Marvel, Magic and Strange Tales: Part 2

I DON'T THINK STAN LEE LIKED DOCTOR STRANGE, at least not at first. In a letter to Jerry Bails dated 9th January 1963, Stan mentioned a new strip for Strange Tales, Dr Strange, with hardly a hint of his usual enthusiasm.

"We have a new character in the works for Strange Tales. Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. Sort of a black magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him — 'twas Steve's idea, and I figgered we'd give it a chance, although again, we had to rush the first one too much. Little sidelight: Originally decided to call him MR. STRANGE, but thought the MR. a bit too similar to MR. FANTASTIC — now, however, I just remember we had a villain called DR. STRANGE just recently in one of our mags — hope it won't be too confusing! Oh well ..."

Dr Strange showed up - unheralded - in the 110th issue of Strange Tales, in what seemed to be a substitute for one of Steve Ditko's regular whimsical five-page fantasy stories.

Stan's not too clear about what it was he didn't like about the first instalment. Some have speculated that Steve Ditko brought Stan the first story all drawn up, and possibly even scripted. What Ditko probably didn't know was that Stan was just beginning an experiment where he would try to rebuild the working process he had in the earlier Atlas days of the company. Back then, Stan had been primarily an editor overseeing a bullpen of staff writers and artists, and writing a few stories himself.

So as the early Marvel started to take off towards the end of 1962, Stan didn't really appear to want to be a writer of superhero tales. Yes, he was writing Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man and The Hulk. But the other superhero strips - Thor, Ant-Man and the solo Human Torch stories - he just plotted, and handed over to brother Larry Leiber to script. Larry was also scripting many (if not most) of the fantasy stories in Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense. What is interesting is that Stan kept the "reliable money makers" for himself. Of the Marvel Comics cover-dated August and September 1962, Stan scripted:

• Life with Millie 18
• Patsy and Hedy 83
• Patsy Walker 102
• Rawhide Kid 29
• Kathy 18
• Gunsmoke Western 72
• Kid Colt - Outlaw 106
• Love Romances 101
• Millie the Model 110
• Linda Carter, Student Nurse 7

... and the Steve Ditko five-pagers running in the back of most of the fantasy anthologies.

It's as though Stan thought the super-hero stuff was just a fad, and would be done with a few months down the line. And perhaps that's why he sounded less than enthusiastic about Dr Strange in his letter to Jerry Bails.

As 1963 rolled round, Stan looked towards adding some new superhero stories here and there. Spider-Man got his own title, cover-dated March, which Stan would write. Sgt Fury also joined the line-up, and as a non-super-hero title, Stan would keep the scripting of that for himself, too. Iron Man in Tales of Suspense, he would parcel out to Larry.

Of the May 1963 b-team Marvels, only the Ant-Man story was scripted by Larry Leiber. The rest - including the Iron Man story featuring villain Dr Strange - were scripted by Robert Bernstein. Ernie Hart would take over Ant-Man the following month.

Then, in a surprising about-face, Stan took the scripting work away from Larry and hired DC, Archie and ACG hack Robert Bernstein, former Atlas editor Ernie Hart and even Superman writer Jerry Siegel to take over Thor, The Human Torch, Ant-Man and Iron Man. Even more surprisingly, Stan's decision stood for just six months before he let his new freelance scripters go and took over writing everything himself. 

"Larry, you know something," Leiber recalls Stan telling him. "You're no good, but you're better than these other guys." And with the November 1963 cover-dated Marvels, Stan was scripting the entire line himself.

I think this is because Stan realised two things. One was, that no one was going to write Marvel comics the way he wanted them done. The writers he'd been trying came from old-school, plot-driven comic writing, and Stan was pushing for character-driven stories. And the other realisation was that the Marvel Comics written by Stan himself were selling better than those he'd packaged out to other writers.

So even with new titles The Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil looming on the schedule, Stan knew he had to sharpen his typewriter and get down to work. And Doctor Strange was just one more straw for the camel's back.

As with Strange Tales 110, there is no mention of a great new magic adventure with Dr Strange on the cover of Strange Tales 111 (Aug 1963). This is not typical of Stan's approach to hyping new features at this point in Marvel history.

The first three Dr Strange stories were each five-pagers. As this was the same length as the short fantasy tales Steve Ditko had been turning in for Stan on the anthology titles, I did wonder if all three weren't drawn up on spec for Stan's consideration.

If that's the case, then it's likely that Stan had to write (or re-write) the dialogue from Steve's finished artwork, and maybe that's what Stan found tricky ... that and the fact that he hadn't gotten a handle on the character yet. And that might explain why Stan wrote in the letters page of Fantastic Four 19 (Oct 1963) ... "A number of you have asked for more of Dr Strange, in Strange Tales. So we have another of his off-beat tales in Strange Tales 114 ... we almost hope you DON'T like him, because BOY - are those stories hard to write."

Then in the letters column for Amazing Spider-Man 6 (Nov 1963), Stan was damning with faint praise again. "We almost hoped not too many readers would notice Dr Strange so that we could turn out stories without too much effort. But the reaction has been far more favorable than we expected, so it looks like the old master of black magic will be a regular feature, which means another headache for us. If you haven't seen him yet, treat yourself to a copy of the latest Strange Tales - but only after you've bought a copy of Spider-Man, of course."

