Spider Man/Dr. Strange: The Way To Dusty Death

Doctor Strange: One-Shots

by Roy Thomas

While reminising the death of Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man chanced upon Melinda Morrison committing suicide. Though saved, Melinda fought against him.

But maybe the only real way to honor the dead is by making the most of your life, whether it lasts a few fleeting years... ...or a swiftly-elapsed century. I'll give it a shot, Uncle Ben. For you. -- Spider-Man

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Fantasy, Comic Book, Spider Man, Graphic Novels, Adventure

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.

Reviews

[Sud666 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not really sure why I didn't care for this story more. It isn't bad. I think there was just was too much exposition and the overall story was rather complex.

Spiderman is hanging out on a bridge moping about the anniversary of Uncle Ben's death and the death of Gwen Stacy. While hanging out he notices a woman about to commit suicide. Upon stopping her he finds it's someone he and Scarlet Witch recently rescued from Xandu (some evil sorcerer-don't really know this guy well). Turns out she wants to commit suicide because she's being chased by demons. This instigates a long, drawn out story-much of it a recounting of events from a previous story arc all leading up to this- Xandu loves said woman, but she may or may not be dead (it's confusing) and is trying to get her into the Death Dimension so they can hang out. Dr. Strange realizes that this would destroy our reality is trying to stop this. So Strange and Spiderman team up. Spiderman, or should I say his astral form?, gets sent to the Death Dimension, while Xandu takes over Spiderman's body to battle Dr. Strange. Yes it is complicated sometimes. For all that, this story which has dimensional traveling and a lot of arcane magic being thrown about is strangely boring. Maybe it is the writing. Roy Thomas seemed to be giving great recounting of what when on before (which dragged down the story for me), coupled with a lot of astral/magical shenanigans and a twisted love story thrown in just made it more than I really wanted to read about. To be honest near the end I just wanted it to end.

Sorry I just didn't care for this one that much. There are better Spiderman and Dr. Strange stories by far. This is not one of them. It is not terrible though. Many fans of either or both characters might like this older story (It's from 1992). The artwork is par for early 90's work and isn't bad. So please, just because I didn't care for this story-if you count yourself a Dr. Strange fan or a Spiderman fan you might like this. I was rather disappointed. Ambitious but failed to entertain me.

[Mr C.B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spider-Man/Dr. Strange: The Way to Dusty Death is a fun read.
I like the chemistry between Spidey and Strange. Also, the fact that it involves sorcery and all the weird stuff that Strange usually deals with and Spider-Man happens to be in that situation.

The art is pleasant to look at, and I like the fact that it has the nice message about living your life to the fullest.

The only thing that kind of knocks it for me to give it an 8/10 is that it's a bit wordy. I think it could have been less, but I still enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for team-ups.

7.5/10

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This read like a Marvel Team-up Annual on better paper featuring Spidey and Doc pitted against mystical foe Xandu which harkens back to an actual team up from that series in issue #21 and some assorted other Spider-man related comics.
Opening with Spider-man saving a woman who is Melinda Morrison and the infatuation of Xandu which opens up the floodgates to a battle with the wizard and the help of Dr. Strange. Xandu takes over Spider-man's body and a really solid back and forth fight ensues with demons, other dimensions, magic, and mayhem.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an early graphic novel (before the phrase came into common usage!) published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Spider-Man in 1992. It was plotted by two of the iconic writers of the time, Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, and Thomas has sole credit for the script. It's a very good story featuring Peter teaming up with Dr. Strange to oppose Xandu. The contrast of Strange's somber seriousness and Peter's flippant quips is played for all it's worth. ("May the seraphim ever shield you, Spider-Man." Strange says, and Peter replies, "And may your cloak of levitation never get lost in the laundry.") The story centers on Melinda (who goes through the story quite scantily clad, but hey, it was 1992), who's missed a lot due to being dead... there's a half-page panel showing what's she's missed that's quite poignant, featuring King and Nixon and mentioning Viet Nam and the Kennedy brothers. The art, by Michael Bair, is phenomenal. Bair isn't appreciated enough, perhaps because he was not prolific. His work is very detailed and precise and absolutely brilliant, both pencils and inks. Some of the extra-dimensional pieces here are more striking than the cinematic universe of madness film. So many tiny lines and dots in ever background panel! They don't draw 'em like that anymore. I was quite glad to have stumbled across this one! Excelsior, true believers!

[Ed C · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly good example of the Dr. Strange franchise, with a good heaping of everyone's favortite wise-cracking webslinger.
The story revolves around events of the past, but does do a fairly good job of recapping them for you, had you not read the original story (probably ferreted away in a backissue of one of Spiderman's many long-running series). All in all, the story was quite good, but I did feel it spent a lot of the time trying to recap the background from the original storyline. If you can get past the flipping between recap and current events, it's a good read.

