In December, 1973, the lead feature spot in Marvel Premiere was about to become vacant, as Doctor Strange’s 20-month, 12-issue tenancy as the publication’s headliner neared its end. For the Master of the Mystic Arts — and his fans — it was a happy occasion, as he was about to return to starring in his very own title for the first time since 1969.
Though, of course, before the good Doctor could move into his new digs, he’d have to survive the third and final chapter of the storyline the series’ creative team of Steve Englehart (co-plotter/scripter) and Frank Brunner (co-plotter/artist) had initiated back in Marvel Premiere #12 — a storyline that presently found Strange and his arch-enemy, Baron Mordo, journeying backwards through time to the dawn of Creation, trailing a sorcerer from the far distant future named Sise-Neg (though, for reasons now unknown, the copy affixed to Brunner’s cover for issue #14 called him Cagliostro — the 18th-century mage Sise-Neg had impersonated in the previous issue).
The issue’s splash page announced the arrival of a “new” inker on the feature: Dick Giordano. I’ve put “new” in quotes because, as most of you reading this already know, the last several Doctor Strange stories prior to this one had been inked by “the Crusty Bunkers” — a pseudonym that signified an assortment of artists connected with the Continuity Associates art studio founded by Neal Adams and Giordano, including, naturally, the founders themselves. While the Bunkers’ inking had consistently been of high quality, the simple fact of there being diverse hands involved had unavoidably resulted in a certain slight visual dissonance within some issues; Giordano’s taking on the assignment as a solo gig ensured that there’d be greater internal continuity (no pun intended) going forward, as well as the same high level of craftsmanship, all in a style compatible with what had gone before.
As signaled by that “Book of Revelations” text at the bottom of the opening splash, Englehart will be going for a pseudo-Biblical approach to this issue’s script… something which will become even more evident as we turn to page two…
Okay, we have a castle, a dragon, and a knight exclaiming, “Mon Dieu!”. So does that mean that Doc Strange and company have fetched up in medieval France? Maybe,,, but then again, maybe not…
Observing that the dragon, magnificent beast though it may be (especially as delineated by Brunner and Giordano), has no eyelids, Strange pours on the light from his amulet’s Eye of Agamotto until, finally, the bedazzled creature blunders backwards into the mountainside, thereby bringing the whole thing crumbling down upon itself…
Oh, wow, Camelot? If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know that I was a huge Arthurian buff back in the day (still am, in fact), and so you won’t be surprised to read that my sixteen-year-old self greeted this twist with great enthusiasm. Sure, one could quibble that laying all the responsibility for Camelot’s fall on Lancelot and Guinevere’s illicit romance is a little harsh, at least in regards to the most highly developed medieval literary versions of the traditional legend (like the anonymous French “Vulgate Cycle”, or Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, or… OK, I’ll stop now). But, hey, maybe Mordo knows the story best from Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot, so I suppose we can give him a pass…
At this point, it seems clear that preventing Sise-Neg from becoming God is no longer a realistic goal. The question, rather, is what sort of God he is going to be — with the Satanic tempter, Baron Mordo, competing for influence with the better angel of his nature, i.e., Doctor Strange.
Someone strikes a gong, which summons “the priests of death” — robed, wand-wielding magic workers who cast spells intended to sear the strangers’ flesh from their bones
The abrupt shift from full color to grayscale, enhanced by the use of striking visual effects such as negative silhouettes and integrated typography, serves notice that we — and Sise-Neg — have moved to a whole new level.
Our story began with an allusion to the last book of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelations — and now, logically enough, our narrative journey backwards through time has brought us to the first book of that compendium, and to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, as chronicled in Genesis 19:1-29. Interestingly, while the precise nature of those two cities’ “wickedness” has been a matter of much debate over the years, the notion that they were a haven for evil magicians seems to be original with Englehart and Brunner. (I haven’t been able to find any earlier expressions of the idea, at any rate.)
Dinosaurs and hominids alive at the same time? That never happened in our world, of course — but this is Earth-616, where things appear to have gone down a little differently…
Shuma-Gorath is, of course, the Big Bad who had dominated (mostly behind the scenes) the year-plus-long initial story arc of the Doctor Strange feature in Marvel Premiere — a saga that had begun under Stan Lee and Barry Windsor-Smith in issue #3, then been chronicled by a varied group of writers and artists from issues #4 through #8, then been inherited by the new Englehart-Brunner team in issue #9, and, finally, conclusively resolved by that team in #10. On one level, it seems an odd choice on our storytellers’ part to have Shuma-Gorath showing up again so soon; in terms of the narrative’s internal logic, however, it’s all but mandatory that he do so.