The again on the Fantastic Four 21 (Dec 1963) letters page: "So far, our readers' opinions on Dr Strange are almost unanimously in favor of the bewhiskered bewitcher! So it looks like we're going to be stuck with him for a while."

So, is this just typical, self-deprecating humour from Stan, or is there a hint of underlying irritation with the character? Does Stan resent that Steve Ditko came up with the idea? That doesn't seem likely. If Stan hadn't liked it, he would have straight-out rejected it, because we know Stan never shied away from rejecting work he didn't think was up to scratch.

And what of the stories themselves? The first adventure, which pits Dr Strange against the machinations of the dark entity Nightmare, is a slight affair, casting Strange in the role of occult detective.

In the first episode, many of the foundational elements of Dr Strange are introduced. Wong the faithful retainer is glimpsed. Dr Strange travels in his astral form. And we meet the (as yet) unnamed Ancient One.

Yet many of the trappings that would become familiar to readers were already in place. The Ancient One appears as Dr Strange's mentor and adviser, and the "amulet" is cited as Dr Strange's final defence against danger. While there's not a great deal of space in five pages for exposition and adventure, Ditko crams in a lot using nine panels to the page. And Stan must have been fairly okay with the concept as the final panel promises ...

This closing blurb doesn't support my theory that Steve Ditko
turned in three Dr Strange five-pagers in one go or Stan would
have known who the next villain was going to be.

But we had yet to see any of the mystical schtick that would differentiate Dr Strange from every other comicbook magician. And the fact that Stan doesn't mention Baron Mordo in the next issue blurb indicates that he didn't have the artwork of the second Dr Strange story in hand after all. Yet, I still wonder why the first three stories are five pagers then the page count goes up to eight with the origin story in Strange Tales 115 (Dec 1963).

Above, the plot of Strange Tales 111's Dr Strange story in a nutshell. The strangest part of the tale is the ghostly fisticuffs. Surely you can't punch a spirit in the face, even with a phantom fist ...

The second Dr Strange tale, which appeared in Strange Tales 111 (Aug 1963), sported the unlikely title of "Face-to-Face with the Magic of Baron Mordo". The editor in me wants to strike out "the Magic of", since magic doesn't actually have a face, but we editors are picky like that. This story introduces us to the arch-villain who would go on to be a thorn in Dr Strange's side for most of the Ditko run. If you're paying attention, you can quickly figure out that Mordo is a disciple of the Ancient One gone bad. Okay, AO is still referred to as "The Master" in Stan's script, but we know who he is. The plot is still a little thin - Mordo forces a servant to add a powerful potion to The Master's food  - though Ditko's art shows the potion going into The Master's drink - which prevents him from helping Dr Strange. Mordo then has a spiritual fistfight with Dr Strange - no hurling of hex-bolts yet - and then falls for the oldest trick in the book, a kind of mystical "what's that behind you?"

The Dr Strange feature was still brief - at five pages - still tucked away at the back of Strange Tales and still unheralded on the cover. At this point, Stan really wasn't looking to promote the strip in any determined way.

The character then takes a two issue break, then returns in Strange Tales 114 (Nov 1963). Because Stan has increased the Human Torch story to 18 pages - probably to give the Captain America tryout room to breathe - we lose the five page fantasy tale, and have to make do with another Dr Strange five-pager, again featuring Mordo as the bad guy. We learn that The Master's true title is "The Ancient One" in this story and the reason for the slightly different look to this episode is because it's inked - uncredited - by George Roussos.

In Strange Tales 114, we get a bit more fireworks in the battle between Dr Strange and Baron Mordo ... but they're still not firing their mystical power-bolts from oddly distended fingers.This was still a few issues away.

There's still an element of astral plane punching in the battle between Mordo and Dr Strange, but we get a hint that there's more to the mystical abilities wielded in this series that we've seen so far. In this story we see Strange project his mental abilities to communicate with both the Ancient One and with early co-star and possible love interest Victoria Bentley. Dr Strange is also surprised that he failed to detect Mordo's imposture as Sir Clive. And the final twist is that for most of the story, we were seeing an astral projection of Dr Strange, rather than the real thing. Though if that was the case, then I'm puzzled as to how he could have been affected by the vapours from Mordo's poisonous candles at the start of the story. But both Stan and Steve were still finding their feet with the feature, so some glitches are forgiveable.

I've always wondered why Stan and Steve didn't give us the origin of Dr Strange until the character's fourth appearance. On the surface, it appears as though Stan didn't have much faith in the new mystical hero. But maybe there was another reason ...

Strange Tales 115 (Dec 1963) heralds a discernible change in Stan's attitude to the Dr Strange character. Well, a bit of a change ... Let's start with the cover. That's right, still no mention of Dr Strange, even though in this issue - responding to "an avalanche of requests" - the origin of Dr Strange is finally revealed.

Now, Stan was pretty big on origins. Looking back we can see that, with every single Marvel character to date, the first appearance was also the origin ... so it does seem peculiar that we didn't get the back-story of Dr Strange until readers demanded it. So here's a thought. Perhaps Stan - or more likely, Steve - never intended to give Dr Strange an origin story. Perhaps, like pulp character The Shadow, Dr Strange was supposed to be a mysterious mage that was more of a cypher than an actual human being. You know ... "is he real or is he a spirit?"

