Issue(s): Doctor Strange #63
Cover Date: Feb 84
Title: "Cry of the spirit"
Credits:
Carl Potts - Writer
Carl Potts - Penciler
Carl Potts - Inker
Al Milgrom & Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue and next are fill-ins during Roger Stern's run. This issue is by the series' editor Carl Potts, and next issue is by Assistant Editor Ann Nocenti. Because Doctor Strange is a bi-monthly book, it skipped Assistant Editors' Month, but this issue does have Nocenti in the editor role, albeit with Al Milgrom apparently playing some sort of supervisory role. There are also a couple of AEM style sketches on the letters page.

The story is that Dr. Strange goes to see a performance by a master of Kiai-Jutsu. Kiai-Jutsu is the art of shouting (Kiai!) and that shout can put out a candle flame...

...or knock a guy down...

...or even cure a bloody nose.

It is, in short, ridiculous. But Dr. Strange is impressed.

The problem is that on the way to the show, Dr. Strange stopped a bunch of guys from beating up another guy (by taking away their clothes)...

...and it turns out the guy he saved was actually a rapist, and he later rapes and kills the Kiai-Jutsu guy's daughter. And then Strange has to stop the Kiai-Jutsu guy from killing the rapist. Which is harder than it should be.

I may be being a little hard on Kiai-Jutsu. This is obviously the magical Marvel universe Kiai-Jutsu, so why shouldn't it be able to work this way. Just seems hard to buy some guy that shouts a lot being a threat to Dr. Strange. Nice mystical art from Carl Potts, though.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A