As regular readers of this blog will recall from our November, 2025 post about Doctor Strange #12, that particular installment of the adventures of Marvel Comics’ Master of the Mystic Arts ended not with a whimper, but a bang. Actually, a series of bangs, by the end of which the planet Earth (the “real” one, writer Steve Englehart’s script assured us) had been completely and utterly destroyed, along with all living things thereon. “But then,” Englehart’s omniscient narrator pointedly asked us readers, “how is it you remain?” How, indeed? The answer to that poser was promised for the next bimonthly issue… which, of course, brings us to the subject of today’s post.
Doctor Strange #13’s opening splash page picks up the story right where the last issue left off — i.e., in the immediate aftermath of the end of the world.
Joining Steve Englehart for the conclusion of this four-part story arc are the regular art team of Gene Colan (penciller) and Tom Palmer (inker/colorist), the two of whom also produced the book’s cover.
Leaving his corporeal body drifting in the void, Strange’s astral form exits our very universe, to travel to the domain of Nightmare. “Ask him what he hopes to accomplish, and he could not tell you,” a narrative caption informs us. “All he knows is that he will not lie down and let go!”
Dr. Strange quickly dispatches the bird-like demons, and then it’s on to Nightmare himself, who falls almost as quickly. But them, as Strange stands triumphantly over his defeated foe, a thought comes to him: “There as something he said, when I first spotted him –! ‘So you do retain your mystical might!’ Why would he have thought otherwise — unless…”
His mind suddenly awhirl with fantastic possibilities, Strange turns his head to see:
Dr. Strange (and his readers) first learned of Eternity in Strange Tales #134 (Jul., 1965) although they wouldn’t lay eyes on the enigmatic entity for another four issues. Text by Stan Lee; art by Steve Ditko.
Dr. Strange and Eternity finally meet, in this splash panel from Strange Tales #138 (Nov., 1965), depictin. Text by Stan Lee; art by Steve Ditko.
Eternity has been around for so long now — and the lore concerning him has become so extensive — that it’s easy to forget that, as originally created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the character was a virtual enigma. While he was clearly the most extraordinarily powerful entity Dr. Strange had ever confronted (for the record, they first met face to face in Strange Tales #138 [Nov., 1965]), he was obscure enough that, prior to ST #134, our favorite Master of the Mystic Arts had never even heard of him. And he wasn’t necessarily indestructible, as at the conclusion of the epic battle between Eternity and Dormammu that served as the climax of the classic “The End — At Last!” in Strange Tales #146 (Jul., 1966), the ultimate fates of both combatants were left unknown. Not even the Ancient One could confidently state whether or not Eternity would ever return.
We’ll probably never know exactly what Lee and Ditko conceived the true nature of Eternity to be (or if they even had the same idea regarding such); but together they had given the character both a name and a visual that strongly suggested that he existed on an entirely different (and much higher) level than any other being that had previously appeared in the “Dr. Strange” strip. Still, readers would have to wait until writer Roy Thomas brought Eternity back in Doctor Strange (1968 series) #180 (May, 1969) for the next conceptual step to be taken, as, within its pages, our hero (who’d seemingly come by some additional knowledge since ST #146) confidently described Eternity as “the very personification of time itself!!” Which, given the standard dictionary definitions of the word that served as the entity’s moniker, was an entirely reasonable extrapolation on Thomas’ part; still, what about all those stars and planets swirling around in what appeared to be Eternity’s body? Don’t those give off rather more of a “space” vibe than a “time” one?
Steve Englehart seems to have thought so. In this scene, he establishes the nature of Eternity for every Marvel writer going forward with the entity’s blunt declaration: “I am what you see before you: the universe!” Sure, that concept has been tweaked here and there over the decades (probably most significantly with the 1991 introduction of Eternity’s sister/alter ego, Infinity — the personification of “space”), but the essential idea still stands. If you’re a Marvel Comics creator in 2026, and you want to tell a really big, really cosmic story on a scale where the very Marvel Universe itself is under threat, the odds are good that Eternity will ultimately be a part of it — because, in a very real sense, Eternity is the Marvel Universe.
Adam Kadmon, from Qabbalah, by Isaac Myer (1888).
