Behind a very nice (if somewhat misleading — we’ll get to why a bit later) cover pencilled, inked, and colored by Frank Brunner, the second issue of the newly revived Doctor Strange title picks up where the first one left off. In other words, Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme is still dead.
Oh, all right. Nearly dead. Having been stabbed in the back with a silver dagger wielded by a brand-new villain named, um, Silver Dagger, our mortally wounded hero has postponed his otherwise inevitable demise by entering the Orb of Agamotto. Unable to return the way he came, he’s presently on a journey to the center of the Orb, in hopes of finding an exit from its mystical confines before his body and soul succumb to its native unreality; of course, even if he succeeds, he’s still got the whole “mortally wounded” thing to deal with. Yes, it’s quite the sticky wicket.
Meanwhile, Strange’s longtime lover (and newly minted disciple), Clea, has been kidnapped by the fanatically religious Silver Dagger, and taken to his lair to be “saved” from her wicked ways — which is where our storytellers, co-plotter/scripter Steve Englehart and co-plotter/artist Frank Brunner (with an able assist from inker Dick Giordano), take up the threads of their narrative as the issue begins…
Unaware that Dr. Strange has eluded death, at least for now, Silver Dagger consults the all-seeing Eye of Agamotto (as you may recall, he’d purloined Doc’s amulet at the same time he kidnapped Clea) to see “what’s been done with Strange’s corpse” — and almost immediately receives an unwelcome surprise:
Frank Brunner continues to knock ’em out of the park with innovative page designs such as the tour de force above.
Brunner also reliably continues to cobble up imaginative new non-human critters for Doc to oppose, which are made even more solid and convincing by Giordano’s lush brushwork.
That sure looks like the Silver Surfer… but it doesn’t sound much like him, does it? And why would he be hanging out in the Orb of Agamotto in the first place? Hmm…
But Dr. Strange is sure that he can beat the Soul-Eater by way of invading its brain and flying around within it for a bit. “After all,” he reasons, “whether it possesses a cognitive mind or not — it cannot long tolerate my psychic projection disrupting the flow of its central nervous system!”
Illustration by John Tenniel, 1865.
As Dr. Strange himself noted a few pages back, the realm of the Orb seems to be taking its cues from the works of Lewis Carroll. In the previous issue we met analogues of the White Rabbit (who actually showed up before Strange entered the Orb) and the Caterpillar, both from Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865); and here, we have a version of the book’s famous tea party scene, with the soulless body of Strange sitting in for Alice, while the Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare are replaced by… well, your guess is as good as mine as to whether there are any literal one-to-one correspondences intended between Carroll’s partiers and the nine figures seated around the oddly-shaped table in the White Queen’s castle. But, starting at Zombie-Strange’s left shoulder and continuing clockwise, we have:
- the Hulk
- the Black Panther
- Nick Fury
- Ant-Man
- Green Lantern (yeah, I know Brunner’s colored the ring white, but c’mon — who else could it be?)
- Hawkeye
Captain Midnight — more specifically, the version of the quite mutable radio/movie/TV/etc. hero whose comic-book adventures were published by Fawcett from 1942 to 1948 (Jack Binder drew the cover of the second issue, shown at right.) Or, at least, a very reasonable facsimile of same, (For the record, this one went over my head completely in May, 1974.)- Spider-Man
- the Sub-Mariner
The presence of the Hulk, Subby, and even Hawkeye — not to mention the Silver Surfer (or the Valkyrie, who’ll be showing up on the next page) — makes a sort of sense, as they’ve all served alongside Dr. Strange in Marvel’s premiere “non-team”, the Defenders. And maybe Nick Fury is there because he and Doc used to be double-featured in Strange Tales, and I guess Spidey might represent a nod to his and Doc’s shared lineage as creations of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. But I have no idea why the Black Panther or Ant-Man might be included, let alone Green Lantern or Capt. Midnight.*
Of course, I may well be overthinking the whole thing; to echo the words of Dr. Strange himself, this scene may simply be meant to put us readers “in the middle of madness!”
