Alternate Favorite Marvel Character #5 - Dr. Strange

Character: Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange)

Creator: Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, mostly Ditko, I think.

First appearance: Strange Tales #110

First encounter: Dr. Strange (vol. 2) #75. Roger Stern's last issue, but it was the first part of the final storyarc of this volume, the remainder of which was written by Peter Gillis.

Definitive writer: Roger Stern is the writer for probably half the Dr. Strange solo stories I own, so I'm going to say him. I haven't mentioned this since the first of these, years ago, but this is" definitive" based on what I've read. Whose work, writer or artist, do I picture when I think of the character? I'm adding that disclaimer because I'm worried about the passionate Doc Strange fandom descending upon my head like angry seagulls after a hamburger.

Definitive artist: Steve Leialola when it comes to the astral form, basically because of that fight with Dracula. For his physical form, I'm fond of Marcos Martin. I picture Strange as a thin guy, which Martin does, and he makes the Cloak of Levitation this huge, billowing, fluttering thing. If I'd reread my Into the Dark Dimension trade more recently, Paul Smith would probably be in the running. But it's hard to go wrong with Marcos Martin.

Favorite moment or story: Dr. Strange's first showdown with Dracula, he overcame being turned into a vampire himself, and thought he'd destroyed Drac (he was hoodwinked). In the rematch Drac had used the followers of the Darkhold to increase his power and eliminate most of his weaknesses, like silver, or stakes to the heart. Strange could use the Darkhold to destroy Dracula, and all other vampires, but he'd need time. And the quartet of Wong, Blade, Hannibal King and Frank Drake bought him barely a minute.

But Strange uses himself as bait, and sucks Dracula into the astral plane, where the Doc can call on powers the King of the Vampires can barely understand. He keeps him occupied there while the others regain consciousness and initiate the ritual. By the time Dracula realizes something's wrong, it's too late. He's trapped, weakening, and Dr. Strange, in the words of Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters, he has the tools, he has the talent, to destroy Dracula.

Dr. Strange is clever, confident, and competent. He and the others got the Darkhold away from Dracula's followers, because it had that spell. Dracula knows it has that spell, and knows Strange has the chops to use it. So he has to eliminate the threat. Strange knows Dracula will have to walk into the lion's den, and he'll focus entirely on the Sorcerer Supreme, dismissing the potential threat of the others, leaving them free to close the trap, while Strange puts the battle on a ground he's expert on, but which Dracula has no experience with. For all his power, the shapeshifting, the mesmerism, Dracula is still primarily a physical being. Doc can play on levels largely divorced from that.

Even though the Darkhold can destroy those who use it, Strange has the experience, and the awareness of the risks, the patience and the confidence, to do the necessary prepwork, and resist that danger. He even uses his medical skills to save Hannibal King, who was a vampire that had never fed on anyone. It's an impressive win on all levels, even if it was a closer call than Dracula ever realized.

What I like about him: I was a latecomer to Dr. Strange. I had a few of his comics when I was a kid, but nothing that knocked my socks off. My first extended exposure was the Kurt Busiek/Erik Larsen Defenders series. Where Doc was being influenced by a death curse and steadily becoming more and more of an ass, until he and the rest of the Big Four took over the world. The overall concept of the team was intriguing enough for me to pick up some of the Essential Defenders volumes, and Strange comes off a bit better there.

He can still be overbearing at times, a bit of a know-it-all. If he asks Namor for help via astral communication, and Namor tells him to pound sand, the Doc may fly out to ask more directly, or just mystically summon Namor to where he's deemed needed.

But even though Stephen is the nominal leader of the team (when he's around), he avoids falling into the stuffy, irritating authority figure role (unlike Cyclops, for example). Part of that is the informal nature of the Defenders. The Defenders don't do training sessions, they rarely sit around conference tables or play baseball. People drift in and out as they please, mostly. Strange or one of the others may call someone back in, but there's no sense he tries to impose a formal roster or bylaws.