And because Steve Englehart was the writer he was, with a genuine interest in real-world esoterica, his interpretation of the character of Eternity comes with a reading list. When Englehart has Eternity say, “I am Adam Qadmon, the archetypal man“, he’s associating the entity with a concept drawn from the Jewish mystical traditions of Kabbalah, in which — among other meanings — Adam Kadmon “expresses the idea that the cosmos itself has both a soul and body very much like that of man” (Sanford Drob,The New Kabbalah). If you’re already familiar with this field of study, then Englehart’s reference likely enriches the story for you and opens up other avenues of thoughtful exploration. If you’re not (as my eighteen-year-old self certainly wasn’t, fifty years ago), then it simply adds to the story’s mystique (and, perhaps, inspires one to do more research, whether now or in the future). It’s a win, either way — and a great example of what made Steve Englehart’s approach to writing Doctor Strange so special.
As longtime readers may or may not recall, the “minor matter” that Eternity took care of for Dr. Strange back at the conclusion of their last encounter was to change every earthly record of our hero’s existence to read or say “Dr. Stephen Sanders”, effectively giving him a “secret identity” he hadn’t previously possessed. It was all part of Roy Thomas’ experiment in amping up Doc Strange’s superheroic characteristics in the hopes of boosting his popularity — but, given that Doc’s title was cancelled with the very next issue, and that he subsequently “retired” from his sorcerous career just a few months later, in Hulk #126, the whole thing proved to be rather pointless. In any event, Eternity’s tweaking of reality at that time was, as he says, pretty small potatoes compared to the ask Strange is making of him now… though, naturally, that doesn’t mean that Strange isn’t justified in doing so.
Unable to convince Eternity on the basis of gratitude, Dr. Strange next tries to appeal to his sense of responsibility: “In your dream, you took me to task for humanity’s weaknesses — but how are you any different? We bear your workmanship!” But the Big E’s still not having it…
Despite Eternity’s claim that the recreated Earth is identical to the old one, his words belie that assertion in at least one respect… if, as he says, our new world is indeed “without Mordo“. As you may recall, the physical body of Baron Mordo was last seen on the rooftop of the Sanctum Sanctorum at the end of Doctor Strange #10, while his astral form, which had gone on to battle our hero in issue #12, was last glimpsed beaming in insane triumph right before the Earth went kablooey. So, what’s happened to Dr. Strange’s oldest, if not greatest, foe?
We’ll never know how Steve Englehart might have eventually answered that question, had his tenure on Doctor Strange not concluded so abruptly, just five issues past this one. As for the scribes that followed him, they seemed content to let the matter slide, at least until Chris Claremont revealed in issue #39 (Feb., 1980) that Mordo was alive and well — without providing a clear explanation regarding how he’d survived, let alone where he’d been all this time… though, given that almost four years had passed, I’m not sure how many fans even noticed (I’m all but 100% certain I didn’t).
Back in January, 1976, however, the fate of Baron Mordo was probably the last thing on my mind as I sat looking at the last page of Doctor Strange #13, “coming down” alongside Doc from the long, strange trip the last four issues had been. I’m pretty sure that the single most startling thing to me about the story’s closing moments was that one simple image of Eternity fading away while wearing the Ancient One’s face and speaking with his voice — although just why that should have floored me, considering that Englehart had clearly established back in Marvel Premiere #10 (Sep., 1973) that the Ancient One had become one with the universe… and, as we all now understood, Eternity was the universe… I couldn’t tell you. The “reveal”, if you want to call it that, was completely logical — but it was also still completely mind-blowing, at least for this gape-mouthed reader.
I was so knocked out by that bit, in fact, that I’m not sure I immediately gave much thought to the other metaphysical issues raided by the story’s conclusion. If everyone in the world (myself included) had been violently killed when the world blew up, were the inhabitants of the recreated Earth really “us”? And if we didn’t remember dying, what difference could the answer even make? In another comic-book series, such questions might have been quickly left behind in the rearview mirror — but Doctor Strange was all about that kind of speculation… or, at least, Steve Englehart’s Doctor Strange was.
Still, even Englehart’s Stephen Strange would likely have to temporarily set aside contemplating these conundrums if the Lord of Vampires, Count Dracula, were to come calling… as would in fact occur the very next month, in a two-part crossover beginning in Tomb of Dracula #44 and concluding, just one week later, in the 14th issue of Doctor Strange — now published monthly! Needless to say, your humble blogger is looking forward to sharing both chapters of this classic match-up with you come February.
