My younger self of a half-century ago was a little slow in warming up to Marvel Comics’ Master of the Mystic Arts, Doctor Strange. As I related a few weeks ago in my post about Avengers #61, I think it mostly had to do with the good Doctor’s look — the mustache, the white temples, the blousy tunic, etc. — which
didn’t seem quite “superheroic” enough for my eleven-year-old sensibilities. However, the “new look” that artist Gene Colan and writer Roy Thomas introduced in issue #177, effectively giving the sorcerous hero a more conventional costume of tights and a mask (the latter actually being a magical transformation of his physiognomy), intrigued me when I saw it in Marvel’s house ads — and the deal was sealed when I bought and read the aforementioned Avengers issue, in which Dr, Strange showed off his new look in a featured guest appearance. That book primed me to check out the Doc in his solo series, and I made plans to pick up the next issue when it came out.
But when I finally did see Doctor Strange #179 in the spinner rack, roughly a month later, I was in for a surprise. Because the face that gazed out at me from the cover wasn’t the new, blue one — rather, it was the mustachioed, white-templed visage that I thought was now old hat. What was going on? I had no clue, but hey — Spider-Man was guest-starring in the issue, and the wall-crawler was by now not just my favorite Marvel hero, but my favorite comic-book hero, period. I didn’t see how I could go wrong buying this comic; and thus, I put my twelve cents down on the convenience store counter, and took it home. Read More