The series also makes it clear that even if Strange can be a little heavy-handed, he's dealing with some volatile personalities. Namor's an arrogant hothead, the Hulk is a bomb with a hair trigger. Hellcat is kind of flighty, Nighthawk has all sorts of insecurities, Valkyrie doesn't know who the hell she is. Hawkeye gets involved for a while, which always makes things interesting, plus Hank Pym and his issues, or Daimon Hellstrom. These people keep showing up on his doorstep. For help, to help, for lack of anywhere better to go.

I'd move the entire house into another dimension. Strange, for the most part, accommodates them, tries to help if he can. When Nighthawk is struggling with his grasp of reality, after time spent as a disembodied brain in a bowl, Doc is the one who tries to help him regain his grip on things. He offers Val a place she can live while she tries to figure out what she's doing. If Bruce Banner shows up exhausted and confused on his door? Sure, bring him in, get him some rest and some clothes.

Doctor Strange was, as a surgeon, a jerk. Cocky, egotistical, totally self-interested. He was brilliant and in demand, and he knew it, so he leveraged it for all he was worth. Then he spent time on the bottom, a derelict roaming wharves until he heard about the Ancient One. He knows what it's like to feel like nothing, and to know other people look at you and see that, or don't see you at all. He knows how much it helped that the Ancient One saw someone to help, and did, in his own way. Stephen seems to pay that forward now. There's still the ego, but it's more in his belief of how much he can do, rather than how much he'd charge to do it.

I appreciate that he can be as skilled as he is, have as much responsibility as he does, and not lose the ability for compassion. When he's required to do a favor for Dr. Doom, because Doom was the only other entrant to survive a mystical test, Strange understandably has misgivings. What if Doom wants help taking over the world? Fortunately, Doom just wants help rescuing his mother's soul from Mephisto. More challenging, less ethically questionable.

And Strange goes all in. He teaches Doom all manner of spellcraft, even knowing Doom may turn it against the world, or Reed Richards some day, because Doom will need it to succeed in this quest. Hell, in the past, Doom had teamed up with Dormammu to attack Strange. It's a risk, but Strange is a man of his word. If he says he'll help Dr. Doom, then he's going to do it properly (because even if this a career he never envisioned having, he takes it seriously). Surviving Mephisto is going to be hard enough as it is, trying to half-ass it would be suicide. Once it's over, Strange even tries to help Doom, who he knows must be injured. Doom brushes this off obviously, because he's Dr. Doom, but Strange could have just left. "I helped, you're welcome, I'll see myself out."

Related to this, something that comes up a lot in Dr. Strange stories is the immediate problem versus future problems. Stephen can help save one person, or stop one threat, but it may have consequences down the line. Helping Doom, at the cost of increasing Doom's mystic skill and giving him another potential weapon. Or being forced to choose between using the last drop of a panacea to save Wong, or take it to his Sanctum and create enough to cure all illness everywhere, while Wong dies. Or resorting to destroying almost all of his ancient tools to stop a ruthless, would-be Sorcerer Supreme. That last one saved himself, Wong, and Topaz (whose soul they'd been seeking), but cost Strange many of the tools that helped him do his job. In the long run, I don't know that it was the right call. Strange is resourceful, maybe he can skate by without them the next time Umar or Shuma-Gorath come calling. Or maybe he's doomed everyone by focusing on saving a few people.

Still, Strange tends to choose to deal with the person or persons in danger right now, and leave worrying about the future to the future. Part of that is probably related to his medical training; there's a sick or injured person in front of him who needs help, he can't spend too much time thinking about if another person is going to need him in 15 minutes. Some of it is his self-confidence, that he can handle most problems. And it's being aware that he has to handle those problems, ready or not. He's Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts, possessor of an eyeball for a medallion and a bitchin' cloak. If Baron Mordo is working with Dormammu to conquer this dimension, it's Strange's job to stop it. Whether he's able to or not, he has to at least try, because there's no one else. It's not a job title held jointly. He knows all of that, and just like he knows that problems can arise at any time. He'll take what precautions he can, but at some point, you can't do any more of that, and there's no sense just waiting around for problems to emerge.