Illustration by John Tenniel, 1871.
Unlike the other Lewis Carroll character analogues featured in our story so far, the White Queen comes not from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but from its 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
The ersatz superdudes (and you’ll note that it’s only those characters fully owned by Marvel that appear following that first “tea party” spread) try to regroup after Dr. Strange’s blind-and-confuse-’em spell, but the Sorcerer Supreme isn’t messing around; and his next blast of mystical force blows his attackers right through the castle wall…
Your humble blogger must admit here that, although I enjoyed “A Separate Reality” well enough when I first read if fifty years ago, it was probably my least favorite installment of the overall “Silver Dagger” story arc back then — mostly due to what I considered the bait-and-switch nature of the indisputably well-drawn cover. “Dr. Strange vs. the dynamic Defenders”? They weren’t the real Defenders, and so, as far as I was concerned, that blurb was a cheat. Even setting aside the “truth in advertising” concern, my younger self generally didn’t care for comics where the hero spent most of the story fighting or otherwise interacting with illusory versions of his foes and/or friends, considering them to be largely a waste of time since the encounters weren’t “real”. I’m happy to report that, half a century later, I’ve learned to be a little less narrow and rigid in what I expect from my superhero genre comics, and can thus better appreciate Doctor Strange #2 for the journey into absurdity that it is.
Still, even if I’d had that level of maturity back in May, 1974, I imagine that I’d have been more than ready to see Doc go ahead and have that inevitable confrontation with Death already, as promised in the last panel’s “next issue” blurb. As things turned out, however, I (and everyone else) would have to wait until Doctor Strange #4 for the next chapter 
of the story; because, in the same manner in which Marvel had added an extra issue of Marvel Premiere (then starring Dr. Strange) to their publishing schedule in the summer of 1973, the bi-monthly Doctor Strange would go monthly for one issue in June, 1974. And as had been the case Marvel Premiere #11, the “extra” issue would be devoted to reprints of old Lee-Ditko Dr. Strange stories from Strange Tales, save for a brief framing sequence by Englehart and Brunner (and, of course, the brand-new Brunner cover shown at left). To be honest, none of that bothered me very much in 1974; at that time, I’d seen very little of that early classic material, and I welcomed the chance to pick it up on the cheap. (I can well imagine longtime readers being a little miffed, however.)
In any event, all this means that it’ll be a couple of months until we pick back up with Dr. Strange’s Journey to the Center of the Orb. Of course, it would have been a couple of months anyway, even if Marvel hadn’t slipped that extra issue in on us way back when. But now at least you know why you’ll be reading a post about Doctor Strange #4 come July, rather than Doctor Strange #3. (No thanks necessary; we like to minimize confusion around these parts when we can.)
*Adding to the mystery, this spread was originally intended to include not Captain Midnight, but an entirely different Captain — albeit one who, like Midnight, had Fawcett Comics connections.
The back matter of Marvel Masterworks — Doctor Strange, Vol. 5 includes a reproduction of the original pencilled art page shown below, with a caption that states: “Note that Captain Marvel was originally at the table of the mad tea party.”
“Captain Marvel”, eh? And which Captain Marvel would that be? This guy’s short black hair and banded forearm guards recall the first, “Shazam!”-shouting character of that name, who’d originally been published by Fawcett and, in 1974, was currently being published by DC Comics. But that starry emblem on his chest looks more like what Marvel’s own “cosmically aware” C.M., Mar-Vell of the Kree, sports on the front of his spandex onesie. Which leads me to speculate that Englehart and/or Brunner initially meant to feature a sort of amalgam of the Fawcett/DC and Marvel versions of the hero in this space, but then they (or someone higher up at Marvel) got cold feet for legal reasons, and decided to go instead with Captain Midnight — who may or may not have been in public domain in 1974, but certainly wasn’t appearing in print anywhere. Anybody got any other ideas?
