Strange Tales #110:"Dr. Strange - Master of Black Magic"

Strange Tales #110 (July 1963) is Doctor Strange's first appearance in the Marvel Universe. The five-page back story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko gives us a hasty introduction into what Strange can do and gives us a small flavor of the types of stories readers would enjoy from '63 to today.

This Lee & Ditko story also has a very classic twist to its suspense, which was a staple in comics around this time. In fact when you read most of EC's horror and suspense comics from the 1950's that's pretty much the standard formula: someone bad does something grisly to someone good and then has the tables turned on them - usually worse than they what they did to begin with. Strange's Strange Tales adventures are similar; though not grisly or gory they do have a lot of tables being turned on the aggressor. That's been a classic staple in genre comics for many moons.


An unnamed man who cannot sleep due to terrible nightmares decides to seek out Dr. Strange because "he dabbles in black magic." This leads us to two important early factoids about Doc in the Marvel Universe:

• 1.) When he starts out he's still a student of the Ancient One and will not become the Sorcerer Supreme for a good while.


• 2.) The recurring use of 'Black Magic' as a description of what Doc does sticks with Doc for awhile in Strange Tales but eventually fades away to 'Mystic Arts.' In Doc's early stories it's gradually established that what he does isn't black magic itself per se but rather he knows how to combat black arts and how to take that power and turn it back or subvert it to other uses. But having him be 'Master of Black Magic' early on might give people the wrong impression of what he does. Thus the eventual change.

A humorous note here: the narration references the "cold, grey eyes" of Dr. Strange and how they "pierce the mist in the room like a knife." But through most of Ditko's Dr. Strange art he almost always looks like he's got his eyes closed. I always got the impression that they were toying with the idea of Doctor Strange being Asian and was perhaps being portrayed as some might have done back in the early 1960's. That or maybe Doc was a distant relative of Jughead from Archie Comics. It's odd how someone who will at one point be calling upon the powers of the 'All-Seeing Agamotto' barely cracks his eyelids open in his earliest stories.

Strange's servant and student Wong also makes his first appearance here, opening the door of Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum (in Greenwich Village) for the man seeking out Doc's help. Another item of interest here is that the front door's glass window at the Sanctum Sanctorum is the first time we see the protective symbol of the Vishanti. Most Marvel fans instantly recognize this as the large upper level window pattern in Dr. Strange's study.

Doc decides that the way to help the unnamed, nightmare-plagued man is to enter his dreams. Before he does so we see him fire up some *cough* "ancient incense" and go into a trance before his "metaphysical spirit" leaves his body and departs across the globe to discuss matters with his mentor, the Ancient One. This form of astral projection and rapid travel is a mainstay power for Strange. He does this throughout his adventures in the Marvel Universe from here on out. In these early stories Lee & Ditko kind of play loose with the ways this - and other - forms of magic work. But we can overlook that. They were establishing something and trying to get a feel for what worked and what didn't. That or constant deadlines had them making mistakes here and there. Probably a little of Column A and a little of Column B.

We see the Ancient One and his mountain keep for the first time here. The narration describes the Ancient One's home as "somewhere in the remote vastness of Asia." Later on when Lee & Ditko finally get around to Doc's origin story we're told this is India. What later becomes the generally accepted location is Tibet. The Ancient One also explains to Strange that he knows his days are "numbered." A reader might mistake this to mean the Ancient One's going to kick the bucket soon, but Strange's master actually survives for a good long time in the Marvel Universe before he 'ascends.' The Ancient One's brief appearance here is just exposition to show that Strange is still learning and that he's not the top dog of Marvel magic yet; this is further cemented at the conclusion of the story.

Doc has his client (I guess that's a word for it) fall asleep at his Sanctum Sanctorum so he can enter the man's dreams and confront whatever it is that torments him. Doc first meets a spectral apparition (describing itself as a 'symbol' of evil done by the client) that is representative of his client's guilt in relation to a 'Mr. Crang.' Strange is then ambushed by a denizen of the Dream Dimension by a spooky being called Nightmare. Doc exclaims that Nightmare is his "ancient foe" to give the reader a sense that these two have been at one another for awhile already.

So while Doc and Nightmare stand there posturing in classic hero vs villain style Strange's client wakes up from his dream, realizing that Doc now knows about 'Mr. Crang.' With Strange trapped in the Dream Dimension in 'metaphysical spirit' form facing off against Nightmare his client whips out a gun and decides he needs to plug Doc's defenseless body to make sure Doc can't rat him out for it. Nightmare taunts Strange as the they watch Doc about to be drilled by the man he had been trying to help. So Doc calls out for the one person who can help him at that point - his master and teacher, the Ancient One, who hears Doc's cry for help "across the limitless void of time and space." This sort of cosmic awareness and attunement quickly becomes a staple of magic and cosmic forces in the Marvel Universe.

From thousands miles away in 'Asia' (i.e. Tibet) the Ancient One remotes the golden amulet around Doc's solid yet defenseless neck. This is the first use of the first Eye of Agamotto, though it's not named as such here. Later we will discover that this amulet is what's referred to as "the Lesser Eye of Agomotto." The light from the Lesser Eye freezes the unnamed client in his tracks via (as Strange describes later) hypnotism. At the same moment Nightmare becomes distracted by the Ancient One saving Strange's body and that one moment allows Strange's spirit to escape the Dream Dimension and live on to thwart Nightmare again one day.


BEHOLD!
The first use of the Lesser Eye of Agamotto amulet in a Dr. Strange comic story!

With Doc now safe and back in his own body he is able to snatch his client's gun away and release him from the Eye's hypnotic spell. He convinces the man he'll never be able to escape his dreams (i.e. his own sense of guilt) until he comes clean and confesses his crimes. This is the same sort of thing that the Shadow used to do in his old radio shows but the villain would usually go nuts or die before they could ever confess anything to the cops.

So what's the final verdict on this issue? Well it feels a bit rushed. But that's because it's a five-page story that didn't allow for much more substance regarding the Ancient One, Nightmare or the Dream Dimension. This was basically Stan and Steve throwing something against a wall to see if it would stick as they tried to find new stories readers could latch onto. Doc's a character based on a really fun concept to begin with so he showed potential despite the rushed feel of the story. The fact that Doc escaped because Nightmare became 'distracted' is iffy. When people look for villainous heavies they usually expect someone who gives the hero a run for their money - not someone who could effectively be countered by the Three Stooges or, say, a ball of yarn. But Nightmare becomes a more valid threat later on, as you will see.

Lee & Ditko wouldn't get an idea of what sort of reception Doc's debut would be given by Marvel readers in time to figure out if they should keep doing Strange's stories or not, so we'll get Doc in one more Strange Tales story after this before a two issue hiatus in #112 and #113. Doc made his way back to Strange Tales, permanently, in issue #114 - which also introduced another recurring supporting character for Doc.

Next time we'll look at Strange Tales #111, which showcases Doc's first comics fight against one of his bigtime foes - Baron Mordo!

EDIT: I should've talked about the art in this issue. My comic biases land more on the side of story than art for the most part and I didn't think to talk about the art here. In my first post on this blog I talked about how my favorite comic hero was Spider-Man. You might naturally assume I love Ditko's Strange Tales Doctor Strange art. And you'd be right - I do love Ditko's work here. But I actually prefer Ditko's work on Strange Tales as opposed to his work on Spider-Man. I've never been able to get much into Ditko's Spider-Man art and felt his style was way more suited for the types of surreal stories he was doing for Strange in Strange Tales. Please don't take that the wrong way and think I'm disparaging Ditko's Spider-Man work. I'm not and I think it was quality stuff.