The world got recreated at least 2x in this run, but “no time to dawdle Clea and Wong, we have to go to Boston to fight Dracula!” I love this run. Thank you Alan for reminding me just how terrific these comics were/are.
I never owned this one, and in perusing it I’m a bit surprised the Comics Code allowed some of Englehart’s concepts to see print. Likewise, if Stan Lee had been at the editorial helm. Fine Colan-Palmer art and superb lettering by John Costanza. It is as perfect as any digital lettering font out there today, but with its human touch intact, as this is all hand-crafted.
The only Marvel comics cover dated April 1976 in my collection is Tomb of Dracula no. 43, also with Colan-Palmer art inside, but sporting a cover signed by Berni Wrightson. However, it seems Ed Hannigan provided uncredited pencils for it, and Berni likely did not ink the lady’s face and hair, or Dracula’s clothes, as they are not at all in his style:
https://cdn.marvel.com/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/c/90/50adb95f538ce/clean.jpg
Wild, cosmic, astonishing. Seeing Strange and some of his cast begin to grapple with the idea the entire world had ended was interesting too — I imagine Englehart would have taken that further, given time.
Nothing much else to add.
Perhaps, Alan, when Eternity says “Without Mordo” he’s referring to the event. To Mordo’s actions. Similairly a historian might contemplate the second world war “without Churchill.” They’d be referring to the Prime Minister’s integral actions, contribution’s not so much to the man himself.
That’s a very reasonable interpretation, Joe. On the other hand, it still leaves us with the questions of what *did* happen to Mordo, and where did he go? That very matter will be brought up in DS #16 (yeah, I’m already working on that post 🙂 ), so I’m still inclined to think Englehart had something in mind there (though I could of course be wrong!).
It was this issue and the upcoming ones that led Dr. Strange to becoming my second favorite comic book character (behind Iron Man). The manner that Gene Colan and Tom Palmer captured the full scope of Steve Englehart’s multi-tiered story absolutely captivated me as a kid – and thanks to Alan’s wondrous review – maintains that same stellar ranking. The collective talents on this book elevated Strange from baffling some mystic menace with “bolts of bedevilment” or “waves of whatzit” to an actual person caught up in this incredible world. One attempting to meet and address every new challenge hurled at him while wanting to remain tethered to a normal world with the woman he loved.
Once this team departed from Dr. Strange, it took only one issue to also chase me away from this series – not returning until following Paul Smith to this series in the mid-80’s.
On the same page as Eternity’s Adam Quadmon comment, he also mentions his brother, Death. I know it makes no sense to quibble about gender when you’re talking about all-powerful cosmic beings, but since Starlin had just done such a phenomenally complete job establishing that Death was female over in the pages of Warlock, I wonder why Englehart didn’t follow suit, given how close he and Starlin were.
As for Adam Quagmon, I think my 18-year-old good little church boy self assumed Englehart was somehow referring to Adam from the Book of Genesis, husband of Eve and caretaker of the Garden of Eden. It makes a certain sense if you look at the illustrations in the same panel, but I guess not.
My frustrations with Colan’s artwork continued here. Faces that were too wide, unfinished figures that just sort of smeared off the edge of the panel, and don’t even get me started about that horned “fan” Strange wears at the neck-opening at his cape. It’s so huge and it totally destroys his peripheral vision! You’d think even the Master of the Mystic Arts would need to know when someone was trying to sneak up behind him.
But, of course, Englehart’s story more than makes up for it. While there’s a little hand-waving involved in Eternity’s decision to re-create the Earth, Englehart makes it harder to see in it’s brevity as creation began almost immediately thereafter. It’s a great story. Cosmic and mystical, philosphical and esoteric. In other words, perfect Doctor Strange. Thanks, Alan!
Colan & Palmer were drawing both Dr. Strange AND Tomb of Dracula on a monthly basis. This probably accounts for “the unfinished figures that juat sort of smeared off the edges of the panels” — they were flying by the seat of their pants! Contrast this with Frank Brunner who could barely pencil Dr. Strange on a bi-monthly basis, blowing the deadline on no. 3.
Colan and Palmer took on too much work, if you ask me, but they had to earn that cash somehow in those pre-royalties days.