I was still about a year away from beginning to regularly include Dr. Strange among my regular comics purchases 50 years ago, and so missed this little masterpiece when it was new (memories of what my younger self did or didn’t do ofttimes confound me!). At any rate, now it puts me to mind that in this era, Brunner was in very close competition with Starlin as best trippily cosmic artist. I really love this stuff and upon finally reading it, I wasn’t bothered at all that the “guest stars” in this mag were only products of Dr. Strange’s mind in a strange realm. I just found it enjoyable to go along for the ride, although, like you, I wonder at some of the choices of those guests. Maybe some sort of in-jokes, to have include Captain Marvel/Midnight, Green Lantern’s hand and Ant-Man somewhat literally “in his cups”. Actually, at this point in the Marvel mythos, I don’t recall that Hank Pym in any of his guises had yet met Dr. Strange at all. The Pyms were on their honeymoon when Dr. Strange (during his masked phase) crossed over with the Avengers. Of course, the mystic mage had encountered the Black Panther during the Avengers/Defenders clash the year before.
Silver Dagger echoes the madness of recent characters the Hangman over in Werewolf By Night, and the Foolkiller in Man-Thing, not that I think Englehart & Brunner were taking direct inspiration from Wolfman’s & Gerber’s conceptions, but all involved seemed to thinking in similar directions with these clearly deranged characters who looked upon themselves as “heroes” setting the world “right” as they perceived it should be.
Overall, a fun read with beautiful art by Brunner & Giordano.
Dr. Strange (pre-mask) was among the many Marvel heroes depicted in a full-page pin-up at the wedding of Yellowjacket and the Wasp in Avengers # 60. Although it would have made more narrative sense for Dr. Strange’s subconscious to evoke Hank Pym in his Yellowjacket guise, the young Marvel reader in 1974 would have been more likely to recognize Hank in his Ant-Man guise from his run in Marvel Feature. Or maybe Steve Engelhart wanted Ant-Man in there as a nod to Hank’s coming guest-star appearances in Captain Marvel # 35 and 37 over the next several months. Alan, I hope that you’ll be able to provide us with some explanation in early 2025 as to why Steve Gerber and Steve E. had Hank reassume his Yellowjacket identity over in the pages of the Defenders and Avengers in early 1975.
I’ll do my best, jay!
I strongly suspect having Hank as Ant-Man in a teacup was just Brunner having a bit of fun. I suspected that maybe Dr. Strange had at least made an appearance in that wedding issue but couldn’t quite remember. I also suspect that both Steves liked the character of Hank Pym but felt he worked best as either a guest-member on the Defenders or a returning member of the Avengers as mostly normal-sized Yellowjacket rather than tiny Ant-Man or humongous Goliath. As of 50 years ago, I knew Hank Pym from one issue I got of his 1970s Ant-Man series and in reprints of early Avengers stories in Marvel Triple Action wherein I’d only seen him as Giant-Man — I’d catch reprints of his return to the Avengers and renaming himself Goliath a bit later. His stint in the Defenders was the first time I saw him as Yellowjacket. By then I’d caught on that he’d gone through quite a few costumes and identities in his career.
The wedding reception guest list is one of the many things about the Hank/Jan wedding that makes no sense. It’s just an excuse to draw all the heroes hanging out together even if it makes no sense for Jan to invite them (she doesn’t even like Spider-Man).
And exactly how were wedding invitations sent out to costumed characters whose addresses were unknown to anyone but the characters themselves, such as Spider-Man & Daredevil?
I suppose something like “Spider-Man, please contact me” in a personal ad might work, but that’s a good point.
I wrote about how that issue gets more nonsensical every time I read it: https://atomicjunkshop.com/what-is-truth-is-truth-unchanging-taste-avengers-60/
If you want to send a message, call Western Union, goes the old Hollywood axiom, but in the Marvel Universe, there are ways of contacting those in the super-heroic community.