And Stephen uses that time to maintain connections with friends, and try to have a relationship now and then. He may not see his friends often - I feel as though every story I've seen where Stephen meets and old friend, someone remarks it's been years since they've seen each other - but those people still have warm feelings towards him. They trust him enough to ask for help, or to chat pleasantly if they just happen to interact. Which is impressive, since I wouldn't think Stephen was that much fun to be around in his Jerk Surgeon days. (Although I wonder if, after leaving the Ancient One, Stephen didn't spend some time trying to make amends to people he'd hurt, or whose friendship he felt he'd abused). It's good to see him maintain connections, not just so he remembers what he's trying to defend as Sorcerer Supreme in something other than the abstract. He doesn't let the job consume him, he tries to maintain a foot in the world. It also shows that, even with all his new experiences, that person he was before is still a part of him, for good and bad.

Beyond all that, Strange's stories offer up the chance to see some truly bizarre places. He's a character that lets writers get as weird as they want to, gives artist a chance to draw anything. Bizarre creatures, realms of abstract shapes and lights, ancient cities with towering spires, Hell itself. Whatever can be conceived. Which is nice, it allows for a lot of flexibility. Steve Ditko can think of and illustrate it one way, Gene Colan another, Marcos Martin or Mike Mignola another still, and it all can still feel like adventures that fit Dr. Strange.

All those experiences give Strange a somewhat more grounded outlook. He doesn't typically freak out, or fly off the handle at bad news or a surprising turn of event. He's been through too much. He doesn't dismiss the problems, but he maintains perspective. The entire planet has been destroyed and recreated, and he's the only one who knows it. He's fought gods, demons, saved the life of the manifestation of the universe itself. He spent we don't know how long fighting in a war on behalf of the Vishanti in some dimension who knows where. Really, if there's a character in the Marvel Universe that shouldn't have been overwhelmed being exposed to Adam Warlock's soul, as Strange was in Infinity Gauntlet, it's Strange himself. But Jim Starlin was writing it, so you know how that goes. Everyone jobs to Adam Warlock and/or Thanos. I digress.

He's been turned into a vampire, been split into three different Stephen Stranges. Screwed up badly, several times (with increasing frequency in the last 15 years), and managed to bounce back from most of them. It's a little surprising how utterly he's lost confidence in himself over the recent years. I suppose you could explain it because many of his mistakes were made of arrogance or making a hasty decision. Trick the Hulk into space, no possibility it backfires. Try to control Zom to defeat the Hulk when it backfires. Let the Empirikrul wipe out a lot of the magic on Earth. If he had thought himself ready for those threats, or the consequences of his actions, he appears to have been wrong. Stephen thought he was past those kinds of mistakes, that he'd learned better. Maybe he feels like he's back at Square One. And being back at Square One, he's repeating old mistakes. When he had his accident, when the nerves in his hands were damaged, so he could never operate again, he fell apart. He couldn't accept that he wasn't going to be the wonder he once was. That he couldn't succeed in precisely the way he wanted. Maybe that's happening again.

I don't know if I buy that explanation, though. Strange has seen a lot, not just how small one human can be in the cosmic sense, but also how that one person can still affect the lives of many others simply by not refusing to give up. That's what he told Spider-Man once, that saving a life was a gift, that Spidey had received a lot of those gifts, and and to quit would erase all that (there was time travel involved). You'd think the doctor would take his own advice. But it's a possible explanation, and someone struggling to move past their mistakes, opting to dwell and wallow in them is a familiar state to me. But he bounces back eventually, hopefully a little wiser for it, and that's encouraging.

A bit about the costume. I love the Cloak of Levitation, obviously. More so when it's drawn as a huge thing, rather than something shorter. It isn't quite like Batman's cape, where it turns him into an enormous, shadowy thing. It's bright, attention grabbing, and it twists and flutters around Strange, like he's creating some sort of wind that only it can ride on (not a fart joke). I can buy the Cloak changing size depending on Stephen's mood or desired effect, or the Cloak's own thoughts on the matter.