The reason that I think that idea would more likely have come from Steve is that it fits with other views Steve had on storytelling. He famously wanted The Green Goblin to be a nobody, "someone the readers hadn't seen before", but was over-ruled by Stan. So, if Dr Strange was somehow intended to be "unreal", then it would have made sense not to give him an origin.

Then, we should also look at what was happening in the other Marvel superhero series at the same time. As mentioned earlier, I believe that in the formative year of Marvel's development, 1963, Stan wasn't convinced that superheroes were a long-term prospect. Sure, Fantastic Four was selling well ... and during the second half of the year, the early indications would have been that the Spider-Man title was gaining sales, as well. But The Hulk had stuttered and had been cancelled by Marty Goodman, so I don't think Stan was yet convinced that he could Do No Wrong.

Earlier in the year, he'd assigned other writers to script from his plots, and hadn't been satisfied with the results, so right at the point where readers finally get Dr Strange's origin, Stan was also getting rid of the freelance scripters and taking on the dialoging of the strips himself. And then there's the intro box on the first page of the origin story ...

Stan says here that he and Steve "forgot" to give us the origin of Dr Strange. But I'm thinking that's unlikely ... it's not the sort of thing you "forget". Also, Stan characterises the origin as a "extra-long 8 pager". But as we'll see, the page count would actually go up from here, rather than back to five pages.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Stan plugs companion comic Spider-Man in the Dr Strange intro, but more tellingly he owns up that it's reader pressure that spurred this origin tale, probably using that point to insist on an origin story, possibly over Steve's objections. Just guessing here, but it does seem to fit with how both creators operated. Also, Dr Strange is still "Master of Black Magic" at this point. This would change later - correctly, I think. Black magic is by definition the evil side of magic. The good side is "white magic", but that would sound a little odd in the context. Later, with Strange Tales 120 (May 1964), Dr Strange would become "Master of the Mystic Arts" ... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The origin of Dr Strange is familiar on many levels - selfish man undergoes a life-changing event, is first bitter and sorry for himself, then learns that through helping others he can find new purpose in life. It's simple but satisfying.

The actual story of how Dr Strange became a magician is pretty familiar by now. Even the recent Doctor Strange (2017) movie pretty much adhered to the classic origin. Successful but arrogant surgeon Stephen Strange is injured in a car accident and is unable to operate again. He becomes a self-pitying bum, then chances to hear about a mysterious healer in the East, The Ancient One, who may be able to help him. Strange eventually tracks down the healer in India and, though at first sceptical of the authenticity of The Ancient One's powers, is finally convinced when rogue student Mordo casts a spell that prevents Strange's speaking of Modo's evil intentions. To outwit Mordo, Strange pleads to be accepted as The Ancient One's pupil ... and the rest is comic book legend.

This story seems quite a bit more fully-formed than the preceding three tales. Ditko's realisation of the magic "special effects" is closer to the familiar surrealism that would characterise the later stories and here and there. This would really kick off in the next story, which featured the return of Nightmare.

He's still a Master of Black Magic, and he's still not mentioned on the cover, but Stan is bringing in more and more of the familiar features and catchphrases of the Doctor Strange we all know and love. On page 4 (above right) we get mentions of Dormammu, Agamotto and Hoggoth, and the return of Nightmare, as well as the typical Dali-esque mystical realm we would see more and more.

Strange Tales 116 (Feb 19164) gave us another eight-page adventure, featuring the sinister villain from Strange Tales 110. And as with the earlier appearance of Nightmare, Doctor (not "Dr" any more) Strange is once again cast in the role of occult detective. I'm really glad Stan didn't stick with this concept, though it would take him another few issues to realise that the whole "mystical sleuth" thing had already been a bit done to death. DC's Dr 13 stories that ran in Star-Spangled Comics during the 1950s spring to mind as one rather tiresome example.

Not really what we would expect from Dr Strange. Here, Stephen Strange is acknowledged by the police and the medical profession as a world-famous authority on, well, strange phenomena. Later in the run, Dr Strange would avoid publicity like the plague and would even remove bystanders' memories of him on occasion.

In this story, Doctor Strange is called in by the authorities who are at a loss to understand why some prominent citizens have fallen asleep with their eyes open, and cannot be wakened. Again, the characterisation of the Doctor is far from fully-formed. In the above panels the police officer refers to Strange's "amazing record with other off-beat cases", and Dr Warren mentions the "deep respect" that "even our leading scientists" have for Doctor Strange's reputation. That strikes me as odd, because, if he has such a great reputation, then "leading scientists" would know that Stephen Strange is also a medical doctor, a man of science, just like them. So I'm thinking that Stan is still struggling to get a handle on the character.

Unlike his visit to Nightmare's realm in Strange Tales 110, this time Doctor Strange has to make more of an effort, consulting ancient texts then conjuring the Mist of Hoggoth to enter Nightmare's domain. Once there he battles illusion and the dreaded Spinybeast before guiding the spirits of the comatose patients back to the real world. The extra three pages helps the strip feel like less of a filler, but there's still some work to do.

Finally, Doctor Strange merits a mention on the cover, probably because he's now "one of Marvel Comic Group's favourite features". It's still be a while before he appears in the top left corner box on the cover - ironically, a feature that Steve Ditko himself designed.

The Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales 117 (Feb 1964) feels a good deal more substantial. It brings back Baron Mordo, who has another plan to destroy The Ancient One and establish himself as the world's most powerful sorcerer. Luckily, Doctor Strange is on hand to thwart his ambitions. Though the title is "The Many Traps of Baron Mordo" there's really only one trap ... and Doctor Strange escapes it in an ingenious way. Strange then reverses the trap on Mordo and outwits the villain with an equally ingenious trap of his own.

Even with eight pages to work with instead of the five he originally had, Steve Ditko is still packing in nine or more panels a page to deliver as much story as possible to the readers. And even at this pace, it doesn't feel cramped or crowded.

There are, however a couple of glitches that are at odds with later Strange Tales. The first is that in later stories, it's established that Doctor Strange is less powerful in his astral form than he is as his physical self. Here, it's the opposite. And where Doctor Strange's amulet is not strong enough to defeat Mordo's magic, a ring given to him by The Ancient One is ... but for all that, it's closer to the archetypal Doctor Strange story that what had come before.

At last ... Doctor Strange makes an appearance on the cover of Strange Tales. Still not featured in the corner box, though. And just when you think Stan's billing him as "Doctor Strange", oh here we are back at "Dr Strange" again.

How odd then, that the next adventure, in Strange Tales 118 (Mar 1964), would be completely at odds with the supernatural nature of the strip. Because, for all the magical trappings of the previous stories, this one, "The Possessed", is essentially a science fiction tale ... and has the plotting fingerprints of Stan all over it.

In a remote Bavarian town, the normally friendly villagers are becoming cold and withdrawn, almost as though they're possessed. When Doctor Strange shows up to investigate, he finds that green aliens from another dimension are controlling the townspeople as part of their quest to take control of Earth. It's uncannily similar to the fantasy tales Stan was filling the anthology titles with just a couple of years prior. Not an especially interesting story concept and not really in keeping with the parameters already established for Marvel's Mystic Mage.

C'mon, Doc ... that's just mean. It's not the townsfolks' fault
that they've been possessed by green aliens from
another dimension and forced to attack you against their will.

But strangest of all, in one scene Strange acts more like Dr Doom than his normal good guy self. I can only imagine Stan was trying to cultivate an aloof, slightly more-than-human persona for Doctor Strange and sort of momentarily overstepped the mark.

"Beyond the Purple Veil" is a good stab at depicting one of those great surrealistic dimensions that Steve Ditko would pepper the entire Doctor Strange series with. They would get even better as the series went along ...

Things seemed to get back on the mystical track in Strange Tales 119 (Apr 1964). Two burglars invade Doctor Strange's sanctum and steal a magical gem. However, the stone is really the gateway to the dreaded Purple Dimension and the criminals are sucked in to the realm of Aggamon and forced to toil as slaves. Doctor Strange follows them, defeats Aggamon in a mystical battle of the minds and frees the two burglars, along with the rest of Aggamon's captives, because he has taken a vow to protect all humanity. The punchline is that the burglars give themselves up to "pay their debt to society". 

Who, exactly is "Mormammu"? Dormammu's younger brother?
An Artie Simek lettering mistake? I guess we'll never know.

It's a fun, if slight, tale ... and though credited by Grand Comicbook Database as a Steve Ditko co-plot, it just feels like another of Stan's off-the-shelf story ideas that we'd seen many times before in the old fantasy anthologies. And though the next story also had that cookie-cutter feel, it was at least a creepily effective story ...

Although Doctor Strange barely rates a mention on the cover of Strange Tales 120, the page count on the story inside rises to nine. This does appear to stretch Steve Ditko's time a little thin, as the artwork seems rushed for the most part.

"The House of Shadows", in Strange Tales 120 (May 1964), is one of the earliest Dr Strange tales I can remember reading at the time. Back at the beginning of this series of blog entries, I'd mentioned that, in my mind, I had believed this Doctor Strange story was one of the first stories, when it was actually the ninth in the series. The plot has a tv crew investigating a haunted house. When the tv signal from inside the house stops, Doctor Strange investigates, only to find that the house is actually a living creature.

There are a couple of remarkable aspects to this story. The first is that beginning with this instalment, the page-count on Doctor Strange goes up to nine pages. I think it shows a little in Ditko's art which, for the first time on the series, looks hurried here. I had to check carefully to see whether the art for this tale was actually inked by Ditko, as the finished art seems so blocky and rushed.

In the Outer Limits episode, "The Guests", elderly couple Randall (Vaughn Taylor) and Ethel Latimer (Nellie Burt), along with silent movie actress Florinda Patten (Gloria Grahame), are held captive in a living house, controlled by an amoeba-like alien (above right). Amazingly similar to the premise of the "House of Shadows" Doctor Strange tale.

Secondly, this story was on the newsstands in February 1964. Then, just a month later, the popular science fiction tv show, The Outer Limits, featured a very similar tale, "The Guests", in which a living house holds several people captive for reasons unknown. There's no way either Stan Lee or screen writer Donald Sanford could have swiped the idea from the other, as the stories were released within a month of each other. It can only be the same kind of coincidence that led to the superficially similar Doom Patrol and The X-Men being released within a few weeks of one another.

Stan would often give guest-star slots to heroes he wanted to promote, usually in the better-selling Fantastic Four or Amazing Spider-Man. In Fantastic Four 27, the role of Doctor Strange is merely incidental, and his presence on the cover in muted by Stan Goldberg's colouring him green in the background.