In *Spider-Man Annual* #3, a message goes out to Daredevil, asking him to come to Avengers Mansion and be a character witness for Spidey.
Similarly, in *Avengers* #3, Iron Man projects an image to the X-Men (he met the Angel in *Tales of Suspense* #49) to alert them to the situation with the Hulk.
Where there’s a will there’s a way.
If you build it, they will come.
Or..
Some friends wanted to write aletter to Mark Twain, but they didn’t know where to mail it. One of them suggested that they send it to “Mark Twain — God Knows Where” and hope for the best.
Months later, they got a reply, and on the envelope there were the words:
“He did.”
‘Nuff said. Now to start on that sonnet about the sublimity of swinging spider-speed…
A terrific story. I recently read the Marvel Epic volume including this one and learned Capt. Midnight wasn’t the original choice for the party guest. Your explanation’s better than anything I came up with.
I also love Silver Dagger’s clueless theorizing about Clea’s backstory.
It took me purchasing a random Giant-size issue #4 of Man-Thing to experience my first Brunner and boy, was I hooked! There’s more time and effort in a single page than some comics in the 80’s and pretty much every comic produced in the 90s (except Alex Ross’s Marvels). Each turn of the page is just a visual pleasure…I think i’ve nearly got all his Marvel work except Howard the Duck #2…I’ll make sure I hunt down a nice crisp copy before we visit it in a few years!
Another fantastic August 74 issue – you guys can see how easy it was for me to decide to collect my birth month and year! Pure goodness!
Doctor Strange was like a harbinger of Englehart abandoning commercial stories in the future and I enjoyed every minute of it. It’s also the cause of Matt Fraction’s horrible mischaracterization of Strange. Somehow, the writer saw Clea as Strange’s disciple and lover and somehow misread it as Strange being a predator that seduced his disciple instead of a man teaching his already lover Earth’s magic. Can’t say that I minded that writer toddling back off the stage after that.
Urgh, yes! Fraction’s Stephen the Lech was a dreadful idea.
I LOVED this run on Doctor Strange. As I’ve said before, I’d never really cared much for the Doctor in his earlier incarnations. I liked Ditko’s surrealistic artwork and I enjoyed him in the Defenders where he behaved more like a standard super-hero, but until this Englehart/Brunner/Giordano run, I had never gotten excited about the character before. First of all, it was the artwork. Brunner and Giordano reached a height here that was equal to, if not beyond Adams and Giordano, and I soaked up every brilliantly rendered line. I confess, looking back on it now, I wonder why an old, white, religious zealot thought he’d best make his case for modesty in probity in a midriff-bearing skintight lavender shirt with a cowled collar and a pair of really tight lavender yoga pants, but to each his own.
The brilliance of Englehart’s writing here was in the subtle touches that demonstrated just how clueless and uninformed Silver Dagger was about the forces he was fighting. Much like how similar forces in our own modern day protest books and movies without having read them or watched them or deny the scientific evidence of fact and reason of a situation in favor of feeding their own bigotry and prejudice, Silver Dagger (and how perfect is it that he’s so unimaginative that he named himself after his own simply-named weapon!) had no idea what forces were in play in Strange’s world; he didn’t care. He simply knew magic scared him and that people who could master that magic made him feel small and powerless. As such, he threw himself into the study of the very thing he was fighting against, totally unaware of the fact that he was becoming an even bigger threat than those he fought. Silver Dagger had no idea who Strange had fought and why or what he did to protect our world from the magical forces beyond. He even assumed that Clea was just a “simple hippie-girl,” taken in by the big bad wizard, because that was easier than doing any research to see what was really going on.
And all of this is before we even GET to the story; Englehart’s rollicking pastiche of Lewis Carroll imagery and sixties-fueled psychedaelia as he stuggled to make it to the center of the orb (I’m surprised no one told him to “follow the yellow brick road”) and escape back to his own world. I loved the Defenders-Avengers Pub Crawl, but I never would have guessed that white-handed ring was supposed to be Green Lantern. Are we sure about that? The fact that issue #3 was a reprint was certainly a disappoinment, but it’s hard to quibble about it when the rest is all so glorious. Can’t wait for more. Thanks, Alan!
