Four months ago, we took a look at Doctor Strange #10, which presented the first chapter in writer Steve Englehart and artist Gene Colan’s latest (as of July, 1975) four-part saga of the Sorcerer Supreme — this one involving our hero’s attempt to prevent the awesome cosmic entity Eternity from destroying the Earth. Naturally, that story had continued in the next bi-monthly issue of the series; but since we didn’t manage to fit a full post about Doctor Strange #11 into our September blogging schedule, we’ll need to cover its main events before moving on to the specific comic whose name and cover you see at the top of this post. If you’re a regular reader, you already know how this goes… and if you’re not, I’m sure you’ll figure it out as we roll along.
We’ll start by taking note of the cover by Gene Colan and Frank Giacoia, which happens to be the first one pencilled by Colan since the final issue of the previous volume of Doctor Strange, #183, back in 1969. While this is speculation on my part, I’m of the opinion that this reflects a new policy instituted by the latest editor-in-chief of the publisher’s color comics line, Marv Wolfman — who, we note, also began having Colan do the covers for the series the two men produced together, Tomb of Dracula, at about this same time. (For the record, Gil Kane had previously been drawing the majority of covers for both titles, as indeed he had for much of Marvel’s output over the past several years.)
We move on now to the opening splash page, where, unsurprisingly, we pick up the action right where the last issue left off:
The first page’s credit box brings notice of a significant change to the title’s creative team, as after a series of issues in which Colan’s pencils were finished by a variety of inkers with varying results, Tom Palmer returns as both inker and colorist. Palmer had been the sole inker of Colan’s previous run on Doctor Strange, and had also worked on a couple of the more recent issues (he of course had also been serving as the penciller’s regular inker on Tomb of Dracula for the last couple of years); now, he was back to stay for the remainder of the Englehart-Colan era (which, alas, had only eight issues to go at this point). This was good news for fans such as your humble blogger, for whom no inker has ever been more successful in translating Colan’s photo-impressionistic pencil drawings into superlative, fully finished comics art.
In the story arc that had kicked off this current volume of Doctor Strange, writer Steve Englehart (with artist and co-plotter Frank Brunner) had riffed on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” stories to good result; in this issue, we’ll see him taking a large dollop of inspiration from another well-known work of 19th century literature: Edgar Allan Poe’s 1842 short story, “The Masque of the Red Death” (full text available here).
Taking the role of Prince Prospero in this reworking of Poe’s “Masque” is disgraced former United States president Richard Nixon (or, more accurately, a simulacrum of the arrogant surgeon Dr. Stephen Strange used to be, sporting a Nixon mask). Steve Englehart had of course already savaged Nixon in his 1973-74 “Secret Empire” storyline in Captain America — though there he’d had to be more circumspect, able only to strongly imply that the Empire’s evil “Number One” was actually Nixon, without ever definitely identifying him as such in either word or image.
Clearly, Englehart still found Nixon to be a potent symbol, and with Tricky Dick’s resignation-under-duress now a matter of history, he felt free to be more direct in using him to represent the human drive to gain and hold personal power by any means necessary. (Purely from a Marvel Universe continuity perspective, it’s interesting that Dr. Strange refers here to Nixon as having “resigned”, since the Nixon-analogue in Captain America very definitely committed suicide [as shown on the final page of CA #175]. Does that mean that there was a cover-up of Nixon’s “true” fate on the Marvel-Earth of 1974?)
Dr. Strange decides he’s heard enough, and begins to cast a spell to take him away from this place — only to find that his magic isn’t working. On “Nixon”‘s order, several of Strange’s other doppelgängers rush to seize him, but…
I’m not exactly sure what the point of the falling chandelier was, since, as we’ll see presently, it has absolutely no effect on anything that happens afterwards. It doesn’t appear to be part of Poe’s original story, but maybe it’s a nod to a film or television adaptation? If anyone has any ideas, please let the rest of us know via the comments section.