The same month, in a sure sign that Stan had warmed to the character of Doctor Strange and was now taking him seriously as a key Marvel character, Stan arranged for Strange to make a guest appearance in May's Fantastic Four 27. It's not a substantial appearance, little more than a cameo really, but it does establish that other Marvel heroes not only know of Doctor Strange, but feel they can call on him for help when only his unique abilities will do. In this case, he helps The Torch and the Thing track down The Sub-Mariner - who's kidnapped Sue Storm - but takes no active part in the battle.

In keeping with his recent guest-star slot in Fantastic Four 27, Doctor Strange merited a much more prominent cover appear in Strange Tales 121, getting at least a third of the cover space in artwork pencilled by Jack Kirby and inked by Steve Ditko.

The following month, Doctor Strange got a return match with his most enduring foe Baron Mordo in another nine-page epic entitled, "Witchcraft in the Wax Museum". The plot had Mordo decoy Strange away from his sanctum with a mundane telephone summons. Mordo then sneaks in and steals the Doctor's body when his astral self responds to the imaginary emergency. All that remains is to keep Doctor Strange from merging his astral self with his physical body for 24 hours and Strange will perish. Sound simple, right? Well, not really quite so easy ... since Doctor Strange is smarter than Baron Mordo, and decoys Mordo into leaving his physical body and falling into exactly the same trap.

Steve Ditko's art holds up a lot better this time, as though he's been allowed sufficient time to complete the inking to his usual meticulous standards. Not so much in the following month's story ...

That's a pretty insipid cover, there ... no sense of menace in the Torch section, just Johnny Storm enjoying an acrobatic show, and the pose-y Doctor Strange image is just bogarted from the previous month's interior artwork. This one has all the hallmarks of a rush-job. Meanwhile, inside ... Doctor Strange is now Master of the Mystic Arts, much better than "Master of Black Magic", don't you think? Oh, and there he is in the corner box for the first time.

"The World Beyond" in Strange Tales 122 (Jul 1964) features the return of the rather tiresome Nightmare. I find it quite hard to get enthusiastic about this story because it seems so similar to the other Nightmare tales we've seen already. Strange enters the Dream Realm, battles Nightmare and wins by a cunning ruse. The artwork I was even less enthusiastic about as it's inked, uncredited, by George Roussos. Roussos was often Stan Lee's go-to guy in a deadline pinch, and it looks like that's what happened here. Roussos would also ink the next three issues, presumably to free up some of Steve Ditko's time to draw the first Amazing Spider-Man Annual, which would have been needed around the same time. Thank goodness he did, as Ditko turned an astonishing 72 pages of all-new material for that book, without even one panel looking rushed ... which is why I rate it as my all-time favourite Marvel annual ...

Although Loki isn't the normal kind of villain that Doctor Strange would face, I thought the story worked out pretty well. Again, it feels like a Stan idea, as we know that Steve Ditko wasn't especially keen on cross-overs.

With Strange Tales 123 (Aug 1964), Stan tries to widen the appeal of Doctor Strange a little by pitting him again long-time Thor foe Loki. Often billed as "God of Mischief", Loki is an immortal sorcerer and a seemingly good fit as a Doctor Strange foe. Creating a crossover with Thor can hardly be a bad thing, either. Of course, once Doctor Strange tumbles to the depth of Loki's trickery and attempts to take on the godling in mystical combat, he's hopelessly outmatched. With defeat staring him in the face, Strange is a barely able to lead Thor to the scene ... forcing Loki to flee from the threat of battling both Doctor Strange and Thor.

Though some might consider Ditko's portrayal of Thor - to say the least - quirky ... I really like it and would have welcomed seeing an actual adventure or two of Thor's rendered in Ditko's distinctive style.

Further cementing the notion that the Doctor Strange / Loki crossover was a Stan Lee edict, here's Doctor Strange guest-starring in the Thor strip in Journey into Mystery 108 (Sep 1964) ...

However, the following month there was a kind of follow-up to this story ... in the pages of Journey into Mystery 108 (Sep 1964). I say "kind of" because in reading this story, you'd have no idea that Strange had battled Thor's mortal enemy Loki just one month earlier. No mention is made in the Thor tale of the encounter and it seems odd that Stan wouldn't make some attempt to tie the two incidents together. 

After an (untold) battle with Baron Mordo, Doctor Strange is seriously injured. With only enough energy to send out a psychic distress call Doctor Strange is rescued by Thor and later, Thor's alter ego Dr Don Blake. In return, Strange offers his services to the Thunder God, should they ever be needed ... and of course, they are. Just like in the recent Fantastic Four guest appearance, Doctor Strange is once again called upon to locate something precious. This time it's Dr Blake's gnarled walking stick, the one that holds the power to transform him into Thor. The stick is recovered and Thor is able to defeat his adopted brother Loki one more time.

This stand-alone Doctor Strange adventure is the penultimate tale to be inked by George "Inky" Roussos, as Steve Ditko begins to get out from under the huge job of drawing The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1 (1964).