I imagine it was easier to stick with Alice imagery than work in Oz as well.
Silver Dagger’s utter cluelessness will, of course, be a key to his final defeat.
Give Silver Dagger his due, he’s in excellent physical condition in 1874 for a man who was a Cardinal, established enough in the Sacred Collage to be Papabile in 1963 (or possibly, 1958).
As he does not seem to be Italian, is he supposed to be someone like Francis Cardinal Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York, who was rumored to aspire to the Papacy and had only recently passed away at the time?
As Englehart, attended Wesleyan, this might be too much “Inner Baseball.”
It was nice to see Brunner draw many characters he usually did not draw. He was a great draftsman. If the hand is Green Lantern, it is ironic given that Englehart later wrote Green Lantern for 3 years and used to to launch the Millennium event across the DC Line ushering in the (ill-fated) New Guardians.
The next issue, with the Ditko reprints was fondly remembered. The Dormammu. story is where Dr, Strange went from being trippy, weird and striking (things like Beyond the Purple Veil or The House of Shadows!) to being a coherent and memorable extended story.
I wonder if Englehart & Brunner discussed who to include in that Mad Tea Party scene, agreeing beforehand, or if Englehart left that entirely up to Brunner. And notice, although Nick Fury was included, Doc’s prior Strange Tales stablemate, Johnny Storm, didn’t make it to the party. He must’ve accidentally burned up his invitation.
I’m thinking the character replaced by Captain Midnight is Captain Thunder from Superman #276 (June 1974), a Captain Marvel stand-in that I’m guessing was used because DC didn’t own the original yet.
https://www.comics.org/issue/27457/cover/4/
I assumed it was because Cap was still off in his own goofy world and they hadn’t yet established Earth-S was a sibling timeline to Earth-1.
It’s possible, though that issue would have hit the stands in March, when DS #2 was probably already in production.
All right! The return of “Attack of the 50-Year-Old Steve Englehart Comic Books”! Nothing gets my day started better!
Seriously, Alan, another sterling commentary on a superb arc. (Honestly, for some reason, I thought this book came out earlier than May, but the cover date bears this out.) Unlike you, I didn’t mind the bait-and-switch because the art was so compelling and the script so smart and literate. I really liked how Dr. Strange kept relating everything back to the caterpillar’s comments in the previous issue.
And as a fan of the Alice books, I especially liked the take by Brunner and Giordano on the mad tea party. (After the fact, it’s kinda funny that Green Lantern should make a “cameo,” considering Englehart would helm his adventures more than a decade later.) “Ya yellow-bellied,
Speaking of the tea party, if you dig those kind of visual shout-outs, Tim Sale (RIP) and Jeph Loeb did a version of it that was even more faithful to John Tenniel in the pages of one of those Halloween LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT one-shots that they did in the 1990s.
Great stuff!
It is lovely to see Colonel Nick Fury in “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” attire talking like Sgt. Fury, especially since the bellies should be yellow and the bricks golden, and not the other way around!
Had there been more space, perhaps Nick would have railed at “chicken-bitten” and “flea-scratchin'” weirdos as well.
Well, to quote Strange Tales #135, ‘They made me a Colonel but I’m still a Three Stripper at heart!”
I liked this story arc of Silver Dagger. He reminded me of people I met at that time who were just as crazy, fanatical, and bigoted. Their ignorance was appalling. The ending was something i hoped those people I met would end up there.too. I bought these issues when thehy first came out in 1970s. I met Steve Englehart once at a Detroit Comicon in 1970s. Very intelligent person.
Silver Dagger is a character who is, unfortunately, more timely than ever. He’s the exact type of person who in 2024 would proudly proclaim themselves to be “anti-woke.” He’s simultaneously ridiculous and highly dangerous in his willful ignorance & intolerance.