Here we have the “truth” behind yet another episode from the Book of Genesis — this time from its second chapter. I don’t know about you, but I quite appreciate that our storytellers trust us readers to be able to “get it” without the script needing to drop the name “Eden”, let alone “Adam” or “Eve”. (The visual clue provided by the apple in the next-to-last panel above may or may not go too far in giving the game away; I happen to think it’s a nice touch.)
We’ve now arrived both at Chapter Four of “Sise-Neg Genesis” — not to mention Chapter One of the Book of Genesis. And before we move on to our story’s climax, it might be a good idea to take a moment to consider a possible objection to the tale’s conceptual underpinnings — one that didn’t occur to your humble blogger back in 1973, but has on this latest re-reading; and may have crossed your mind, as well. To wit: the Marvel Universe has been established to be an extremely well-populated place, teeming with inhabited worlds. How can Sise-Neg expect to become the God of the whole shebang without gathering up the magical energies on all those planets, as well?
Of course, the real-world reason why this story exhibits such an Earth-centric view of the cosmos is that Earth just so happens to be the place where the story’s creators, and its readers, live. It’s easy for us to forget about all those other planets, which are (as far as we know) imaginary, anyway. Still, if you’re looking for an “in-universe” explanation, how about this: Just because we never see Sise-Neg stopping by, say, the Skrull homeworld to scoop up their mystical mojo, doesn’t mean he never does so. Our perspective here is limited to that of our fellow Earthlings, Strange and Mordo, who, for all we know, may only be able to follow Sise-Neg through time, and not space. I’m not saying that story is airtight — but it satisfies my headcanon, if no one else’s, so I figure I’ll stick with it.*
If you’ve never seen the double-page spread that follows in its printed form, I regret to say that this digital presentation can’t fully convey the experience of turning from the last page to find this laid out before you:
(According to Steve Englehart’s 2010 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Doctor Strange, Vol. 5, the two couples seen at the bottom right-hand corner of the final panel are himself and his then-girlfriend Martha, and Frank Brunner and his then-wife, Jan. Just thought you might like to know.)
In December, 1973, my earnest evangelical Christian self couldn’t really get behind the notion that Sise-Neg was in fact the “real” God Almighty, or assent to the idea “that everything is as it should be, if one can only see it!” Neither proposition fell within the parameters of the religious doctrine I’d been taught all my life, and still wholeheartedly subscribed to at that time. Even so, I could appreciate that Englehart and Brunner were dealing with really Big Ideas here — ones that I had a hard time imagining any comic book tackling, just a few years before this. I think it’s fair to say that my impressionable young mind was indeed blown by Marvel Premiere #14 — at least, as much as it could be without the use of controlled substances (an experience well beyond my ken in those days). Fifty years later, “Sise-Neg Genesis” remains one of my very favorite comics stories of this era — as well as the single Doctor Strange story against which I have ever measured all others. At this relatively late juncture, I don’t expect either of those things to change.
The story of the aftermath of “Sise-Neg Genesis” is perhaps, almost as well known as the tale itself. For your humble blogger, it began some six months after I’d bought and read Marvel Premiere #14, when the letters column of Doctor Strange #3 featured readers’ responses to that issue. Following almost two full pages’ worth of conventionally fannish missives (all very positive, incidentally), the column concluded with the following:
I can recall my sixteen-year-old self reading this back in June, 1974, and thinking, “Huh.” I wasn’t necessarily skeptical that a Christian clergyman could have had a modestly positive reaction to MP #14, but I had a hard time imagining any minister of my acquaintance being quite so over-the-top effusive (e.g., “It is magazines such as yours which truly perform the Lord’s work…”) in his praise of such a decidedly unorthodox portrayal of the Divine. Still, I recognized that my personal, Southern Baptist context didn’t represent the whole world of Christian thought, so I shrugged and accepted the letter for what it was… or rather, for what it seemed to be.
Because, as I’d learn a few years later, there was no “Rev. David Billingsley” of Denton, TX. The letter was a hoax, conceived and executed upon the hapless Marvel Comics brass by those two young scalawags, Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner.