It always struck me as intriguing that two such dissimilar artists as Ditko and Colan could both be so perfect for the same strip in their different ways. I’m a keen collector of both men’s work.
Brunner was definitely slow — he himself is on record as saying that the main reason he left Doctor Strange was that Marvel wanted to make it monthly and he couldn’t draw it that fast — but I don’t think we can knock him for blowing his bimonthly deadline with issue #3. Marvel was experimenting with making the book monthly only for the summer, so #3 came out in June ’74, just one month after #2. They’d done a similar thing the year before with Marvel Premiere #11, back when that title featured DS; in both instances, Brunner drew new covers and interior framing pages for the “extra” issues, which otherwise featured Lee/Ditko reprints from Strange Tales.
I find reading Colan’s Doctor Strange difficult – Strange just looks too similar to Dracula (minus the fangs) to my eye. I love my Tomb books so that’s all I see when I look at the above pages – and who can blame the artists, drawing these two books simultaneously every month, it’s no wonder the characters blurred a little!
I am a huge fan of Gene Colan, but I’d agree that here is where his artwork began to go from appealingly chiaroscuro and impressionistic to simply smeared and rushed, a decline that would accelerate when Colan jumped to DC and Batman a few years down the road, although Colan had been doing it since the Golden Age and no one stays at their peak forever. I want to make it clear that I admire Colan, but, yeah, on the second page Alan reproduces above, Colan just draws Dracula’s face with Dr. Strange’s cowl around his neck: once can see how Colan might have been over-worked at this point. While this may not apply to digital reprints on Marvel Unlimited, another factor to consider is that comics from this era began to look increasingly awful, as, as I saw Paul Levitz put it in a late ‘70s Comics Journal interview, DC and Marvel embarked on a series of drastic cost-cutting measures, moving from 20 or 22 pages of art to 17, moving from metal to plastic printing plates, substituting “water,” as Levitz put it, for the blacker ink they had used up until around 1972, having artists draw two-page spreads on one art board, as I believe Alan has touched on in previous installments of this blog. So where Colan and Palmer’s artwork on Dr. Strange looked great in 1969, which is right in the middle of the peak period of roughly 1968-72 where DC and Marvel books looked as good as they ever looked before the Baxter paper revolution, by this point in the mid-‘70s the printing quality had deteriorated to the point where the subtle effects Colan and Palmer were going for simply weren’t going to look good because Marvel was cutting every corner possible and their delicate art never stood a chance.
Don, I can’t agree with you about Colan’s art, at least not during this period. His portrayal of mood was simply unmatched, and his pencils – notoriously difficult to ink – found the perfect embellisher in Tom Palmer, who somehow managed to use zipatone to enhance the organic feel of Colan’s pencils, rather than just using it for superficial sheen as some others did at the time.
This made them the perfect partners for Englehart’s daring and esoteric stories. The sequence showing Eternity’s awakening in this issue is just beautiful and the portrayal of Nightmare is, well, nightmarish!
As for the cape, it was Ditko’s design, not Colan’s. And let’s face it, Doc wouldn’t be the only character whose costume would drastically inhibit his peripheral vision – Iron Man, Judge Dredd and the Human Top/Whirlwind, to name but three, would all be in the same boat.
And I echo Man of Bronze’s praise above for John Costanza’s lettering. All in all, this was a perfectly matched creative team at the very top of their game.
I’ve always figured that the gender of Death in the Marvel universe is determined by the individual. Thanos loves / obsesses over Death, so Death takes on a female visage. In some of Chris Claremont’s stories, Death appears as a male construction worker, as I recall… an unusual choice, to be sure.
I made the same assumptiona bout Adam.
I got this one when it was new. A really surreal tale that even more than usual for a Dr. Strange tale featuring Nightmare was very dreamlike. This was the first story I’d read that involved Eternity. Of course, I’ve long since read those earlier stories by Ditko/Lee and Thomas/Colan. Out of curiosity, I checked and saw that Eternity made his first appearance in August 1965, while Galactus showed up in FF for the first time just a few months later, in December 1965, and Ego in September 1966. Ditko thus took the lead in creating strange cosmic entities and although we don’t know what Ditko intended Eternity to represent or be, it seems entirely apt that Englehart explicitly made him (it?) out to be the embodiment of the universe itself. Given the origin of Galactus as a being from a prior universe remade at the beginning of a new one, I wonder if anyone has found some way to connect their origins — that is, if Eternity is the embodiment of the mainline Marvel universe only formed with the Big Bang.
