Issue(s): Strange Tales #110, Strange Tales #111 (Dr. Strange stories only)
Cover Date: Jul-Aug 63
Title: "Dr. Strange Master of Black Magic!" / "Face-to-face with the Magic of Baron Mordo!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Steve Ditko - Penciler

Review/plot: A man in New York City is having terrible nightmares and can not sleep. He's heard whispers of a Dr. Strange who dabbles in Black Magic, and he seeks him out.

Strange is already set up at his Greenwich Village townhouse, and he's taking walk-ins. The doctor agrees to help.

In preparation, he sends an astral projection to a hidden temple somewhere in the remote vastness of Asia to speak with his ancient teacher, who tells him to rely on his magic amulet if there's trouble.

Then Dr. Strange goes to the unnamed man who sought his help, and while the man sleeps with confidence, Dr. Strange enters his dream. He encounters a man that was ruined in business by the dreamer. Suddenly, a being on a horse arrives. It is Nightmare, Dr. Strange's ancient foe!

While Nightmare threatens Strange in the dream dimension, the dreamer wakes up intent on killing Strange because he knows the secret of his illegal business practices. In big trouble, Dr. Strange calls out for his master, and the Ancient One activates Strange's amulet, which freezes the dreaming man and allows Strange to escape Nightmare. The man agrees to confess his crimes since it is the only way he'll be able to sleep again.

It's kind of interesting seeing a Dr. Strange that is not all-powerful. He's helping out ordinary folks (even if they turn out to be murderous crooks) and calling out for help when needed. My reprint of this is in b&w, and i've included some scans from that to show the linework, in additions to scans from a digital color copy. Ditko's artwork is pretty cool. Strange himself is particularly well drawn - he looks very sophisticated and exotic.

Presumably the character who lets the criminal dreamer into Strange's house is Wong, but he has not yet been identified.

In the second story, Dr. Strange fights Baron Mordo on the Astral Plane.

Both are former students of the Ancient One (who has so far only been referred to as the Master), but Mordo wants to kill his former teacher to gain power. They fight, physically punching each other with their spirit forms.

Once again, Dr. Strange's ace in the hole is his amulet, which he first uses to protect the Master, and then to trick Mordo into returning to his physical body. As an Astral fist-fight between two wizards, this story isn't quite as good as the first.

In #111, we see the Ancient One's manservant, the minor character Hamir, Wong's father.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 8 - First published Dr. Strange, Nightmare, Baron Mordo, Ancient One.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Fitting in some Dr. Strange appearances before Marvel: The Lost Generation

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Doctor Strange vol. 1

Dr. Strange actually walks around with his eyes closed during both stories. No fooling!

Actually my take is that Ditko drew Strange as Asian in the first 6-7 issues. It's not just that Strange's eyes are "closed" but that he seems to have an epicanthic fold. The idea of having a "master of black magic" who is also a mysterious Oriental is kind of offensive, but mainly I think having a major protagonist who is non-white was pretty cool at a time when Marvel didn't even acknowledge that black people existed.

I know people were talking about this in one of the other sections but just checking here and it does confirm that when Stephen was introduced, he was the "master of black magic", which probably explains why he could summon the likes of "the dread Dormamu" early on. In a way it sort of makes sense: with the element of the "evil or misunderstood" being so prominent in the early Marvel books (monster heroes, teenagers sticking it to authority) that having a master of "black arts" would be right up that ally. Yeah they get away from the black arts and just make him the "master of mystic arts" later, but the intent sort of just works with what the universe was really trying to push at this point in trying to have these heroes that aren't as clean cut as the competition, even in what magic they choose to master and control.

I don't think Stan and Steve even gave it *that* much thought. They're well-versed in pulp fiction, with all its demons and sorcerers, so it was the easiest thing in the world to create a possible new hero - "possible" because he wouldn't reappear for months - and call him "Master of Black Magic." Once they start bringing him back regularly, it dawns on Lee or Ditko that black magic is kind of a bad thing, and not something a hero should really be using.

