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1964-07-01 00:03:10
Previous:
Amazing Spider-Man #14
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Main

1964 / Box 2 / Silver Age

Next:
Fantastic Four #28

Strange Tales #122 (Dr. Strange)

Issue(s): Strange Tales #122 (Dr. Strange story only)
Cover Date: Jul 64
Title: "The World Beyond"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Steve Ditko - Penciler
Steve Ditko - Inker

Review/plot: Dr. Strange asleep without reciting his protection incantations, and is trapped in the Dream dimension by Nightmare. Magically powerless, he defeats Nightmare using "the simplest of tricks" - hypnotism.

The plot is downright terrible but the art makes up for it.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - formative Dr. Strange/Nightmare story.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Giant Size Marvel Triple Action #1

Characters Appearing: Dr. Strange, Nightmare

Previous:
Amazing Spider-Man #14
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Main

1964 / Box 2 / Silver Age

Next:
Fantastic Four #28

Comments

Except for the ending this is a superb story that in my opinion pioneered the evolution and cosmology of early RPG games.

Posted by: Leves | January 26, 2015 10:03 PM

While Silver Age hypnotism is always a terrible plot device, this story does demonstrate how to make Dr. Strange work, something later writers forgot. Ditko's Strange is a guy with some powers and (more importantly) some *very* powerful artifacts, but the stories are much more about how Strange uses a set of loosely defined, but limited resources to take on much more powerful beings.

Take away all his magic powers, all his artifacts, and strand him an alien dimension, and he will still outwit the villain in the end. That* is what makes him Sorcerer Supreme. He's like a prototype of the Sylvester McCoy incarnation of the Doctor in some respects.

So many of Ditko's stories revolve around Strange doing clever stuff with his cloak of levitation or his power to cast illusions, and very few of them are about Strange turning back time itself or waving is hands and putting armies of villains to sleep or hurling cosmic energies with planet-shattering force. He's a trickster hero, not a cosmic god as so many later writers like to portray him.

Posted by: Omar Karindu | February 7, 2016 4:14 PM

Looking at this story in the Essential volume, I suspect George Roussos did more uncredited inks here.

Posted by: Mark Drummond | February 3, 2018 3:38 PM




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