Ditko’s Dr. Strange tales themselves often had dreamlike qualities, very explicitly in that very first Dr. Strange story wherein Nightmare also made his debut. Kirby’s cosmic tales had a more concrete, hard tech sci-fi feel. Starlin, IMO, skillfully took inspiration from both in his Warlock vs. Magus epic. Englehart, in his Dr. Strange run, further explored and expanded upon Ditko’s concepts and ideas, much moreso, IMO, than Lee, Thomas or any other Dr. Strange scribe ever did. Englehart was also the first to really make clear that Doc & Clea had a very much romantic relationship. Denny O’Neil, in his script for Ditko’s last Dr. Strange story, made clear that Stephen Strange had developed strong feelings for the woman who had risked her life for him but whose name he had only just learned. All this long before he took Clea on as his disciple after she had to leave her home dimension. In the post-Ditko era, Lee didn’t really build on their relationship, and Clea was mostly a pawn in the conflict between Doc and Umar, Clea’s mother. Thomas brought Clea to Earth but established that she and Doc were not living together (which made no sense to me at all). In all this, Englehart took a much more intellectual approach to chronicling Dr. Strange’s adventures than anyone else had previously done. And although he wasn’t able to do all that he had apparently planned, he nevertheless made significant contributions to the mythos of the Master of the Mystic Arts. As did his most esteemed artistic collaborators, Brunner & Colan.
“I wonder if anyone has found some way to connect their origins — that is, if Eternity is the embodiment of the mainline Marvel universe only formed with the Big Bang.”
They have indeed, fred. 😉 In current Marvel cosmology, “our” Eternity came into being only after the last iteration of the “main”, Earth-616 universe was destroyed (as occurred in Galactus’ origin). (I’m oversimplifying a little, as stuff happened in Secret Wars III that broke the normal rules, but that’s the gist.) That said, every parallel universe, as well as all superseded ones, has its own Eternity, who are all aspects of one higher, Multiversal Eternity.
More deets here, if you feel like going down the rabbit hole: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Eternity_(Multiverse)
An excellent review of a truly mind blowing story. It is worth noting that I remember there was a big announcement in the letters page of this issue that Dr. Strange was going monthly and at the time this seemed like a BIG DEAL. It would take another two and a half years for X-Men to build the momentum to go monthly. Dr. Strange had been bi-monthly since returning in Marvel Premiere in 1972 (and I don’t really count those additional issues in 1973 and 1974 since they were reprints). I remember being quite pleased that Dr. Strange was going monthly. Later in 1976, the Invaders and Howard the Duck would go monthly.
I don’t believe there was anyone at that time who was a better inker/embellisher for Gene Colan than Tom Palmer (maybe Klaus Janson a close second) and I thought their work was terrific here and the next several issues. And it was clear that the Colan/Palmer team could comfortably keep up with a monthly schedule on both Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula.
Interestingly enough, the repercussions of DS 13 would not be fully addressed until Dr. Strange 15. because of the crossover between Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula. And although some of those repercussions would play out in DS 15-16, Steve Englehart has mentioned in interviews that he had other related plans that he never got to follow through on because of his sudden departure from the series. If you are not already aware of those plans, I will bring it up at a later date.
Your comments regarding Mordo are really interesting, as I’m not sure I picked up on this at all when I read this issue 50 years ago. Given what a completist Steve was, it is certainly possible he may have had other eventual plans for Mordo since he is one of Dr. Strange’s oldest and most unrelenting enemies, but we’ll probably never know.
Although this story holds up quite well, and I think I had the same reaction as Dr. Strange at the end (just spending time…coming down). thinking about it now I’m not sure I really understand Nightmare’s plan. Why would he want to destroy the Earth? Doesn’t he want millions of people having nightmares? Wouldn’t that make him more powerful? I don’t think I thought about that at the time but now I wonder. Oh well.. he is just an evil character who wants to cause problems, I guess. Thanks Alan.
