Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #19, Marvel Comics Presents #20 (Dr. Strange story only)
Cover Date: May 89
Title: Nightmare in Suburbia: "Home is where the heart is" / "The flawed flesh"
Credits:
Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Mark Badger - Penciler
Mark Badger - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Fabian Nicieza teams up with Mark Badger, who had drawn some issues of Dr. Strange's regular series, for a rare two-parter in Marvel Comics Presents.

Dr. Strange is on the hunt of a minor demon, and the trail has taken him to the suburbs. It turns out an entire house has been possessed, but the housewife inside can't see it.

Her son, however, is a different matter.

Strange is able to exorcise the demonic forces from the son, but then daddy comes home from work.

The father, it's determined, willingly allowed the minor demon that Strange was chasing to corrupt himself and his household. So Strange has to battle the father.

After probing the mind of the wife for a bit, and making his own inspection, Dr. Strange decides that the soul of the husband is not redeemable, due to his "anger, greed, and petty insecurities", so he kills him.

Well, i guess the morally ambiguous Dr. Strange of the Peter Gillis run isn't altogether gone!

At least he leaves the wife with a memory of her husband from before things went bad.

Even at twice the length, i find these short Marvel Comics Presents stories to be too insubstantial to really have opinions about.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Dr. Strange does not have his eyepatch in this story. Of course with magic anything can be explained, and i'll be placing several appearances where Strange is wearing his eyepatch after he no longer needs it, but in the absence of any other evidence i'm placing this after Doctor Strange #5-9, when Strange gets his (or rather, Silver Dagger's) eye returned to him.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A