Here are the particulars, as related by Brunner to Comic Book Artist‘s Jon B. Cooke back in 1999:
This is the story of Sise-neg/Genesis. We had just completed Marvel Premiere #14 — well, I had just completed the pencils, most of the art, but for some reason or another, nobody took notice of what we were doing. When the book came out, [publisher] Stan [Lee] finally got a hold of it, and I don’t know, somebody pointed it out, or he read it, and he wrote us a letter saying, “We can’t do God. You’re going to have to print in the letters column a retraction saying this is not ‘the’ God, this is just a god.” Steve and I said, “Oh, come on! This is the whole point of the story! If we did that retraction of God, this is meaningless!” So, Steve happened to be on his way to Texas for something [note: according to Englehart’s Marvel Masterworks intro, he was flying to Indiana to visit family at Christmas, and had to change planes in Dallas], this is when we were in California, and we cooked up this plot — we wrote a letter from a Reverend Billingsley in Texas, a fictional person, saying that one of the children in his parish brought him the comic book, and he was astounded and thrilled by it, and he said, “Wow, this is the best comic book I’ve ever read.” And we signed it “Reverend so-and-so, Austin Texas” — and when Steve was in Texas, he mailed the letter so it had the proper postmark. Then, we got a phone call from [editor-in-chief] Roy [Thomas], and he said, “Hey, about that retraction, I’m going to send you a letter, and instead of the retraction, I want you to print this letter.” And it was our letter! We printed our letter! …We later found out that Jim Starlin was in New York at that time, up in the Marvel offices, and he was reading the Dr. Strange fan mail, and he was the one who actually saw the letter, believed it was the real thing, and gave it to Roy, who showed it to Stan!
(You have to figure that Jim Starlin — who was doing his own “villain becomes God” thing over in Captain Marvel at this very same time — had to be gratified by what appeared to be a genuine letter of praise from a man of cloth for this kind of story. Hey, if Steve and Frank could get away with it…!)
So that’s the behind-the-scenes story of “Sise-Neg Genesis” — an account which, along with the work itself, just goes to show how very freewheeling Marvel Comics was in the early-to-mid-1970s, for better or worse. (Mostly for better, in my opinion, especially at this relatively early stage.) As noted earlier, it’s a familiar yarn for old-time fans — though, if you have an appetite for still more details, your humble blogger recommends checking out the seventh episode of the Roku Channel docuseries Slugfest (free to view with registration). Clocking in at just 7 minutes, “Reverend Billingsley” includes interviews with Steve Englehart and Roy Thomas, along with a not-entirely-serious dramatization of events featuring Tim Blake Nelson as Englehart, Martin Starr as Frank Brunner, and Sean Gunn as Stan Lee. (Kevin Smith narrates.) If you enjoy this one, you’ll probably like the whole 10-episode series — loosely based on Reed Tucker’s 2017 book Slugfest, and ostensibly focused on the rivalry between Marvel and DC… though, as with this very episode, it wanders into other areas of American comics industry history as well.
Doctor Strange gives Earth’s Mightiest Heroes the lowdown on Sise-Neg in Avengers: Loki Unleashed #1 (Nov., 2019).
*While I was working out this hypothesis, it occurred to me that, in the last half century, someone at Marvel might have had similar ideas. So I checked, and was gratified to learn that just a little over four years ago at this writing, veteran creators Roger Stern (writer) and Ron Lim (artist) collaborated om a one-shot called Avengers: Loki Unleashed, in which we find Sise-Neg’s quest taking him to “the distant planet Yann” to chow down on its mystical energies. This story is set some years after Marvel Premiere #12-14, so it takes place (for Sise-Neg, at least) prior to his picking up Strange and Mordo in the 18th century. That means it doesn’t quite “prove” my entire theory; still, it definitely establishes that Sise-Neg’s magic-gathering wasn’t limited to Earth and its environs, which gets us a good bit of the way there (if I say so myself).
Englehart and Brunner, Gerber, and Starlin were my tent poles of my favorite awesomely weird books back then. he Genesis thing? I don’t know if I’d been baptized at a showing of Jesus Christ Superstar yet (a memory I haven’t thought of in decades) but I do know I never had problems with comics tackling Christian faith. Weird what with us getting more and more Evangelical as time went on. (Not MAGA Evangelical but the Bible based kind)
I was commenting on Giordano’s art on the Brevoort blog recently. I never got too excited by his art or inks because it always seemed so sterile despite how detailed it was or how well the man laid out a story. Here seems to be the solution. as awesome as Brunner was and how much I loved his art, his line work was on the messy side. Giordano polished it up rather than making it feel hollow like with most other artists he inked and made it more awesome to me.