Meanwhile, back in the pages of Strange Tales 124 (Sep 1964), Doctor Strange was once again mining a vein of one-off mystical shenanigans. This time a mysterious girl leads the Doctor to ancient Egypt and battle with a rather odd-looking sorcerer called Zota ("A to Z" backwards). Doctor Strange rather quickly dispatches Zota and returns to his own time, armed with the knowledge of the girl's identity. It's Cleopatra, the Queen of the Nile.

Does this guy Zota remind you of anyone? How about
old Fantastic Four enemy The Puppet Master? Oh, and look ...
here's Cleopatra again, not long after her royal flirtiness had met Iron Man.

This was not the first time Cleopatra had met a Marvel super-hero. Back in Tales of Suspense 44 (Aug 1963), Iron Man had also travelled back to ancient Egypt and met the legendary beauty. Yet Stan makes no mention of that here.

Yes, it's true. Iron Man really did travel back to ancient Egypt and meet Cleopatra, last of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, a line of Greek usurpers who displaced the Macedonian rule of Egypt in 305BC.

It's almost as though Stan doesn't really count the Marvel tales that he didn't script as canon. If that were the case, then maybe there's a case for saying that Marvel continuity didn't actually start until Stan began scripting all the Marvel books, with the November 1963 issues ... just a thought.

This issue of Strange Tales featured what I would consider the last of the "filler" stories on Doctor Strange. Starting with the very next issue, Strange Tales 125 (Dec 1964), the series would shift up a gear and we would begin to see the concepts that would solidify Doctor Strange into a truly spectacular feature, with an expanding supporting cast and the introduction of one of the great Marvel villains. But all of that is a story for next time.

Next: Of Epic Magic and Magic Epics

  

Marvel, Magic and Strange Tales: Part 1

SUPERHEROES WERE MY MAIN FOCUS during the Silver Age of the 1960s. Very occasionally I'd pick up a "horror" or science fiction title. The concept of Magic in comics fiction was barely touched upon. The Justice League had battled magicians a couple of times during the 1963 - 1964 period that I was reading their adventures, and the 1940s hero Dr Fate was one of their "Crisis" allies. But no one was really doing magicians as heroes in those formative Silver Age years.

Mandrake the Magician launched as a daily newspaper strip on 11 Jun 1934. A little less than four years later, Zatara made his debut in Action Comics 1 (Jun 1938). Then, 29 years after Mandrake's first appearance, Marvel published their own, very different magician Doctor Strange in Strange Tales 110 (Jul 1963).

The earliest template for comics magicians was King Features Syndicate's Mandrake, who starred in a hugely popular and successful newspaper strip beginning in the early 1930s and running right through to 2013. But we can trace the look and style of Mandrake's evening dress and top hat back even further to the famous stage magicians of Vaudeville like Howard Thurston, Harry Blackstone and, of course, Harry Houdini.

Harry Blackstone Sr was perhaps the most famous stage magician of the Vaudeville era, though his gentleman-in-evening-clothes style was probably modelled on Howard Thurston, who was active in the ten years before Blackstone began working. Leon Mandrake was the real-life counterpart of the comic strip Mandrake, who began performing under that name ten years before Lee Falk's strip began.

The variety theatre of Vaudeville was the staple entertainment for urban Americans from around 1860 to about 1910, when silent cinema began eating into its audiences. But the stars of Vaudeville rapidly became household names and were featured in all kinds of merchandising, including fictionalised adventures. And where there's success, there's imitators.

This Mandrake Sunday page features the gorgeous draftsmanship of Phil Davis, who drew the strip for thirty years. Two years after the first Mandrake Newspaper strip, King Comics began reprinting Sunday pages. In 1939, Columbia Pictures produced a serial version of the character, starring Warren Hull in the lead role ... without the trademark moustache.

Although there was already a stage performer working the Vaudeville circuit under the name of Mandrake the Magician, it has always been reported that Lee Falk's comic strip conjuror had the same name by coincidence. It's far more likely that Falk was using the far more famous Harry Blackstone as his template. When Falk realised there was a real-life Mandrake, he entered into an agreement with Leon Mandrake to cross-promote the strip and Leon's performances and the arrangement continued for years.

Zatara appeared in the first issue of Action Comics and continued for more than 140 issues. His series also ran in World's Finest and finished in 1951. Such was his popularity that he also merited two cover appearances in the early Action Comics. 

A couple of years after Mandrake's first appearance, the four-colour comic books took off. Hungry for content, comic book publishers would occasionally come up with startlingly original ideas for characters, but more often would just steal ideas from other creators. When Superman made his first appearance in Action Comics 1 (Jun 1938) one of the back-up features was Zatara, a tuxedoed magician who bore an uncanny resemblance to Mandrake. Where Mandrake "gestured hypnotically" to manifest his power over others, Zatara would use the gimmick of talking backwards ... "Ouy era won ni ym rewop!" However, both employed Eastern strongmen as their assistants - Mandrake had Lothar and Zatara had Tong.

Zatara's daughter Zatanna became something of a fan-favourite when she made her debut in Hawkman 4, in a story written by Gardner Fox and drawn my Murphy Anderson.

Zatara ran in Action Comics until issue 141 (Feb 1950) and in World's Finest from 1 (Spr 1941) to 51 (Apr-May 1951). The character then dropped out of sight and didn't appear again until the Silver Age, when we got to meet Zatara's daughter, Zatanna, in Hawkman 4 (Nov 1964).

