Issue(s): Doctor Strange #70
Cover Date: Apr 85
Title: "Deadly exchange"
Credits:
Roger Stern - Writer
Bret Blevins - Penciler
Terry Austin - Inker
Pat Blevins - Assistant Editor
Carl Potts - Editor

Review/plot:
There was a scene in Doctor Strange #65 where he fended off an attack from a minor extra-dimensional wizard and his warlord boss. I thought it would be cool if that was the last we saw of the pair; just a day in the life of our dimension's Sorcerer Supreme. But it turns out that this issue is devoted to them.

We learn that the Warlord's name is Chaynn. His wizard Tymon has been teleporting Earth army equipment into their dimension (Kobar) to be analyzed and replicated. After the first few items are swapped out for awesome barbarian equivalents...

...the army sends a reluctant General to Dr. Strange to help with the investigation. The General's visit interrupts Strange's attempt to enter the Dark Dimension undetected.

The story turns out to be an anti-nuke issue. The most recent item stolen from Earth is a nuclear missile...

...and Dr. Strange uses his magic to show the Kobarians what would happen if it were actually detonated. The experience is enough to convince Chaynn that our dimension is crazy and that he wants nothing more to do with it.

It's a good story all the way through, but there's just the tiniest bit of a "awwww, this is a 'message' issue" at the end.

I shouldn't be too dismissive of the fact that Stern is taking issue with nuclear war. The lettercol for issue #73, which prints the reactions to this issue, has a letter from a PFC Jim Scribner:

Sure, believe what you want to believe. The Nuclear Peace Movement isn't being manipulated by the KGB. The USSR isn't a national socialist secret society plotting to rob and murder the rich Western nations. Given absolute power, the Kremlin wouldn't herd us into mass graves in a Gulag. No, we're just crazy paranoids.

There was no Stalin, no Cambodia, no Afghanistan, no KAL 007, no history contrary to Pravda. We can trust a nation that arrests people for speaking honestly. All we need to make the Earth a paradise is free love, marijuana, and unilateral disarmament by the evil warmongers in our fascist police state. Right on... believe what you want.

In any event, nice art by Bret Blevins (his wife Pat is assistant editor on this book, incidentally), especially on the crazy barbarian creatures.

Quality Rating: B+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Kobar and Tymon previously appeared in Doctor Strange #65.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A