Eternity has popped in to formally note that Dr. Strange, having been “beaten by physical power“, has failed the first of his trials. Doc retorts that this is only true because Eternity has robbed him of his magic. Not so fast, replies the awesome entity — our hero still possesses “the Light of Truth“, as contained within his amulet’s Eye of Agamotto. “Make use of truth — and yourself!” advises Eternity, right before popping back out. Dr. Strange files that away for future rumination, then turns to tend to the injured arm of his “patient”…
Pondering what to do next, Dr. Strange puts a hand against the wall — and is surprised when a stone gives way…
Just in case you’re wondering, or have forgotten, Baron Mordo’s physical body is still back on the roof of Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, where he abandoned it on the last page of DS #10 after escaping from his room…
Dr. Strange proceeds until he sees a solitary doppelgänger of his — one dressed as a surgeon — wandering the estate grounds. He sneaks up on this false self, renders him unconscious, and then, after disguising himself in the man’s clothes, re-enters the mansion. Seeing the group’s leader, “Nixon”, surrounded by others, Doc decides to try to lure him outside…
Dr. Strange’s last encounter with Death had been in issue #4; the entity’s statement here that at that time he “wore the mask of infinity” seems to me to be rather oblique, though I suppose it may be referencing the panel shown at right, which comes at that issue’s climax (text by Englehart, art by Frank Brunner and Dick Giordano).
Remember the Aged Genghis? The dementia-suffering mystic who keeps turning up in Doctor Strange but never does much of anything? Well, things may be about to change as regards that latter bit.
Anyway, that’s all she wrote for Doctor Strange #11. So let’s jump on ahead to November, 1975, pausing just long enough to note that Tom Palmer inked Gene Colan’s pencils for the spookily ominous cover before jumping into the story…
As you may recall from our Doctor Strange #10 post, when Eternity showed Dr. Strange the four alternate “selves” he’d need to confront and master to save the Earth, the third one — the “acolyte to the Ancient One”, to borrow Eternity’s phrasing — was visually depicted as wearing the less fancy-looking blue cloak Doc wore in his early Strange Tales appearances. That classic outfit appeared on the cover of DS #11, as well. So it’s a little disappointing that, now that we’ve arrived at that point in the story, we only see the hero as he normally appears in the present, sporting his familiar red-and-gold Cloak of Levitation… but, whatever.
The next two pages are given over mostly to a recap of the story to date, with the only new activity consisting of Baron Mordo taking a seat across from the Aged Genghis, whom we’re told is unaware of his presence. We’ll pick things back up with page 4…
If you suspect that Stephen Strange’s shutting out of his lover/disciple Clea — something that’s been burbling in the background for a few issues now — is going to eventually have some serious ramifications for them as a couple, well, you’re quite perspicacious. Or maybe you just have a good memory of having read these comics before.
Strange decides that trying to match the Ancient One power-to-power may not be the best approach — rather, he should attempt the same gambit he did the last time he strove against his master (you remember, it was that time he killed him), as originally chronicled back in Marvel Premiere #10 (Sep., 1973)…
As I’ve written in previous posts, I have an enormous soft spot for the bodysuit-and-mask look rocked (very briefly) by Dr. Strange in the late 1960s, probably because that was what he was wearing when I first got into him as a character. I do understand why it grates on some other fans, however.
It’s a nice bit of retroactive characterization that Englehart drops in here, providing some motivation for Dr. Strange’s decision back in 1970 to give up being a Master of Mystic Arts — and quite welcome, considering that, in the Roy Thomas-scripted Hulk #126 (published just a few months after Doc’s title had been cancelled), that major life decision had seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere (as was recently pointed out by several readers in the comments section of our Defenders #31 post). To be honest, I’m not sure that Englehart’s “fix” is completely convincing — but, hey, at least it’s something.
The real Dr. Strange’s magical counterattack “floods his opponent, and paints the peaks for miles around in the lurid light of cosmic flame!” Still, the seeming victory has taken a toll on our hero…
“And still I am mad!” rants Mordo. “Mad enough to destroy us all — you, me, and everything else — if that’s what’s needed to destroy you!” A reeling Doctor Strange almost admits defeat to himself: “Just as I thought I’d won, I lost — I lost the entire world!” And then he remembers: “Clea! She was searching for me! Through her, I can still claim victory!”