I’m always amazed that creators like Lee and Kirby or Claremont and Byrne could hit monthly deadlines and produce the level of quality they did. It just seems to me that bi-monthly gives the artist in particular a bit more room to breathe, and some artists such as, I don’t know, Paul Gulacy, needed that extra time to do their best work. But as a kid reading comics in the ‘70s, the gap between bi-monthly issues could feel like an eternity. I don’t know what the answer is. I remember a few years back when Alan talked about Marvel’s 1971? experiment that lasted for one month of going to 25 cent books with 34? pages of story and thinking there’s just no way anyone except maybe Sal Buscema could have kept up with that pace for even one monthly book for very long.
When I was kid, about 10 or 11, I invented “Powerhouse Comics” and tried to pencil then ink 20 page comics (of the “Fabulous 3” – you can guess who they were based on). Well I soon realised how much work that was. so hardly managed to finish maybe the second issue – that’s probably at least 100 drawings or more in an average issue – ok I was a kid . but that made me appreciate how prolific and hard working comic book artists were – and I didn’t have a deadline!
I only wish I had kept any of them .
Another thing I wondered. Was only “Earth” destroyed, as the dialogue literally states, or the ENTIRE universe?
I assume since he said Earth he meant Earth. Which might make sense for Nightmare — he gets revenge on Dr. Strange but there are other worlds with populations he can haunt.
I’ve been reading a bit about Gene Colan online, both interviews and commentaries. Though he had a long and prolific career in comics that spanned across seven decades, it was not always rosy.
It seems he really was “genial” Gene Colan, as Stan Lee sometimes credited him on Marvel splash pages. A genuinely nice man who was perhaps a bit too naively open (at first, anyway). Harvey Kurtzman called him “the perfect dupe” and was so abrasive that Gene only did one story for E.C. over Harvey’s layouts.
Attack DC he was constantly tormented by editor/scripter Bob Kanigher until Gene had had enough and told Kanigher, “You’re crazy!” Gene was then fired from the Hopalong Cassidy comic, a steady gig on a popular comic, and from DC’s war titles.
It seems Stan Lee treated Gene Colan well over at Marvel. Scripters like Roy Thomas were upset when Gene would leisurely pace a book’s storytelling, having to cram 16 panels on the final page to wrap the story up—or be forced to make it a two-parter.
Gene also admitted to taking amphetamines on order to keep up with deadlines on Dr. Strange.
However, by the late ’70s when Jim Shooter ascended up the Marvel ranks Gene was once again treated so harshly that he had to walk away from an exclusive contract which included health benefits. At least there is no record of him having any troubles at DC in the ’80s.
Eventually, like so many older comics artists, he began to have eye problems. Glaucoma took its toll, leaving him nearly blind in his left eye and with tunnel vision in the right. When he died, though, it was from stomach cancer.
I hope he did well with royalties in his latter days, and with the sale of original art, as he had his own internet domain name since 1998.
It did gratify him a lot to know how much the fans loved his work.
*At* DC (not attack)
Colan taking amphetamines gets back to my point about how did these guys keep up with the crushing monthly deadlines. Was he allegedly doing that during the ‘60s at Marvel, or later in his career?
I suspect at this point (in late ’75/early ’76) when he was drawing Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula simultaneously.
Favourite dialogue: “Ask him what he hopes to accomplish, and he could not tell you… but then… there is nothing he could tell YOU now…”. Although, if you wanted to be tiresomely exact, you couldn’t actually have asked him anything in the first place, given your condition of being ‘no more’.
Sorry to hear of some of the difficulties Gene Colan had to live through, seems sadly all too familiar in this industry. I’d always thought he was a unique and individual talent, although from some of the comments here he was a bit of an acquired taste. With Palmer’s splendid finishing, that full page of Eternity recreating the history of Earth (including a carefully anonymous crucifixion) was and is a favourite.
Afraid I can’t agree that the upcoming Drac team-up was a ‘classic match-up’ in concept or execution, only an excuse to highlight the Colan/Palmer team’s two notable strips. At this point I would have thought Doc was too vastly overpowered to have any problem with a mere vampire, and the cross-over certainly interrupted what should have been the aftermath flowing from this story. And, without spoiling upcoming posts, doesn’t Doc appear to die yet again in the course of the story? Reminds me of Buffy’s line in the musical ‘Once More With Feeling’ episode… “Hey, I died twice!”