But by then they've had Doc referencing Dormammu, Agamotto, Hoggoth, Cytorrak, etc. most of whom would go on to appear as characters.

Within twenty years, Marvel writers would be dabbling in the occult themselves, and twenty years after that, the comics field has self-declared magicians in the forms of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Still think comics are harmless, kids?

Yeah it probably was of the era but it just had a great "ominousness" to say that Strange dabbled in "black arts", that he used mystical elements that aren't just beyond human comprehension but that end up showing the same danger that they likewise had with characters like the monsters (Thing, Hulk) or the "misunderstood heroes fighting for them" (Spider-Man, X-Men). It really just sort of gave across this idea of the dangerous elements that are heroes in this universe for this time period.

Actually my take is that Ditko drew Strange as Asian in the first 6-7 issues. It's not just that Strange's eyes are "closed" but that he seems to have an epicanthic fold. The idea of having a "master of black magic" who is also a mysterious Oriental is kind of offensive, but mainly I think having a major protagonist who is non-white was pretty cool at a time when Marvel didn't even acknowledge that black people existed.

The Doctor Strange prototype character Dre. Droom (Druid) took this Orientalism even even further; he literally "turns Asian" when given his powers.

My opinion is now and has always been that Dr. Strange was more grounded in Eastern mysticism than anything and was never originally intended to be about the black arts or witchcraft.

The early Ditko/Lee Dr. Strange stories seem to show a strong influence by the award-winning 1937 Frank Capra black-and-white movie Lost Horizon in which a mustached Western character played by Ronald Colman finds himself stranded in the isolated fictional Himalayan city of Shangri-La. Sam Jaffe plays a character called the High Lama who has some strong similarities to Ditko's Ancient One character. In at least one scene Ronald Colman's character wears an Eastern styled shirt or tunic which makes his resemblance to the much later Dr. Strange character seem more than coincidental.

I saw the movie several times in television reruns growing up, and later came to learn that a lot of other people had noticed the same similarities. Twenty years ago I might have been able to provide more information and references, such as Comics Journal and fanzine articles and interviews, but I no longer have them and my memories have grown stale. A quick internet search right now doesn't provide much but here are a few interesting links I was able to find...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Horizon_(1937_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La

http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/23697/Lost-Horizon-1937?page=2#.V47DH9YoDtQ

http://strangecasebook.blogspot.com/

I'd highly recommend this movie to anyone but especially to Dr. Strange fans.

Ronald Colman ~=? Dr. Strange?

Sam Jaffe ~=? The Ancient One?

To expand on James Holt's perceptive comment: The novel that preceded the film, by James Hilton, had the distinction of being the very first "mass market paperback." As such it was one of the most widely-read novels of its day, influencing all sorts of cultural productions. Ditko would hardly have been alone in drawing inspiration from it; Jack Kirby's Inhumans, sequestered from the world in their Himalayan retreat Attilan, owe a debt to the immortal residents of Shangri-La. Likewise young Victor Von Doom's trek into (and out of) the frozen wastes is a dark reflection of "Lost Horizon."

James is also right that the Capra film is great and really worth watching, for fans of Dr. Strange and comics in general.

I've been perusing Steve Ditko fansites recently, and one of them says that Ditko brought the first story in plotted and pencilled with no previous discussion with Stan Lee. Whether this is true or not, the first story really does look like Ditko came up with almost everything and Stan just added a polish to the script.

It does seem likely that it was Ditko and not Lee who was the primary creative force in conceiving Doctor Strange. As I've observed elsewhere, I'm sure that all of the Marvel guys from the early 1960s would have kept detailed notes about their creative processes if they'd had even the slightest inkling that these characters would still be around half a century later and appearing in multi-million dollar movies.

