Product Description

Stephen Strange is Doctor Strange. But he is no doctor, and least not the kind that would initially come to mind. He is the Master of the Mystic Arts, a sorcerer supreme, a white knight who wields black magic against blacker villains still. Strange is mankind's only hope against the dark otherworldly forces that conspire to destroy the conscious world - forces such as Baron Mordo, the Dread Dormammu, Nightmare, Aggamon, The House of Shadows, Loki, the Mindless Ones and more. Collected here in glorious black and white is the run of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's amazing run of Strange Tales #110, 111, & 114-168 - Strange's first and greatest adventures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #514503 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Customer Reviews

By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, this is great stuff!
Cultists who oppose Harry Potter books and Dungeons and Dragons games claim that those books somehow contain instruction in real occult magic. 'Fraid not. If you want to learn real black magic spells that actually work, you should start here.

The high Marvel Silver Age prose style, rich in polysyllabic adjective and epithet, seems odd and dated anymore in the mouths of mere superheroes. But it still seems natural coming from the likes of Dr. Strange, the Ancient One, and Dormammu. In fact, you can't imagine mystic, hyperintelligent characters speaking any other way.

The perennial problem with occult themes in comic books is that they seem to be full of arbitrary, drop-in plot devices that lack the campy, contrafactual charm of "scientific" explanations. But Dr. Strange does it right. The repeated use of murky characters and symbols like the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, the Omnipotent Oshtur, the eternal Vishanti and the all-seeing Eye of Agamotto gives the magic presented here internal consistency and the appearance of a system.

Steve Ditko's art, of course, defined the look of Dr. Strange; it is vaguely psychedelic, much more impressionistic than the art of Jack Kirby, and well suited to drawing the weird dimensional landscapes seen here. This material is presented as just the inked line art, without colour. The art itself is strong enough to stand up to the loss of the original colours, which were made by primitive printing processes in the original books in any case.

Other classic artists who contribute here include the much cleaner and more conventionally Marvellish Bill Everett, and the dark stylings of Marie Severin.

Most of the important characters from the Dr. Strange mythos, including the Ancient One, Baron Mordo, the dread Dormammu, Umar the Unspeakable, and Clea are included here.

This book covers the entire run of Dr. Strange in -Strange Tales-, which he shared with Nick Fury, Agent of Shield. Many of the covers that are printed here refer to the other stories, but you also get some fine Steranko cover art as a lagniappe here. True believers, assemble. This is great stuff.

Doesn't read as well when reprinted out of context
Chances are, you already realize that there are sacrifices involved with reading Essential editions. Lack of color and the absence of letter columns and bullpen editorials are the kinds of things you're no doubt willing to trade for an inexpensive reprint volume. However, having read this entire run in its original form, I can tell you that something far bigger has been lost in this particular translation to the trade paperback format. In most cases with Marvel Essentials, it makes no difference where the original stories came from. However, when it comes to the early Doctor Strange stories, you absolutely cannot ignore their original context.

When Doctor Strange first began as a backup feature in Strange Tales, the title was utterly direction-less. The Human Torch, which had recently become the magazine's primary feature, had little to do with either the magazine's title or Doctor Strange. They were two seemingly unrelated features thrown together into one arbitrary magazine, and reading the two, back to back each month, was jarring. They had entirely unrelated moods, themes, concepts, and characterizations. Looking at Doctor Strange's first twenty four appearances, all paired with The Human Torch, the original context of the magazine seems entirely irrelevant and unimportant for this reprint edition.

However, a fundamental shift occurred with Strange Tales #135. Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. replaced the Human Torch as the magazine's primary feature. At first glance, this ongoing feature seemed just as jarring and unrelated to Doctor Strange as its predecessor, but there was a subtle genius at play with the pairing of these two features. To begin with, both features explored the opposite ends of the spectrum of "Strange Tales." Doctor Strange dealt with strange tales of the dark occult while S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with the strange tales of bright science fiction adventure. The living embodiment of Eternity regulating the use of magic in the cosmos and a super secret department of psychics listening in on the world for signs of danger -- both concepts landed firmly in the realms of the "strange," but in entirely different ways, and both were mere samples of the strangeness contained within the worlds of Nick Fury and Stephen Strange.