Once comic books became the big money-maker of the late 1930s publishing industry, publishers were scrambling around to find material to fill their pages. Unsurprisingly, other companies began running their versions of the Vaudeville stage-magician-turned-crimefighter.

Ibis the Invincible was created by Bob Kingett. Born Amentep in ancient Egypt, Ibis arrives in the 20th century via suspended animation, waking up in a museum in the United States. Ibis appeared in every issue of Whiz Comics until the last 155 (Jun 1953).

Ibis the Invincible appeared in the first issue of Whiz Comics (issue 2, Feb 1940) and graduated to his own title in early 1943. Ibis also wore a tuxedo, but set it off with a jaunty turban, rather than a top hat. Ibis was actually a prince of ancient Egypt, who battles an evil magician, The Black Pharaoh, and comes off second best. Placing his love Taia and himself in a state of suspended animation, both wake up in the 20th Century and naturally elect to fight crime. With his magic Ibistick, Ibis wields the limitless occult power of dynastic Egypt - the bad guys don't have a chance. Ibis fought the forces of evil until 1953, when Fawcett Comics ceased publishing. The rights were acquired by DC Comics and the character was revived for one more adventure in 2007.

Doctor Fate first appeared in More Fun 55, written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Howard Sherman. His first cover appearance was in the following issue, More Fun 56 (Jun 1940). Readers had to wait a year until More Fun 67 (May 1941) for an origin story.

DC/National Comics gave us a second magician character when Dr Fate debuted in More Fun Comics 55 (May 1940). Fate was more the superhero type, with his blue leotard and golden full-face helmet, underlined by the fact that he was also a charter member of the Justice Society of America. 

Doctor Fate is in reality Kent Nelson. While on an archeological gig in the Valley of Ur with his father Sven, the Nelsons unwittingly revive the ancient sorcerer Nabu the Wise, but Sven is accidentally killed in the encounter. Nabu adopts Kent and teaches him the secrets of sorcery over the next twenty years. Returning to America, the grown-up Kent sets up his headquarters in a windowless doorless tower in Salem, Massachusetts and, with his love interest Inza, begins his war on crime. By the nature of his power, Doctor Fate is - along with The Spectre - one of the most powerful characters in the DC canon.

Doctor Fate's Salem tower made an appearance on the front cover of More Fun 61 (Nov 1940), then Fate himself took over the cover slot from The Spectre from More Fun 68 (Jun 1941) to 76 (Feb 1942), after which he lost out to Green Arrow.

His strip ran until More Fun 98 (Jul-Aug 1944), then character wasn't seen again for almost twenty years, when Fate was a guest-star - along with the rest of the Justice Society - in Justice League of America 21 (Aug 1963) and 22 (Sep 1963), in the classic "Crisis on Earth One/Two" storyline, which I covered in the previous entry of this blog.

The Steranko cover for the collection of Norgil pulp stories, written by Walter Gibson, better known as the "raconteur" of The Shadow.

Meanwhile, Street and Smith - publishers of The Shadow and Doc Savage pulps - had also entered the comics market and gave us a comic strip version of their own tuxedoed magician Norgil, in Shadow Comics 3 (May 1940) and 9 (Mar 1941), as well as in Doc Savage Comics 4 and 5 (May and Aug 1941). Like other comic book magicians, Norgil had a pretty assistant, Miriam. The comic strip version couldn't have been that popular, as he only made four comics appearances, but his pulp adventures had been well-received and ran in the Street and Smith pulp Crime Busters (and later Mystery Magazine) from November 1937 to November 1940.

Norgil's first comics appearance was in Shadow Comics 3, in an untitled story by an unknown writer and an unnamed artist ... pretty mysterious, eh?

The character had no supernatural powers and was a stage magician who solved crime, often involving a well-known stage illusion as a plot device. His pulp adventures were crafted by legendary Shadow writer Walter Gibson, himself a talented magician who also ghosted books for Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston.

Merlin the Magician ran in the first 45 issues of Quality's National Comics, initially written and drawn by Dan Zolnerowich under the pen-name "Lance Blackwood", but later by Fred Guardineer.

Over at Quality Comics, another conjuror in a tuxedo, Merlin the Magician, was featured in the first issue of National Comics (Jul 1940). This mystic mage acquired his powers when his eccentric uncle bestowed upon him the actual cloak of the legendary Merlin. This instantly gave Jock Kellogg all the powers of the Arthurian magician, which included teleportation, summoning of mythological creatures to do his bidding, astral projection, telekinesis, reality manipulation and the ability to bring anyone back to life. Often he would invoke his magic by pronouncing his spells backwards, probably because writer-artist Fred Guardineer was also responsible for DC's Zatara character. All of this he used to fight nazis. The biggest mystery was how the war managed to last another five years. Merlin ran in National Comics till issue 45 (Dec 1944).

Sargon the Sorcerer - the back-up feature that wouldn't die. Despite being a bit hokey and a bit bland, Sargon lasted the longest of the Golden Age magician heroes, almost eight years across three different DC titles.