Wait, what’s Eternity saying? That all of these landscapes Dr. Strange has been moving through these last two issues have been located on good ol’ Earth? I can kind of see that with this episode’s scenes, which are all set in the Himalayas, but where was all the “Red Death” stuff supposed to be taking place? Questions, I have questions… although it’s looking like it’s already too late for any answers to be forthcoming… now, or ever:
There’s something especially chilling about the specificity of Englehart’s script telling us that the demise of planet Earth occurs “in less than eight minutes”, especially when contrasted with the apocalyptic violence of Colan and Palmer’s closing full-page image.
Though I suppose that this is a moot point, what with the world having just been destroyed, and all of us now being dead. Except that, as the final page’s closing captions helpfully point out, we’re all still here to read about it — now, as well as fifty years ago. So things are bound to get better, somehow… though just exactly how the Sorcerer Supreme is going to get himself (and all the rest of us) out of this very tightest of spots is a tale we’ll have to postpone perusing until January. I hope to see you then.
Beautifully drawn and colored. Colan and Palmer were in top form, and the digital reprint gives the black inks and hues the richness they *should* have had – but didn’t – in late 1975.
The last two panels of the page where Clea is seated in a quasi-lotus position, quite fulsome with protruding aureolas, then mouth open and eyes closed in the final panel look like a thinly-disguised orgasmic experience. I’m sure it was not lost on adolescent boys who were reading this.
Finally, I’m surprised to see a sustained likeness of Richard Nixon in the comic, as the indicia still ran the “any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental” disclaimer.
Tricky Dick was still very much alive at the time, but I doubt he raised an eyebrow over it. Mad magazine certainly had a field day with him while he was in office (1968-74).
The “any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental” or unintentional defamation disclaimer as also often seen on films as well, is added to deter anyone random who somehow recognises themselves from taking offense eg if they had the same name , thinking they are being depicted when they almost certainly aren’t (ie any resemblance is accidental) The film disclaimer isn’t legally ironclad and doesn’t prevent all claims (valid or not) nor prevent real people being depicted (though they can and do sometimes object to their portrayal).
Actually it’s much later and more obvious and just to do with the cover but there was the Amy Grant Dr Strange issue that was recalled
https://recalledcomics.com/DoctorStrangeSorcererSupreme15AmyGrant.php
That was Jackson “Butch” Guice who did that. Amazing he still had a career after a move like that.
Ah looked him up. Died May this year. Yeah bizarre if they really wanted to use a photo facial image – that they didn’t choose a paid anonymous model but instead a celebrity and definitely the wrong kind of celebrity. Ozzy Osbourne might have laughed it off.
My compliments on weaving two complex issues into a single, easy to read review! Although I thoroughly enjoyed these issues as a HS freshman, I’m not sure how much of Englehart’s deeper themes I understood. I clearly did not pick on those sexual subtleties at that time. The Colan-Palmer art certainly worked for me! Can’t wait to read your review of the conclusion!
Loved reading this back in the mid-seventies. Indeed, the Englehart run on Dr. Strange was and is one of my most prized possessions. It actually led me to study more about philosophy in general. I owe a real debt of appreciation to Steve Englehart. I am floored by all the subtle nuance and incorporating ingredients of Poe and earlier Carroll and how masterfully they’re pulled off. Taking Doc through his various past incarnations and weaving into them the traditional comic book “hero versus villain” trope took some doing and I think he handled it very well. I love how Englehart wrote Infinity as well, broadening the character out so much more than Lee and Ditko (whom I harbor great respect for) ever did. I enjoyed the several times where Infinity displays what I’d call pique at Strange too. “Yes, that is what you have said!” and in the first chapter of this saga, “you would overcome me when you can’t even overcome yourself?” Another perfect aspect of the whole thing is the interchange after “Nixon” loses his mask. Wherein Infinity mentions the reality of pride and paranoia and Strange replies with how he divorced himself from such (political) nonsense and pursued higher pursuits. Words to live by for us 50 years later age as well!