Yes, Giordano’s inking seemed to mesh best with Adams, but when he inked other artists (or even his own pencils) it all seemed a bit stiff looking, even when he worked with a talent like John Buscema. I can understand why they kept him inking Irv Novick on Batman for continuity, but it left me a bit cold. Obviously, the strengths of himself and Brunner made up for the other’s weaknesses, and this is my favourite work of his away from Adams.
In my opinion, and god knows you may all disagree, Giordano was like Terry Austin on John Byrne or Klaus Janson on Frank Miller. When we was inking someone he was simpatico with; someone whose work he understood and appreciated like Adams or Brunner or even Novick, he really brought the work to life and made it sing. But also, like those others, when he pencilled his own work, it had a tendency to look too slick and polished and didn’t have the spark his inks on other artists had.
Also meant to mention above that you really have to see their work in the original comics to fully appreciate them, I think. These digital reprints only highlight the too slick and polished look. I’ve still to see any of these new versions that look better, even despite the sometimes dodgy print quality of the originals.
The Eastern Orthodox Church has a concept called “Theosis,” whereby a believer follows G-d so closely, they become part of The Divine. The goal of Buddhism (and Hinduism) in broad terms, is (through the cycle of rebirths) to end desire and reconcile the Self with the Universe. The LDS Church believes that righteous people become “God” (or an aspect of G-d) in the afterlife.
So, this is not something outside of religious belief, although it is presented as part of a “pulp” advenure story. In some sense, Sise-Neg becomes less self involved as he imitates G-D at various points in the Hebrew Scriptures. While trying to stay outside of the specifics of Christianity (and Halachic Judaism or Kaballah), the general idea of Sise-Neg becoming a better being as he tries to imitate G-d has a sort of surface echo of Thomas à Kempis, although De Imitatione Christi is far less literal.
I have read that trying to study Eastern Religion and mysticism were things Steve Englehart took on to make his work on Dr. Strange richer and deeper. This can ceratinly be seen here.
Well, WordPress just ate my original reply to this post b/c it said I wasn’t logged in (I was), so I’ll try it one more time. SIGH.
Having had a similar background to yours, Alan, I was always fascinated whenever secular SFF stories, including those in comics, dealt with religious issues. I had only really been following this story in Marvel Premiere up to this point for Brunner’s art and had been, to an extent, blinded from how good Englehart’s story was, mainly due to the fact that I hated it when an author just spelled something obvious backwards to create a person’s name. I thought “Sise-Neg” was a stupid name in 1974 and that fact kept me from enjoying this story for a long time, though I did, finally, once I was in college, largely get over it.
I’ve seen “Slugfest” on Roku and knew the Reverend BIllingsly story, but I have to say that Stan couldn’t have really been all that concerned about the blowback if he let himself be dissuaded by “one” positive letter from an unlikely source. Were there a lot of negative letters about the story’s use of capital G “God?” Were they printed in the lettercol? I think I stopped reading Premiere after Strange went to his own book (I followed, of course) and don’t think I saw any of the reader feedback to this story.
Englehart’s story is very good here, working through all of the ramifications and possibilities of Sise-Neg’s ultimate goal within the framework of Earth 616 history, where early man and dinosaurs walked the Earth together and King Arthur and his knights were actually real people. Brunner’s art was gorgeous and Giordano’s inks really brought his pencils together. Like Adams, Giordano has a positive impact on Brunner’s work, making it look more like what the artist intended as opposed to a cheap knock-off of someone else and it was a joy to see.
This was one of my favorite comics back in the seventies, Alan, and I’d almost forgotten it. Thanks for the refresher.
“Were there a lot of negative letters about the story’s use of capital G “God?” Were they printed in the lettercol?”
The letters on MP #14 ran in DS #3, and they were all positive. That doesn’t mean they didn’t *get* negative letters which they opted not to print, of course.
Half a century ago, in those pre-social media days, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to know if anyone was offended by Englehart & Brunner’s storyline, because there wasn’t really any way to publicly air criticism. But I think it’s plausible that *someone* was upset by it.