More importantly, though, the two titles truly worked with and supported one another. Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a bright feature about unmitigated success. It was never a question of whether Fury and the crew would win the day, but more an issue of the level of excitement and flare they would bring to the fight. Fury always came out on top, aided with his indomitable will, his teammates' unwavering loyalty, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s unlimited imagination and resources.

Doctor Strange, in contrast, was a dark feature about persistent loss and humility. Strange was a mere mortal dabbling with cosmic entities he could barely comprehend while his aged and deteriorating mentor was often too weak to be anything more than a liability. At best, the good doctor could only hope to stave off an inter-dimensional warlord for a short time or trade one cosmic threat for another. There were few true victories, instead leaving our hero to struggle for the luck and will to endure, keeping the Earth safe for another day.

This was dark, bold material for comics of the late 1960s, and as fresh and dramatically rich as it was, it was difficult to stomach on its own, just as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bright and shiny victories began to feel flat and simplistic when read by themselves. However, when read together, the two features balanced each other out immensely, offering relief from one another and also enhancing each other in contrast. Doctor Strange felt darker and more powerful in contrast to the simplicity of S.H.I.E.L.D., which felt more wondrous and generously optimistic in contrast to the downbeat humility of Doctor Strange. I don't believe this was an accident either. Stan Lee was writing and co-plotting both features at the time, and even had the first major story arc for both features run concurrently, both culminating in issue #141. Clearly, he was attempting to create a relationship between the two features on some level, and I think that relationship was a source of great strength for both features. To read the Doctor Strange issues alone, without the contrast that the S.H.I.E.L.D. installments offered, weakens the impact of the title and even goes so far as to make it feel tedious after a while.

So, when it comes to the middle early Doctor Strange stories contained in this volume, context plays an incredibly important role. Without that, you're losing more than you may have bargained for. I'll go on record as saying that I think the loss of color is particularly tragic for the stunningly complex landscapes Ditko paints in this volume as well. This is not a bad place to go for the first twenty or so Doctor Strange stories, which I consider largely dull and unimpressive anyway (with the exception of Dormammu's entrance), but the later Tales of Suspense stories, beginning amidst the amazing eleven-part Mordo/Dormammu epic, really need to be seen in their original context, and those vintage issues are still available CHEAP on ebay and at local comic conventions. If you're up for it, track down vintage copies of Strange Tales #135 to #168. It's well worth the $5 to $10 you'll pay per issue. Sadly, those early Lee/Kirby Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. stories have not been reprinted, so this is the only place to go for that original context.

One of my favorite Marvel Characters gets Essentialized!
This massive edition of Essentials is the first that collects the adventures of Doctor Strange, the Master of the Mystic Arts. These collect the good Doctors Earliest Adventures from the days of Strange tales including his very first appearance in Strange Tales 110, and including a full run from #114 to 168 spanning the hey day of the 1960's.

In these pages wer first learn of Strange's Origin, meet the Ancient One and Clea, and also Docs greatest villians including Dormammu, Satannish, Baron Mordo, and others. Doc's 1960's adventures really played well in the 1960's. Steve Ditkos unique style fit the psychadelic era to perfection with his rendering of the strange and fantastic realms that Doctor Strange would visit along with some of the most terrifying entities in the Marvel universe.

Doctor Strange has always been among the most underrated of Marvel Characters. He always had pretty good writers and artists doing his stories. Artists like Ditko, Brunner, Gene Colan, and Paul Smith who captured the feel of the mesmerizing world of Doctor Strange.

Of course his world was always so vibrant that it suffers a bit from the Essential B&W format but I stll heartily recommend the book for any Doc fan.