I like the orange gloves, especially with the odd black spots on them. The first time I noticed those was in an Acts of Vengeance tie-in (when the Enchantress was gunning for Strange), and I thought it was actually blood. I was reading a back-up story of Stephen relating the history of the Darkhold and vampires, which is probably why. Heck, maybe the spots are blood, the gloves consecrated with drops of some eldritch deity's blood, or where something a past Sorcerer Supreme killed, but it left it's mark. Either way, it's a nice touch (which not all artists and colorists bother with).

Most of the artists use to draw Strange wearing leggins, or maybe tights, and then his shirt (or is it a tunic), with the belt over the outside of said shirt/tunic. Which just looks sloppy. Even I don't wear the shirt over the top of pants, and then put a belt over the whole thing. Stephen Strange should not be worse dressed than me. I preferred Marcos Martin's approach (although he doesn't draw the spots on the gloves), where Strange's wears regular old slacks, with a belt, and then the nice shirt goes over all that. Kind of business casual. Has the clothes of his office, but can move around and kick a guy in the stomach if he needs to. Decent, practical shoes for walking in. Can't always count on floating or teleporting.

There's a lot of other little touches writers have added over the years, things I just enjoy being part of the character. Brian K. Vaughn had it that Wong taught Stephen martial arts (and it has been a fairly consistent trait of Stephen's that he can surprise foes by taking a more physical approach with them, going all the way back to Steve Dtiko's work), and that Strange can be a bit absent-minded about where he puts things or where he's going. For the latter, I'd suspect Strange enjoys wandering some, both in our world and other planes, because it's interesting and there's so much to see. He has the opportunity few others would, and the awareness of the dangers necessary to take precautions, so why not. Paul Jenkins added that Stephen watches poker on ESPN, and is terrible at poker, because he thinks watching on ESPN is a good way to learn. Mark Waid kind of ran with that, in that he had a demon state Strange is a legendarily terrible bluffer (also that's he an obnoxious baseball fan).

It seems odd Strange would be so bad at bluffing, considering how often he confronts beings far more powerful than himself. I could see it being that many of the things he faces don't have, well, faces. So they don't know how to read a person's expression, they look elsewhere. So Dr. Strange learned to mask his thoughts and soul, so his true intentions can't be discerned that way. Against a demon, one used to messing with humans and understanding them, he's a bit more exposed. Or he has to be open because deceiving others could lead to deceiving himself, and that's dangerous for one using magic. Makes them blind to the dangers within. Take your pick. Didn't seem to be a problem the Ancient One had, but he's had more time to practice.

In summation, cool powers, some cool costume elements, the potential for the story to be anywhere and let artists stretch themselves however they'd like. Doctor Strange is mostly presently as an experienced, confident character, capable, but still with room to grow. He's not flustered easily, and he's had enough time to come to grips with his flaws and mistakes to where new mistakes don't stop trip him up as easily as they used to. Maybe liking Doctor Strange more is because I'm getting older, and I want to think I'm getting my shit together as it happens.

Credits! Dr. Strange introduces Dracula to a whole new world, and Dracula doesn't like it a bit in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #62, by Roger Stern (writer), Steve Leialoha (artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer). Stephen Strange can't hide anything from anyone in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #58, by Stern (writer), Dan Green (penciler), Terry Austin (inker), Sharen (colorist), and Novak (letterer). Reality won't let the doc maintain a fantasy in Doctor Strange: The Oath #1, by Brian K. Vaughn (writer), Marcos Martin (penciler), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), and Willie Schubert (letterer). Inhabiting the body of a green, alien minotaur is the least stressful part of Doc's day in Doctor Strange (vol. 2) #81, by Peter B. Gillis (writer), Chris Warner (penciler), Randy Emberlin (inker), Sharen (colorist), and Many Hands (letterers). Way to kill the party vibe, Stephen, in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #21, by Paul Jenkins (writer), Talent Caldwell (penciler), Robert Campanella (inker), Studio F (color art), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer). It would almost be worth going to Hell for a front row seat to that fight in Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, by Stern (writer), Mike Mignola (penciler), Mark Badger (inker/colorist), and Jim Novak (letterer). Doc brings the pain train, whoo-whoo in Doctor Strange: The Oath #5, by Vaughn (writer), Martin (penciler), Lopez (inker), Rodriguez (colorist), and Schubert (letterer).