A couple of years ago when I met Jim Starlin I asked him if in the early 1980s anyone had actually been offended that his creator-owned series Dreadstar the main villain was a genocidal megalomaniac named Lord Papal. He immediately responded, yes, OF COURSE people were offended, and Epic / Marvel definitely received letters from people who were angry about it. It was just that, with no internet, no Fox News, they just didn’t have a forum in which to loudly blast out their outrage to the rest of the world.
There have always been a small but highly vocal group ultra-sensitive people who will get completely worked up by anything they deem “sacrilegious” and who will try to let the rest of the world know that this is absolutely The Downfall of Civilization as We Know It. It’s just that the past 30 years have given these people a gigantic megaphone with which to assault the rest of the world with their views and make it appear that they are an outsized segment of the population.
I missed this in 1973 but plugged in the holes in my Dr. Strange collection in later decades. Keen competition to Starlin’s Captain Marvel in the cosmic sweepstakes of 1973. To be honest, the only thing that bothered me about this story was having early hominids co-existing with allosaurs and stegosaurs — why not show mammoths and sabre-tooths, which did co-exist with early hominids?
But, ah, well, it’s all fantasy. I was never particularly religious; my parents were moderately so when I was a child, but mom converted to Catholicism when she was 55 (when I was 36),and got pretty serious about religion afterwards.
Anyhow, back to the story, overall a fun romp with excellent art. Reading this made me think about how some stories of this era had echoes in other stories. Not only the villain seeking a form of ultimate godhood here, as with Thanos over in C.M., but also the side villain, Mordo, becoming stupefied, as with Loki at the end of the Avengers/Defenders clash (of course, they both got “better” not too much later). Then there were the endings of the Secret Empire and Black Spectre stories in Captain America and Daredevil, both set at the White House and within about a month of each other, and only a few months before the dramatic exit of Richard Nixon from that seat of power. I’m sure there are many others. Mordo’s behavior itself echoes his previous sucking up to Dormammu in the latter part of Ditko’s run. One of those baddies like the Red Skull with no recognizably redeeming features, a nasty piece of work with dreams of grandeur and ruling by totalitarian dominance. Which brings up the question of what did the Ancient One ever see in him to even think he was trustworthy enough to take on as a disciple? Maybe some other scribe delved into that in depth in later stories I’ve never come across. Ditko & Lee pretty much left it at, “oh, I knew he was a first-class heel, but I wanted him close by to keep an eye on”. Seems there has to be more to that story.
After reading the Silver Dagger arc I thought he and Mordo sitting and drinking and grumbling to each other (“The Vatican didn’t think I was the right sort to be cardinal!” “I hear you, SD — the Ancient One decided I wasn’t worthy to inherit is mantle either!”) would have been amusing.
One thing I greatly enjoy about following this blog is how it puts these comics in the context of their time. I knew, rationally, that Starlin, Englehart, Brunner, and Gerber were putting out this work in 1973, but to get get reviews of the individual comics week after week lends the feeling of what it might have _felt_ like to actually see these comics appearing in your local spinner racks one week after the other. This was clearly the boldest, most daring era of comics, creatively speaking—stories like this likely would not get published today; at least not by a mainstream publisher like Marvel or DC. Modern creators don’t get the chance to explore such deep waters, assuming any would even be interested in doing so. But back then, creators seemed to have real freedom and they exercised it, with glorious results like this.
I feel like modern creators can “explore such deep waters” at Image Comics and other publishers that have creator-owned projects. It’s just a lot more difficult to attract a significance audience then when you’re doing a superhero book for one of the two largest publishers in the United States. But there is interesting, experimental stuff out there; you just need to actively look for it and listen for recommendations from other readers.
But, yes, I do agree that the age of Marvel being experimental is long over, especially with Disney now owning the company. Same with DC getting passed around like a corporate hot potato for the past decade plus.
Astro City’s The Dark Age works in a variety of Starlin/Englehart type cosmic concepts during the 1970s-set stories — though as typical for Astro City they’re in the background with the focus on more down-to-Earth stuff.
Agree, Alan, one of the greatest of Doc stories, and maybe the highpoint of Englehart/Brunner. And, ya know, really nothing in there to truly offend anyone. Just one thing as I read your blog post now (which I was generally aware of back then)–every other panel is lifted from X Men or GL/GA. So I always found it appropriate that Giordano was inking. Made it feel like Adams had never left Marvel.