Colan’s art really fits and highlights the moody, quasi-real world of “Shadowplay” too. I must admit I was all in on Brunner but if he had to leave the series then yeah bringing Colan back was the next best thing. Adding Palmer to this issue was a huge plus also.
I still enjoyed Strange at this point but to be honest, there’s only been two series I enjoyed Colan’s work on. One was Tomb Of Dracula and the other Night Force. Not even Palmer could save Strange for me, which kinda preaged how badly I took to his finishes over John Buscema’s layouts in Avengers.
I’m surprised you didn’t point out masque also appears in a Doctor Who series title. I Googled the word to make sure I was remembering correctly since Masque Of Mandragora is fifty years old too I bet. It was an elaborate form of courtly entertainment popular in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.
It combined music, dancing, singing, and acting within elaborate staging and costumes.
The performances were often allegorical and designed to praise a patron or monarch.
Sometimes, members of the court, including royalty, would participate in the masque. The AI intro to Google search pages did a good job, eh?
It was stories like this that ruined Doctor Strange for me. So many of his adventures were just chess games between himself and one of his enemies, trying to prove their ultimate superiority over one another. Like the chess game between Good and Evil in The Seventh Seal, it was just move and counter-move. Englehart tells us that he’s fighting for the “real” Earth in the “real” world, but he almost never is, baited and switched by yet another cosmic entity bent on his destruction. I preferred his adventures in The Defenders more, where the outcome of his actions of more tangible consequences.
As for the artwork, I guess if you can’t have Brunner, Colan is a good second choice. I’m not a big fan of Gene’s work in DD or elsewhere, but his panoramic vistas and psychedelic portraits fit Doctor Strange better than they do a more street-based hero like Daredevil. Thanks, Alan!
Whereas I thought Colan’s DD work made Stan Lee’s “meh” scripts for the hero look way better than they really were. I also enjoyed him on Iron Man, even though his style shouldn’t have worked for that. But that’s what makes horse races.
Englehart, Colan & Palmer weaved a fascinating, ruminative tale, dealing with Stephen Strange’s pasts and life choices and the arrogance of certainty, which makes it apt that one of his “selves” wore a Nixon mask as it was in large part Nixon’s own insecurities and arrogance that brought about his downfall not too long after he had attained his greatest political success with the landslide re-election results of 1972. And the real Nixon himself was known to wallow in drunken self-pity, railing against his perceived enemies. Can’t say if Englehart really thought about all that when having one of the dopplegangers wear that mask, but seems conceivable to me. Admittedly, it would all have gone way over my 13-year old head in 1975. As it was, I got the concluding chapter, #13, only reading the whole story decades later. Issue #12 certainly left our Master of the Mystic Arts in a massive pickle — the world actually destroyed. OF course, we know that this can’t stand — that very likely there will be another issue of Dr. Strange to come and that Marvel Comics itself will keep its fictional world going despite that closing panel of DS # 12. But we’ll have to see how Doc (assuming he survived that cataclysm himself) manages to put things to right. Looking forward to that discussion, next year, Alan! Maintaining hope that the world won’t be destroyed again in the interim!
Englehart, Colan, & Palmer? Sounds like a ’70s progressive rock group! 😉
Also reminds me of seeing a colorized version of the Masque of the Red Death excerpt from the 1926 Phantom of the Opera silent film. I saw that sometime in the mid-70s on a late night Creature Feature show and it stuck in my mind, although I forgot the source of the scene until I looked it up on line a decade or so ago. Very creepy.
I’ve said before that I loved Englehart’s writing back then, although sometimes nowadays I’m not so sure about the plotting and direction of his series after his first ideas were done. That said, this is him at his very best.
One thing I always loved was his use of, I’ll call it, repetition in a different context of dialogue that becomes increasingly more significant. Early on, the Ancient One (or the reasonable facsimile thereof, or maybe not?) warns Strange: ‘ you want answers! You want solutions!…’ then the closing caption reinforces that: ‘you want answers… you want solutions…’, but this time talking directly to the reader. One thing Englehart always did was use language well.
