“We have a new character in the works for Strange Adventures, just a five-page filler named Dr. Strange. Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. It has sort of a Black Magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him! Twas Steve’s idea..!” Stan Lee- Comics Reader Interview 1963
“When like minded bloggers come together to write on a singular topic on a singular day the blogosphere bends at their mercy….they are called Super-Blog Team Up. Their mission is to provide a “Magical”blogging experience to our readers and share the words from the edges of the blogging universe under one banner. Welcome to the mighty SBTU…for our older fans…welcome back!!”
Steve Ditko’s tale of a self-centered , materialistic Surgeon who is involved in a career ending car accident and reflects on a life takes to the Mountains of India to find himself. What he finds is the Ancient One who opens his eyes to the world the Mystic Arts making him into the eternal Earths defender from the evils of Black Magic!! Hence is born Dr. Strange! Strange was a classic product of the Marvel Method of making their Heroes “real” like normal people who happen to be living super heroic lives…The Doctor was no exception.
What made Strange different was that could exist in other world dimensions. Ditko was a master of developing unique settings for his characters. His creator set Steven Strange in a bizarre geometric weirdo worlds beyond description. Ditko took simple circles, triangles and squares, mix them with moons, smoke and floating eyeballs and you have the multiple mystic dimensions in the mind of Steve Ditko and it was like nothing ever seen on the printed page before.
Personally the character has always been a struggle for me. I loved the youthful energy in books like Spider-Man or the swagger of Millionaire Bruce Wayne and his many gadgets as Batman. Strange was always ..well..Strange to me. The middle-aged, moustached man in pajamas who was able to harness magic. He was not the Super Heroic looking enough for my 9-year-old mind. I always wondered what it would be like I drew a new Dr. Strange and what he would look like? I would do away with the pajamas and sash and by god he would be cool. Well others felt the same way I did. The Doctors title was in serious jeopardy of cancellation and the new creative team headed by master horror artist Gene Colon decided the good Doctor needed an update!
In Doctor Strange #177 Doc’s classic costume was replaced with a flashy skin-tight unitard some slick new boots and gloves! The most glaring change was that he was also masked!!?? Roy Thomas the famous Marvel scribe penned a reason for the change where Strange’s nemesis Asmodeushad literally taken the place of Steven Strange’s identity on Earth, while trapping the real Doctor in another dimension. The only escape, the Doctor needed to transform himself to free himself from his dimensional trap!
Colon did his best to make this work and actually did a fine job of switching the character out of his geometric Ditkonian dimensions to a more realistic looking alternate universe.though as with every major costume change it would eventually revert to his original garb in issue #183. I realized after reading these issues many years later that some characters are not cut from the typical mold and intended to stay that way!! So as much as I hated the baggy panted middle-aged magician look it is one of those iconic looks that simply defies age. So if you have never picked up a comic book in your life..or just a fan of the supernatural genre pick up some classic Strange books in the quarter bin and check out the big screen debut on Nov.4 2016!
SBTU Continuess Below…be sure to check em all out!!
LongBox Graveyard: Doctor Strange vs. Dracula
Between The Pages: The Wondrous Worlds of Doctor Strange
DC In The 80s: Magic edition: examining The Immortal Doctor Fate v1 (1985)
The Unspoken Decade:Nighttime Sunburn: Rise Of The Midnight Sons
Crapbox Son Of Chuthulu: The Makings of a Sorcerer Supreme: Optimism and Sacrifice
Chris Is On Infinite Earths Blog:Batman Visits the Sanctum Sanctorum
Coffee and Comics Blog:Review: Doctor Strange #84
The Daily Rios: Amalgam Dr Fate / Dr Strange
The Retroist: The OTHER Dr. Strange Film
The Super-Hero Satellite: You are here already!!
For a second there, I thought you were going to endorse the Blue Man costume!
The Englehart years were strong, but the best Strange stories are still the original Ditko run (thought I have enjoyed what I’ve read of Marvel’s latest reboot). Yeah, there’s no way around the fact that Strange looks like your dad in a flying bathrobe … but I’ve gotten used to it. Mostly. Maybe Dr. Fate can be convinced to give up his groovy helmet? THEN we’d be on to something!
That costume was not terrible..the non-descript mask sucked. Strange was not my favorite title of Marvels offerings but Ditko and Colon both pulled me in more times than I wanted. So magical!
No one told me we were doing a new edition of SBTU! I’m sorry I missed out. Hopefully next time.
In any case, nice piece on Doctor Strange. In my opinion Steve Ditko did some of the best work of his career on that series.
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I, too, never got into Doctor Strange because he didn’t look “super hero-ey” enough to my childish eyes. However, I’ve been reading some of Englehart’s Dr. Strange run recently and it’s actually quite good.
By the way, I’m not really a fan of Ditko’s art, but the picture you’ve got under the text: “Ditko took simple circles, triangles and squares, mix them with moons, smoke and floating eyeballs and you have the multiple mystic dimensions in the mind of Steve Ditko and it was like nothing ever seen on the printed page before.” is pretty amazing. Where did it come from?