Issue(s): Doctor Strange #45
Cover Date: Feb 81
Title: "Wizard of the West Village"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Frank Giacoia, Dan Green, Al Milgrom, Tom Palmer, Wendy Pini, Josef Rubinstein, Walt Simonson, & Bob Wiacek - Inker

Review/plot:
Lots of inkers! The issue's credits just say "D. Hands". The real credits are from UHMCC. It's unusual to see Wendi Pini, of Elfquest fame, on a Marvel book, even if it was uncredited and just a few rushed pages of inks.

A Daily Globe reporter has written an article on Dr. Strange, the Wizard of the West Village. Strange shows up at their offices to complain but they tell him there's nothing he can do about it.

A reporter even follows Strange back to his house and sneaks inside. Unfortunately for him, that's when Claremont's pet N'Garai demons decide to attack, coming out of a Sa'arpool in his basement.

This is Claremont's last issue.

This book and all others this month advertise the beginning of Roger Stern and Frank Miller's run starting next issue, but unfortunately Frank Miler doesn't actually come aboard.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Daily Globe was shut down in Amazing Spider-Man #210. Leading up to that the paper was becoming more and more sensationalistic, which fits with this story. But in order to place this prior to the Globe's shut-down, it has to go relatively far backwards in the previous year. Part of the problem here is that Dr. Strange was bi-monthly, so Claremont probably had these issues plotted out months earlier than the Spider-Man story and this detail got missed when it was getting ready for publication (the story could have easily been changed to use any random trashy paper; none of the Globe characters from Spider-Man are used). Anyway, luckily, this also fits in a gap in Dr. Strange's Defenders chronology.

References:

• Dr. Strange uses the Silver Dagger's silver dagger, from Dr. Strange #1-5, to fend of the N'Garai demon.
  
• The N'Garai attack via a Sa'arpool, which is a portal to their dimension. There's no footnote but we've seen Sa'arpools before in Giant-Size Dracula #2 and Marvel Team-Up #79 (both of which are Claremont comics).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This is probably Wendy Pini's only Marvel work(excluding Epic), but she did do a few non-Elfquest things for DC a few years later.

Wow, I find that last panel completely creepy and not at all sexy or romantic.

Roger Stern has said in interviews that he always found the idea of Strange being Clea's lover and master at the same time kind of creepy.

Gene Colan was clearly stuck in his Dracula mode. I had to keep looking at the description and remind myself in that first panel that I was looking at Dr. Strange and not Dracula.

Gotta admit, Doc looks pretty dapper in that first scan, like he received access to Tony Stark's tailor and hairdresser.