Some of this dialogue is still planted in my memory of obscure and useless trivia: ‘Planet Earth is rent by one, then a series, of monumental blasts! It… and all its children… are cinders and dust in less than eight minutes! But then… how is it you remain?’ I could’ve quoted that from memory going back 50 years, word for word, before I ever saw this review. That must qualify as some kind of good writing!
Wait for the next issue… ‘Planet Earth is no more!…’
After posting that previous comment, I felt compelled to look up reviews of the Phantom of the Opera – from 1925 actually, and in a review by Roger Ebert, he mentions that the Phantom caused a massive chandelier to fall down on the audience during a performance at the Paris Opera House. Clearly, Englehart’s story took that as the inspiration for that scene in the comic. I would guess I also saw either the entire film or at least that segment of the film in 1974 or ’75. I also learned that in the film’s original release the Red Masque scene, among others had color tints so the film was not entirely black and white.
Thanks, fred — I had no idea that there was a “Red Death” sequence in “Phantom of the Opera”! (It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an adaptation of “Phantom” all the way through — not even the musical — let alone read the original novel.)
I found a few more details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death_in_popular_culture#Stage_and_screen
Here is a 36 second clip of the chandelier falling from the 1925 film:
https://youtu.be/aMuOstSVvMI?si=gQtAtpyoN0FN0LQL
Now I wonder if Wein and Wrightson also used the chandelier as a plot twist in Swamp Thing no. 4 because of this same film. It seems that the silent Chaney films and the Universal films of the 1930s-40s were the principal (but not sole) inspiration for the Swamp Thing’s adversaries in those first ten issues. Here’s a page from your review of that issue, Alan:
https://i0.wp.com/50yearoldcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/swampt4-chandelier.jpg?ssl=1
I did not pick these up at the time, as I did not find them, but if I had, my first reaction would have been ‘errrrrrr??’. especially with #11. Fine pieces of work, but would have left new entrants completely stumped ( to use a bit of cricket terminology for you yanks). So not commercial…but DS must have had a strong and loyal fan base for it to survive for another decade.
It seems that the destruction of the world was not very popular with other Marvel scribes. Happily, as with many of the rest of you, I did survive the destruction and find and pick up #13 ( when I did find out that the world had been destroyed) and look forward to that post in a few months ( although I will have to wait until April to re-read the actual comic).
Good point about Wolfman Alan. Obvious now that he must have been central in getting Palmer onto the comic. Palmer must have been very much in demand at the time, as any pencils he handled at the time he turned to gold.
I don’t know — I picked up #11 and found it absolutely fascinating, even though I hadn’t read a Strange story since “Spawn of Sligguth”
for marvelites of a certain age the fact that this run was stopped before its conclusion is like a phantom limb…
I know I’m jumping the gun here but damnit Englehart is still alive, I want him to just pick up on the Clea/Bem Franklin story.
I don’t care what others have done to “resolve” this loose end, that’s about as satisfying as a lame Jonathan Lethem Omega The Unknown comic.
(signed)
FIFTEEN YEAR OLD ME
Agreed. One of the frustrating unresolved storylines of comics, like Kirby’s Fourth World and Rick Veitch’s Swamp Thing time travel story.
This kind of weird, disjointed, reality with some underlying logic was always meat and drink for me as a kid (and to a large extent still). Though I still didn’t stretch my budget to buy the book, I’m happy to have this run in reprints.
Contrary to what everyone says, the world really has been destroyed in this issue. Strange and some of his friends were just trying to get their heads around the resolution of that when Englehart left the series. A shame, as nobody else followed up.
Another great Blog Stewart, I do enjoy your weekly discussion.
Englehart’s and Colan’s Doc Strange was great but I do remember my younger self being a bit befuddled at time as to what was going on, but really enjoying the ride.
Palmer was such a strong inker and could subdue and overwhelm other artists style but his inks complimented Colan’s chiaroscuro pencils beautifully, and of course on this issue he did the colouring as well.
As already mentioned Colan did enjoy drawing the ladies and it shows, he drew a lovely Clea and Black Widow over in DD.
I do wish they would dial down the colour on the digital edition to the more muted and subtle tone of the print editions, they can be quite garish in comparison.