That’s interesting… I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a single Adams swipe in this story. I suppose that the subject matter was different enough from GL/GA or X-Men that they weren’t obvious to me — unlike, say, Rich Buckler’s lifting of old Kirby FF and Thor panels for use in… FF and Thor. 🙂
Yeah, the Buckler Kirby swipes were almost MEANT to be noticed–Brunner’s Adams swipes were apparent to me all through his Doc Strange run, but reading your blog made them ever more salient to my eyes. Apart from that–I loved this story, and I always enjoy your takes, Alan.
I remember reading a Brunner issue of Alien Worlds, published by Pacific Comics in the early 1980s, and he swiped every pose of the female heroine from Al Williamson! Williamson himself was not happy about it.
One of the things I used to love love love about Englehart was his use of continuity, even down to bits of dialogue. If he has a character say, “I was told by so-and-so…” then you could usually point to a specific issue when that exchange happened. In this case, back in MARVEL PREMIERE #10, when Shuma-Gorath is relating his backstory, he talks about slumbering for a time for a reason he is not able to fully explain. And now here, we see how – and WHY – that happened. Did Englehart already have this story in mind when he wrote “Finally, Shuma-Gorath”? I often wonder…
Sometimes I fear my love for 1970s Marvel is just me feeling nostalgic for glorious days of misspent youth. Do those stories REALLY hold up, especially in light of the mature works of Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, Ennis, et al.? What I love about this blog is the opportunity to re-read the stories AND have you put them in context.
For many many years, I’ve always felt that this arc – and this issue, particularly – represented a pinnacle of this second golden era of Marvel (after the glory days of Stan and Steve and Jack, of course). And having revisited it – yep, it holds up. Strange and Mordo playing angel and devil, the remarkable art, and the positivity of statements like “Reality is always in harmony” and “I can rise above them, but I cannot abandon them.” It’s still great, great storytelling and tremendous incorporation of philosophy and theology in the context of a superhero story.
Englehart-Brunner and then Englehart-Colon really were as good as it got for Doc – and yes, I’m including the Lee-Ditko era. Stan and Steve may have been there first, but even at their trippiest, I don’t think they would have attempted something as daring as this story, let alone executed it so perfectly.
By the way, that may not be an “apple” in the garden panel. There’s some speculation that the fruit was more like a pomegranate – and as drawn by Brunner, it could be.
By the way, thanks for mentioning the SLUGFEST videos! They’re great! (Although considering Englehart was only about 26 when he wrote “Sise-Neg – Genesis,” Tim Blake Nelson is a bit long in the tooth to be portraying him.) I may have to get the book.
Happy holidays, everyone!
“Sometimes I fear my love for 1970s Marvel is just me feeling nostalgic for glorious days of misspent youth. Do those stories REALLY hold up, especially in light of the mature works of Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, Ennis, et al.?”
I know exactly what you mean, Bill. Every time I approach the re-reading of an old favorite that I haven’t looked at in a few decades, I have some anxiety that I’ll be disappointed. So far, that’s rarely been the case — at least in regards to those stories I remember as being truly great, like this one.
On another topic, I’m glad you enjoyed the “Slugfest” videos. The book is good, too — though be advised, not everything that comes up in the vids is covered in the book, as well as vice versa. (“Reverend Billingsley” is one such example.)
I didn’t read this run back in the day so I was baffled by one of the Marvel calendars referring to it with “Sise-Neg is Genesis — and God!”
It didn’t cause any conflict with my faith though. It felt less like Sise-Neg had displaced God and more that he’d achieved some union with the Almighty; God was simply working through Sise-Neg.
This is indeed a terrific run. And it does hold up very well. A shame Englehart never got to finish his exploration of America’s occult history a few story arcs down the road but he’s got some good work still to come.
Another great write-up, Alan. I love this story; this and Starlin’s work define for me what a “cosmic” story should be: a glimpse 8nto something that makes you think about the nature of reality. I was 9 when I first read this, and didn’t feel any religious angst, despite going to Sunday School every week. Nor did I then or now worry about other planets. I love shared universes, but have generally been able to set aside worrying about the implications when in the middle of a good story.
For me, this was the pinnacle of the Englehart run on Dr. Strange. The upcoming work he did seemed too slowly paced compared to this 0 to light speed in three issue masterpiece.