[quote]
In The Comic Reader #16 (Feb. 23, 1963), a letter by Stan Lee was published, where he wrote: "Well, we have a new character in the works for Strange Tales, just a 5-page filler named Dr. Strange. Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. It has sort of a black magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him. 'Twas Steve's idea. I figured we'd give it a chance, although again, we had to rush the first one too much. [/quote]

Ref: DitkoFAQ

I like the way you didn't quote Ditko's recent comments from that very page. No mockery here, Stan's words have been available for decades, but Ditko's haven't, and I'm very impressed at how you quoted Stan's vague line but did not quote Ditko's more explicit statement. I actually thought you got Stan's quote from some other site and looked it up just so I could quote Ditko, and then realized it was from the same page you linked to, and you showed respect by not stealing his work [which I was totally willing to do.]

This is why I'm a Steve Ditko fan, people!!! I am totally willing to steal/quote Ditko's work, and I will be stopped because someone else sets a better example, an example set by Ditko himself.

You don't steal Ditko's work. You don't steal his words. He did what he did and we all benefit from that. I'm a lower-class person who will steal from my betters thanks to the internet, and - seriously - I thank you for setting a good example, while leaving the link there for anyone else to look up.

Ditko created Dr. Strange. The link is right there to look it up. Stan says "'Twas Steve's idea." That's all the proof I need, and a reminder of Ditko's principles. Thanks, James.

YW ChrisW. I'm a Ditko fan too but I'm also a bit of a Lee fan in spite of my frequent and numerous criticisms. Anybody in Lee's position would have been a target of much criticism. It's in the nature of his job.

Lee did more than anyone to put creator credits on splash pages of comics. We take this convention for granted now but prior to Lee's innovations almost nobody was doing it. Sure this was partly to highlight his own name in the credits, but he had similar concerns to those of his artists regarding to his own credits and remunerations. He was more even-handed in sharing than his predecessors.

Ditko and Kirby did some of their best work for Marvel, and spent many of their best ideas on Marvel. Creative people often have a big burst of ideas at some point, but then slow down as they start to run out of ideas. Nobody has an unlimited source of new ideas. It's understandable, given the nature of the comics industry, that at some point artists would look back and see that they had received disproportionate shares of the money that was generated by their ideas and become frustrated.

Let me just add that I think Ditko also deserves the lion's share of credit for Spider-Man's success. Several spider-themed characters had preceded him and been much less successful. Lee had some different ideas for Spider-Man stories which contributed greatly to Spidey's success, but I don't think Spidey would have ever made such a big hit without Ditko's novel approach and artistic polish.

Interesting to place this story before FF # 1. One of the things I like about this site is the attempt to chronologically place ALL Marvel stories. I frequently consult the MCP but that only has character-by-character breakdowns.

Doc Strange has always been one of my favorite characters.

Unlike some of the very early Silver Age stories, which have varying degrees of silliness, I think most of these early Dr. Strange stories hold up quite well even on 'modern' reading. Just saying; I'm a huge fan of the Silver Age in general despite the frequent silliness.

Now that I've read the rationale for placing Strange Tales # 115 (Dr. Strange story) before the FF, I think I see the rationale for placing this story pre-FF, but I think these issues (# 110-111) as well as # 114 were probably 'intended' to occur some time after FF # 1. After all, ST 115 was a flashback story that presumably took place 'years ago' whereas there's no real indication that this story occurred any earlier than its rough release date (1963/07-08), which would have been the same time that FF # 16-17 occurred. Unless there's something I'm missing.

If you haven't seen it, see the line i quote from Roger Stern on the Lost Generation entry. Beyond that i think it's open to interpretation/preference.

Hmm, saw the Roger Stern note that the Dr. Strange "Strange Tales" stories up through # 122 may have preceded FF # 1. Interesting. Not sure I agree without seeing his reasoning, but I do respect Rog's care for continuity, as seen in many of his runs (but particularly in his Avengers run, # 227-285), so I'm sure he did have some basis for saying that. I haven't yet read the Lost Generation story (but do have the back issues) but I probably should sooner rather than later.