It follows the time-honored rule for this sort of crossover — Dracula wins in TOD, Strange wins in Dr. Strange. And I agree — the creators did their best but Dracula, alpha predator in his own world, is no match for Stephen.
It’s been years since I read the Tomb of Dracula / Doctor Strange crossover, but as I recall the story ends with Dracula faking his death in order to avoid actually being killed by Strange. So, yeah, logically Dracula would not be a match for most denizens of the Marvel universe… which is why I assume Marv Wolfman chose to keep the lord of the vampires away from superheroes 99% of the time. I also recall that when the Silver Surfer showed up in ToD, the character had to be seriously de-powered in order for the story to work.
Or Drac would need some sort of “kryptonite” that would impact his more powerful adversary.
I think this is one of those problems — “Well, why doesn’t Dr. Strange destroy Dracula?” that it’s better to just handwave. They did a story years later where the Spectre goes after the Joker and it’s one of the weakest in the Ostrander/Mandrake Spectre run.
“…that full page of Eternity recreating the history of Earth (including a carefully anonymous crucifixion) was and is a favourite.”
When Stan Lee was dialoguing silver age Marvel stories he tried to not be offensive to his predominantly Judeo-Christian audience. Yes, he regularly raided the King James Bible for ideas (Thor’s “noble” 17th century speech patterns aren’t just due to Shakespeare), such as the Watcher from the book of Daniel, or titles like “If Thine Eye Offend Thee” directly from Jesus Christ’s sermon on the mount. Yes, Stan did get carried away with ascribing too much of Christ’s character and Divinity to the Silver Surfer in his solo series, but that is an exception.
But his and Ditko’s Dr. Strange was strictly comic book fantasy. There was nothing of the real occult in it. That changed when Steve Englehart took on scripting chores. Someone mentioned Roy Thomas not having Doc and Clea living together. Again, with the Comics Code in place, Marvel couldn’t have a kids’ comic having its unmarried hero living in blatant adultery with his gal pal. Steve Englehart decided to add some real occult concepts to the feature, and in both his Silver Dagger storyline (where Christ is name-dropped in no. 5) and here in that Eternity/evolution/crucifixion splash page he is doing something similar which, intentionally or not, is belittling the Messianic claims of Christ with the allusion to the Eternity character being a “larger” force. That would certainly be offensive to any Christian readers out there.
As one who *left* the occult and found salvation and deliverance in Jesus Christ, I grew less interested in Dr. Strange as Englehart and other scripters moved it away from the pure comic book fantasy Lee and Ditko had initially cooked up into the blatantly occult.
Even Neil Gaiman took some heat in one of his early Sandman issues when he incorporated some actual Enochian phrases (the “tongues” of devil worshippers), with some satanists angrily replying, “Where were *you* initiated?”
Correction: not adultery, but fornication. Mea culpa.
In 1976, I was as devout a Christian as you could hope to meet, and I wasn’t offended by this issue at all.
In an earlier scene of the story, prior to the Crucifixion allusion you referenced, after stating that he and his brother Death together comprise what we humans know as reality, Eternity goes on to say: “Neither he nor I am God, for God rules all realities!”
Not much to say, other than to observe that at the time this must have been a really mind-blowing story. I’ve heard in referenced on several occasions over the years, but I’ve never had the opportunity to read it. It seems like Englehart and Colan were both doing really solid work here.
When I was a teen, I always thought there were two concepts that were beyond human comprehension. Eternity (the concept of ” endless” time) and infinity (the idea of a universe without a boundary) . But I’m sure the physicists and astronomers might say otherwise eg that the universe is possibly dough nut shaped so you end up where you started – but what is beyond the doughnut?
Oh well, Doctor Strange was probably a particularly appropriate character to explore the more wild concepts of time and space even if they didn’t always make sense in our mundane world.
Colan was always a fast fluid artist whom I usually could take or leave -neither seeking out nor avoiding. No image being particularly memorable . Though there are few anatomical mishaps here due I expect to lack of time and the dreaded deadline approaching – eg what is going on with that dinosaur’s legs?
I have no doubt that if Gene Colan had the liberty to create comics as a work of art, and not as commercial assignments under tight deadlines, he would have produced far fewer, but more remarkable pages.
He was still a superb comics artist, a consummate pro—-one of the greats of the mainstream.