Of all the books which reflect the batshit insanity of the Marvel Bullpen of the '70s Howard the Duck's only real rival is Doctor Strange. He was always at the far end of weird, even by the Steve Ditko's early standards and Englehart and Brunner build on that by bringing Strange into the far out post-hippie '70s where meditation and psychedelia could melt the mind and a Buddhist oneness with the cosmos is the highest goal (although the existence of absolute evil might suggest a flaw in the underlying philosophy somewhere).

All this means we end up with some self-consciously epic tales, beginning with the death of a key character and working through a backwards trip to creation and a voyage through the realm of Death. Englehart's exuberant storytelling is matched by Brunner's visuals. Whilst they lack Ditko's oddness there's a trippiness there that the straight-edge could never bring. What's also noticeable is a willingness to take potshots at Christianity; the Sise Neg and Silver Dagger storylines criticise the notion of godhood and the dark places where organised religion may lead respectively. It's a brave move at any time in US history and it's mildly surprising that it made it to print, let alone that it didn't cause a large scale controversy. Another winner from the madness of '70s Marvel. ( )

This volume contains perhaps the most celebrated story arcs that Steve Englehart wrote for Marvel Comics' premiere sorcerer hero, Dr. Strange (a.k.a. Dr. Stephen Strange, formerly a renowned surgeon until a car accident robbed him of his fine motor control and career; his last ditch attempt to find a mysterious Tibetan mystic to cure his hands put his feet on the path of occult studies that would eventually see him become Earth's Sorcerer Supreme) in the early 1970s; it also contains the first Dr. Strange stories with something approaching a real-world mystical sensibility as opposed to comic book pyrotechnics, Steve Ditko's oddball visuals and Stan Lee's loopy oaths and incantations ("By the hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!", etc.).

The first arc, originally published in Marvel Premiere Vol. 1, #9 & 10 (July & Sept. 1973), is begun in media res, as the previous issues were noodlings in the Robert E. Howard vein by writers Archie Goodwin and Gardner Fox (#4-8, Sept. 1972 - May 1973); the two Englehart-scripted, Frank Brunner-pencilled issues collected here see Strange confront the Lovecraft-inspired (or, at least, 1950s "B" sci-fi-movie-inspired...) entity Shuma Gorath, assist his mentor, the Ancient One, in a manner that he'd hoped to never do, and assume the mantle of Earth's Sorcerer Supreme.

The second arc, originally published in Marvel Premiere Vol. 1, #12 - 14 (July - Sept. 1973), finds Strange once again confronting his first nemesis (and rival for the position of the Ancient One's disciple), Baron Mordo, and also dealing with Marvel Comics' version of a real-world mystic (or charlatan, depending on your point of view...) Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, a.k.a. Giuseppe Balsamo (1743 - 1795), and a mystic from the 31st century named Sise-Neg; hold the latter's name up to a mirror and you'll get a fair inkling as to what he, and this story arc, are about. The Sise-Neg story arc is notable for being the first of Marvel's Bronze Age brand of apocalyptic stories, a trick that Englehart himself would later reprise in the pages of Doctor Strange (Vol. 2, #6 - 9; Dec. 1974 - Aug. 1975 [there was a 4-mo. hiatus btwn #6 & #7]) and that notorious writer and editor-in-chief Jim Shooter would claim for his own with the Enemy/Korvac/Michael saga in The Avengers and the two Secret Wars mini-series, and would reach its nadir with the Crossing storyline in Avengers and the cross-title Onslaught and Heroes Reborn storylines.

The third and final story arc collected here is the one featuring Silver Dagger -- the only Marvel supervillain to have been a papal candidate (top that, Doctor Doom!) -- and Dr. Strange's death. No, really.

X-Men and Iron Fist scribe Chris Claremont would revive Silver Dagger in the pages of Marvel Team-Up (Vol. 1, #76 & 77; Dec. 1978 & Jan. 1979), but, as with far too many sequels, to far lesser effect than his debut.

It's safe to say that Englehart doesn't get into the occult stuff nearly as deeply as Alan Moore does in his Promethea series or even Grant Morrison in The Invisibles; however, he was the first writer of Dr. Strange to attempt to lay out an internally consistent schema for white magic, and ground it to real-world magical theory, which was in and of itself revolutionary, to say nothing of revelatory. Englehart is arguably the only writer to treat Dr. Strange as an actual mystic rather than a superhero, other than Roger Stern, who would write the character for three issues in 1978 (though he would plot more) and, more famously, from 1981 to 1985. (I've not read most of Claremont's run on Doctor Strange, which came between Stern's tenures on the book.)

Frank Brunner's pencils are justly admired: save for Steve Ditko, who co-created the character with Stan Lee, no one has made Dr. Strange's milieu look as flashy, surreal, dark, sinister, and just plain out there as Brunner did. (While the pencil-and-ink team of Gene Colan and Tom Palmer are also highly regarded, to my mind they were more suitable on a straight-up horror title like Marvel's Tomb of Dracula than on a more mystical one like Doctor Strange.) His pencils are nicely complimented by the inkers: Ernie Chua (better known as Ernie Chan, who is better known for his work on Marvel's Incredible Hulk and Conan the Barbarian) on Marvel Premiere Vol. 1, #9; the various members of Neal Adams' Continuity Studios, who were credited as "The Crusty Bunkers" (MP #10, 12 & 13); and DC Comics' Dick Giordano (MP #14; Doctor Strange Vol. 2, #1 & 2, 4 & 5). The recoloring -- the cover (originally for DS Vol. 2, #1) by Angelo Tsang of Udon; the interior by V.L.M. -- is vibrant and vivid, and does much to differentiate the artwork from Marvel's superhero fare of the early 1970s. There are quarter-page reproductions of the original covers included here; comparing this collection's cover with the cover to DS Vol. 2, #1, one can see that Tsang perhaps ill-advisedly recolored the Orb of Agamotto from blood-red to gold -- there is a grinning death's head inside it, y'know -- but that's a cavil.

Unfortunately, while Englehart's run initially sold enough to give Strange his own title again (his first solo title ran for less than 20 issues in the late 1960s; the character even vowed to give up sorcery in the pages of The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1, #126 [Apr 1970], of all places), and even, briefly, a monthly publishing schedule, after a while the appeal palled enough (and the sales dropped enough) for Marvel to fire Englehart from the book and assign a series of lesser writers to gank it back towards superheroic conceptions of magic: slightly more mystical than the good doctor was portrayed in the pages of The Defenders, but not too much. When Roger Stern finally took up the reins of the book in earnest, he took pains to keep the good doctor grounded with Marvel's main-line superhero continuity (as Englehart did not; then again, Strange was starring in The Defenders, Marvel's "non-team" that included the likes of the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner, the Silver Surfer, and Valkyrie, at the time -- which Englehart also wrote), and even wrote finis to Marvel's take on Dracula after Tomb of Dracula was canceled.

If my digressions make this collection seem prohibitively back-story happy, rest assured, it's not: you really don't need to know any of the previous, contemporary or subsequent developments in Dr. Strange's life and career to appreciate the stories contained within, although if you're so inclined, such familiarity will only give you a deeper and richer appreciation of just how big of a "Marvel Milestone" these comics were. ( )