[OmniBen · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review) 4.5/5
And people say that 90's comics didn't produce any good stories. Sadly, given the current score of this story, it seems I'm somewhat alone in that opinion.
Gifted with the exemplary talents of Mister comics himself, Roy Thomas, and some of the most sublime artwork and inking this side of the halcyon 80's, The Way to Dusty Death was page after page of top tier comics storytelling. I've long belaboured the 'throw Spiderman on something to bump up the numbers' trope that Marvel comics has never really gotten over, but Spidey's inclusion in this, whilst not entirely essential. suits the web slinger far more than most of these similar stories. He and Dr. Strange have a good back and forth, thanks to the talents of Thomas, of course. But it is artistic talents of Michael Blair, Mark Texiera and Mark Bechum, not to forget the exquisite colours of Bob Sharen that truly set this story apart from the rest.
After the first page, I could just tell this one was going to be special. It's nice to right now and then. 4.5/5


OmniBen.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it wasn’t ... terrible. But it was darn close. On one hand the art is pretty, but on the other it suffers from what so many comics from the 1990s suffered from: artistic attempts to make each page a work of art all on its own. This stemmed from the desire by artists to sell their original art off once it was returned to them. And making as many pages as possible into a kind of farmable impact piece seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately, it ends up leaving the coherence of the narrative as a less important goal and we get page after page that could be tossed into virtually any order if the exposition was changed altered. And speaking of the exposition ... I’ve never been a huge fan of Roy Thomas’ scripts in the first place. It works for Conan the Barbarian, but otherwise it’s just too forced, too flowery, too grandiose. His dialogue often comes off as stilted and just too darn melodramatic to be believable. A lot of time it works on comics, particularly if story needs a bit of hyperbole to make it believable and digestible. It didn’t really work here. And the. There’s the story itself. Another mess. Each time the villain, Xandu, shows up the writers feel like they’ve got to rewrite everything to make things more poignant and more impactful. Unfortunately, this time it just comes off as typical supervillain cliche piled on top of cliche. Sounds like I’m saying it WAS terrible, doesn’t it? Good points? Well, it’s well made, I mean it’s clearly a job that professionals put effort into and it holds together in that regard. The art works quite well, when it isn’t trying to make every page payoff and instead focuses on telling the story and propelling the narrative forward.

[Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, not great.

Spidey stops a woman from committing suicide. Woman fights back. Demons come out of the Death Dimension and attack the woman. Dr. Strange steps in. Spidey and Strange battle the lovestruck and still-evil Xandu for fifty-five pages.

And that's about it. Throw in heaps of awkward exposition and some admittedly great artwork, and you've got a graphic novel that is as enjoyable as it is dumb. I think it's just another classic case of the writers tackling a story that ought to be put into a format longer than the 64-page graphic novel format just so they'll have more freedom to work out the kinks. Instead, they just gloss over everything with borderline annoying dialogue.

It looked nice, and it had some cool moments. That's about it, really...

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A barely clothed woman appears on a bridge trying to kill herself and Spidey saves her. When demons show up trying to kill her, Dr. Strange gets involved. Her magician boyfriend gets involved and its a whole ordeal as everyone winds up in the Death Dimension. There's a larger collection that contains this story along with Xandu's previous 3 appearances and I think that collection works better so that you know more of what's going on.

Spider-Man/Doctor Strange: The Way to Dusty Death
every appearance of Xandu edition

[Matthew Ulstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yep. That's a fun, don't think too hard Spiderman story. It's a great blend of relevant continuity from this moment in canon and timeless Spidey themes. Feels very specific to its point in the timeline while successfully standing alone. Nothing groundbreaking here, but a nice little slice of 90s Spidey.

3/5 Uncle SkeleBens.

[luciddreamer99 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun story that read like a 64 page Marvel team Up, and I mean that in a good way. Lots of neat demon images in the art, as well as some good girl/bad girl art with Melinda. The story definitely picks up, yet doesn't drag. The 64 pages pass quickly enough without being too fast of a read. Recommended.

[Devero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uno one-shot illustrato molto bene da Bair, con delle tematiche abbastanza forti quali la morte, il suicidio, l'amore. Protagonisti i due eroi Ditkeschi della Marvel. Non il loro team-up migliore, ma nemmeno una brutta storia. Forse troppo d'atmosfera magica e onirica.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a story and it did come to an end but some how it just wasn't put together in a way that I personally like. I think for some people this will be a good read. I felt underwhelmed on this one.

[Adrian Fulneczek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much explaining, not much action. Zero surprises.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peak 'good' 90s superhero art.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give it a better rating, but for it being one of those stories that would play better is the ostensible villain of the piece had actually acted intelligently, rather than storming the Sanctum, pissing off Strange, and hijacking Spider-Man's body. You can switch up to the fighty bit if Strange responds negatively to the pitch. Other than that, the story starts and ends with Spidey brooding over those he's lost due to his own actions, with a middle bit where he has to resolve (temporarily) his feelings about that.

[Atreyu]

it was kinda bad. the story was terrible