A little late to the party - but enjoying a longer run than others - was yet another tuxedoed and turbanned mystic, DC's Sargon the Sorcerer. Sargon appeared in All-American 26 - 50 (May 1941 - Jun 1943), then in Comic Cavalcade 3 - 14 (Sum 1943- Apr-May 1946), having a short run in Sensation Comics 34 - 36 (Oct - Dec 1944), then permanently moving to Sensation with issue 52 (Apr 1946) and ending in 83 (Nov 1948). Using magic power derived from the mysterious "Ruby of Life" Sargon, aided by his comedy relief manager Max O'Leary, fought crooks, spies and his azure-skinned archenemy the Blue Lama, the Queen of Black Magic. Sargon would return in the Silver Age as a villain, but quickly reformed and was made an honorary member of the Justice League.

After the first issue, Super-Magic Comics changed its title to Super-Magician Comics and enjoyed a healthy six-year run, with the real-life Blackstone as the lead feature for the first five years.

After being impersonated by so many comic book magicians, Harry Blackstone himself became a comic character, starring in Street and Smith's Super-Magician Comics 1 - 46 (May 1941 to Feb 1946). The comic-book Blackstone had no supernatural powers, but instead used his knowledge of stage magic to uncover the schemes and machinations of the underworld.

Mark Merlin was created by Mort Meskin, a former member of the Simon and Kirby studio, and ran for six years from House of Secrets 23 to 73, initially scripted by Jack Miller, then by Arnold Drake and finally by Bob Haney.

The archetypal magician fell out of favour during the post-war years and it would take the Silver Age superhero revival to reboot the genre. The 1959 debut of Mark Merlin in DC's House of Secrets 23 (Aug 1959) was a little misleading, as the earliest adventures had the occult detective mostly fighting aliens and robots. Any supernatural menaces were usually dismissed as hoaxes by the end of the adventure. But in 1963, editor Jack Schiff was replaced by Murray Boltinoff. And Boltinoff replaced scripter Jack Miller with Arnold Drake and within a few issues, Mark Merlin was battling genuine occult menaces. Then in 1965, Mark Merlin was killed off, then reincarnated in House of Secrets 74 (Sep-Oct 1965) as Prince Ra-Man.

Bring on the bad guys - The only new magicians we'd see from DC during the early 1960s were villainous adversaries for our heroes to best. Felix Faust would take on the entire Justice League before being defeated. Future magician Abra-Kadabra would transform The Flash into a puppet before being returned to the 64th century to face a death sentence.

And that was it for a while. The stage magician in a tuxedo archetype pretty much went away after this, but for the revival of Zatara and his daughter Zatanna in Hawkman 4 (Nov 1964) - however I get the distinct impression that this was done a little tongue-in-cheek. It's difficult to take Zatanna's costume seriously, as much as I might like it. 

We did, however, see the Justice League battle a different style of ancient sorcerer Felix Faust in JLA 10 (Mar 1962), and in The Flash 128 (May 1962), the Scarlet Speedster had his hands full with future magician Abra-Kadabra, who used super-advanced science that resembled magic and wore a weird stylised future-tux. But we wouldn't see "real" magic in comics until the following year, when Steve Ditko came to our rescue.

The first Human Torch stories in Strange Tales were plotted by Stan, scripted by Larry Lieber and drawn by Jack Kirby. By Strange Tales 106, Kirby was off the book and inker Dick Ayers took over pencilling as well. With Strange Tales 108, Lee replaced Lieber with Robert Bernstein and brought Kirby back for two issues. With Strange Tales 110, Bernstein was out and Ernie Hart was in. Issues 112 and 113 had Jerry Siegel on scripting.

Marvel's Strange Tales had been running the solo adventures of The Fantastic Four's Human Torch from issue 101 (Oct 1962). I had the impression that Stan's heart wasn't really in it, as these early Torch tales had some strange differences compared to the Human Torch depicted in the FF comics. This Torch had a secret identity and lived in a small town in upstate New York. The FF Torch lived in the Baxter Building in Manhattan with the rest of the FF. I could be mistaken, but it seems as though starring the Human Torch in Strange Tales was an edict from Publisher Martin Goodman rather than an inspiration from Editor Stan Lee.

The Torch made his directionless way through Strange Tales for nine months before Stan Lee decided to try out another feature in the book. Steve Ditko had brought Stan a new character called Mister Strange, probably a bit corny for a character who was to appear in Strange Tales. Stan didn't seem awful keen, and was dismissive of the idea in a letter to Jerry Bails.

"We have a new character in the works for Strange Tales," Stan wrote on 9th Jan 1963. "Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. Sort of a black magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him—'twas Steve's idea, and I figgered we'd give it a chance, although again, we had to rush the first one too much. Little sidelight: Originally decided to call him MR. STRANGE, but thought the MR. a bit too similar to MR. FANTASTIC—- now, however, I just remember we had a villain called DR. STRANGE just recently in one of our mags—- hope it won't be too confusing! Oh well..."

Who is Dr Strange? Where did he come from? What sinister purpose does he have appearing unannounced in Strange Tales 110? Why does Stan hate him at first, then very quickly love him? Perhaps these questions will be answered in the next entry in this blog.

Dr Strange first appeared in Strange Tales 110 (Jul 1963) with little fanfare. There was no origin, no explanation of who this character was and how he fitted into the Marvel continuity. The character made another appearance in Strange Tales 111, then promptly disappeared, a pretty good trick, even for a comic book magician.

But Stan Lee was about to have an epiphany ... and that story - and the story of Dr Strange - will be told in the next edition of Marvel in the Silver Age.


Next: More Marvel, Magic and Strange Tales