Issue(s): Doctor Strange #76
Cover Date: Apr 86
Title: "What song the sirens sang!"
Credits:
Peter Gillis - Writer
Mark Badger - Breakdowns
Chris Warner - Finishes
Randy Emberlin - Inker
Carl Potts - Editor

Review/plot:
Note there's both a finisher and an inker on this issue. Chris Warner, eventual creator of Barb Wire, becomes the regular and full penciler beginning next issue.

Towards the beginning of this issue, there's a little more examining the resurrection of the soulless Topaz...

...but the majority of the issue is dealing with a former colleague of Doctor Strange from his medical doctor days. The doctor has been feeling like all of the joy and luster has been drained out of his life due to his career and marriage, and so he's taken to the occult. Strange is brought in by the doctor's wife.

The doctor is under the thrall of a medusa-like demon (except with leeches instead of snakes for hair) that is seducing him so that she can gain access to our world.

Doctor Strange stops her but in doing so he makes his former friend distraught. His life was so miserable that he would have preferred to have his soul sucked by a demon than go back to his regular routine.

So when Strange returns home, he learns from the doctor's wife that he has committed suicide.

Perfectly reasonable Doctor Strange story and some nice art by the combined team...

...but i do feel that the book has lost some of its star artist power along with the switch from Roger Stern to Peter Gillis.

Strange mentions morlocks while he's searching for the doctor...

...but i'm not sure if he really means the mutant society or if he's referring to mystical morlocks. It's funny to think of the Marvel universe as really being divided into these levels. One level down, the Morlocks. Level two, the Sons of Satannish. Then the lair of Sigmar the Eternal (Gillis is writing the Eternals series at this point). Then the Mole Man, Tyrannus, and Kala's kingdoms. Then the Lava People. Then...

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: As Michael notes in the Comments, based on Doctor Strange's state of mind at the beginning of next issue, Strange shouldn't have other appearances between issues. And next issue begins a series of events that leaves Strange without his cloak and then other items for a while, so any Dr. Strange guest appearances that don't acknowledge that status, notably Vision & the Scarlet Witch #12, should take place before this issue.

References:

• Topaz's origin was shown in Werewolf By Night #13-14.
  
• She was dragged down to Hades in Tomb of Dracula #62-64.
  
• The lair of Sigmar the Eternals was shown in Eternals #3.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Dr. Strange 77-81 have to take place after Vision and the Scarlet Witch 12 because Strange's cloak is damaged in Dr. Strange 77 and not repaired until Doctor Strange 80, and the story is continued into Dr. Strange 81, where Strange's talismans are all destroyed. Vision and the Scarlet Witch 12 probably doesn't take place between Dr. Strange 76 and 77 because Strange is still very depressed in issue 77 from his friend's suicide.