite the title he was never the headliner. First he was the B-player to the Human Torch, and then he took a back seat to Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. And I do mean a back seat. The main story line here has Doctor Strange seeking out Eternity, a figure who possesses the knowledge he will need to defeat Dormammu. When he finally encounters Eternity it gets a dramatic full-page reveal, but the issue where this climactic event occurs doesn’t even mention it on the cover, which (as usual) is given over to Nick Fury fighting the agents of Hydra. And in the one crossover appearance included, Doctor Strange again plays guest in another hero’s comic, joining forces with Spider-Man.

The actual employment of the mystic arts doesn’t amount to much. The all-seeing Eye of Agamotto is a handy device. Plus there’s a lot of ectoplasmic astral projection as Doctor Strange goes flying around in his spirit form. So much so that it starts to feel old pretty quickly. But what I enjoyed is the way our hero, like a good stage magician, so often just tricks his enemies with some simple stratagem that they’re not expecting because it doesn’t involve any invocations of supernatural powers at all.

The plots get repetitive as well, with Doctor Strange being whisked off to various weird dimensions to do battle with their rulers, or else just taking on another sorcerer (his most frequent adversary being Baron Mordo). But it’s the other dimensions that really set the Doctor’s adventures apart. Artist Steve Ditko went crazy creating a psychedelic ‘60s environment of colours and shapes that make it all seem like a druggy trip. It’s that trippiness that, at least in these early days, set Doctor Strange apart from the usual superhero fare. And fifty-plus years later, it’s what would make him a figure totally at home in the MCU’s plastic multiverse.

Graphicalex