Marvel Theology, 1973
Starlin: I have a villain who is a god
Englehart: I have a villain who IS God
Gerber: I got a couple of dogs who’re God…
…
…
And, uh, a talking duck
JM DeMatteis’ excellent Dr. Fate run has a similar arc — Wotan attempts to become God, beholds God and the light of ultimate truth reforms him. Though it’s in keeping enough with DeMatteis’ own style I don’t know if Englehart’s Strange run was an influence.
FredKey that is priceless!
Giordano: Looks like he had lots of help on this one, especially on the backgrounds. The previous post (JLA#110) looks near complete on the Giordano inks though. What else was Giordano inking at the time? Batman #255, Action #433, Flash #226, Superman#273 and Dracula Lives vol2 #1 all has his work. He was in demand!
Dick Giordano was known for only sleeping 3 hours per night for many years. He was able to accomplish much as family man, inker, editor, etc. in his extended waking hours…but he died much sooner than his peers like Neal Adams.
Thank you Alan for your investigation of where the letter was printed! I’d read a bit about the letter but never found which issue – and #3 is missing from my Doctor Strange Brunner run as he did the cover and a splash page I believe and then it’s a reprint…so I choose not to grab it!
Does anyone else think the figure of Mordo at top left of pg 3 is very Ditko? Never thought of hm as an influence on Brunner in any serious way
I wasn’t excited about this story, in the past or now. Loved Marvel Premiere #10 and Dr. Strange #4 & especially #5. To me those were the peak of the Englehart-Brunner collaboration. #14 just seemed too forced and preachy—and not Gospel preaching, mind you, but a philosophical “lesson” with three rather cliched positions held by the main characters.
I found it very ham-fisted and not story-centred at all. And a lot of high sounding, stilted, and overly florid prose. MP #10 was masterful, as was DS #5. I also thought Englehart’s writing was superb in the 1977 Detective Comics issue where Hugo Strange dies rather than give away the identity of his arch enemy the Batman. Classic script, with art by Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin.
But to each his own. I just thought Sise-Neg was a trite name for a one note character. The high evolutionary came across much better years before in a similar scenario of, er, “upward mobility” in the Incredible Hulk (or was it Tales to Astonish?).
But to each his own.
It *was* fun seeing Lancelot in MP #14.
High Evolutionary was a Thor character, Stan and Jack, originally
I knew it wasn’t Englehart’s, but I was saying his rise – and surprise – was much more adroitly handled than Sise-Neg’s.
I think it is less a general Ditko influence than trying to put some Ditko tropes he may have admired as a fan into his own style. Two examples: 1) at the moment of Theosis, Sise-Neg;s face evokes Ditko’s Dormamu; and 2) on the cover of Dr. Strange #1, Stranges spell effects are in the style Ditko used in late 1964-’66.
The first Dr, Strange movie had similar call backs.
Brunner’s Spider-Man in Howard the Duck # 1 was very Ditko influenced without being a swipe. the figure is drawn in Brunner’s style but evokes some things people liked about Ditko’s work, such as how Spider-Man moves (which is not quite human).
There was an issue of Marvel Fanfare in 1983 or 4 that generated a lot of buzz: penciller Sandy Plunkett *nailed* Ditko’s Spidey without swiping outright. The Scarlet Witch and the villain from the Amazing Spider-Man annual #2 (but no Dr. Strange this time) were in it. Inks by P. Craig Russell. Great tribute.
Absolutely beautiful artwork and a mind-blowing story. I really want to pick up the Epic Collection that contains the Englehart & Brunner issues of Doctor Strange. Thanks for an informative write-up.
In 1983 Marvel did a beautiful reprint comic of Dr. Strange 1, 2, 4, & 5 by Englehart, Brunner, & company, with a rather disappointing wraparound cover by Berni Wrightson (love his ’70s work, but he had phoned this one in). The interior reprinting was superb in its clarity. Worth having (though I have the original issues as well).
“How can Sise-Neg expect to become the God of the whole shebang without gathering up the magical energies on all those planets, as well?”
I just read the previous issue and I don’t see that as a problem. Sise-Neg’s plan is to use his superior future skills to suck up all the ambient magical energy — there’s no reason he can’t stand on Earth and do that to the entire universe.
Hm, I dunno, fraser. In MP #14 he keeps making temporal stops when he encounters a really large concentration of magical energy — Merlin, S&G, Shuma-Gorath. And they’re all on Earth. Shouldn’t he run into such concentrations in the earlier eras of other planets, too?
I haven’t got to rereading that issue yet but darned if it isn’t a good point.