Doctor Strange Omnibus, Vol. 2

Doctor Strange Omnibus #2

by Roy Thomas, Bill Everett (Illustrator), Marvel Various (Illustrator)

With an unmatched roll call of amazing Marvel creators, our second Doctor Strange Omnibus is guaranteed to cast a spell on you! The adventures of the Master of the Mystic Arts continue with as Doctor Strange faces Kaluu, the mystic threat from the Nameless Nowhere! Other legendary tales include the origin of the Ancient One, the return of Baron Mordo, an otherworldly odyssey to save Victoria Bentley, and the arrival of the Living Tribunal! And in 1968, Doctor Strange received his own solo title, allowing the Sorcerer Supreme to soar to new horizons — including showdowns with Eternity and Dormammu, a new costume, and the beginnings of the Defenders!

COLLECTING: Doctor Strange (1968) 169-183, Avengers (1963) 61, Sub-Mariner (1968) 22, Incredible Hulk (1968) 126; material from Strange Tales (1951) 147-168, Marvel Feature (1971) 1, Not Brand Echh (1967) 13

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels Manga

704 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1970

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

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This ended up being decent. Some of the story arcs got a little repetitive and some of them were pretty cool. In volume 1, there were characters that got sent to other dimensions or left to a fate that we didn’t know. We learn what happened to them in this volume as they popped back up. Some cool surprises there. A few new characters show up in this volume also and those story arcs were also pretty cool. A lot of times when Strange is doing incantations, he mentions Satannish. He actually shows up in this volume as these people were worshiping him, asking to be given powers. It was a pretty nice callback to earlier issues when you find out who the leader of this cult was. A lot of different dimensions, worlds and in between places were traversed in this book and the art was pretty sharp throughout. However, you can definitely tell this was a book of it’s time as Clea was mostly used as a damsel in distress that Strange was always having to rescue. Poor woman barley got any dialogue. The book ends with a Submariner and a Hulk issue showing teams up with Strange and those guys setting up the Defenders. Probably going to be reading that Omnibus in the next few weeks.

[OmniBen · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review)
By the many moons of Munnopor, this was a significantly better, more enjoyable read than the first volume, and I'm bloody glad it was too. I really couldn't express how underwhelmed I was with volume 1. I've never been the biggest fan of the silver age, although the promise of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko together on the opening salvo of one of the most unique and underrated of Marvel's characters was too good to pass up. Unfortunately, despite keeping my expectations firmly in check, Messrs Lee and Ditko still managed leave me dejected, deflated, and contemplating why oh why I doubled down on a silver age series sight unseen. But Ol Roy and co. heard my complaints, my anguished cries and essentially answered every one of them. Culling the silver age cheese (which was so all pervasive as to be horrific. Ditching the campy catch phrases and children party level magical theatrics. Instead, giving us the sprawling cosmic saga it should have been from the start. At the risk of drawing down the ire of some Ditko's artwork was subpar, and not at all worthy of the praise it seems to get. Every single artist here look whatever it was Ditko started, and completely nailed what this book should have been from the start. Gone are the simple shapes, flat models and lifeless colours. I challenge anyone to pick any two issues at random, particularly around the middle when Dan Adkins was kicking as and taking names, and not be blown away by what they're seeing. But not only are the visuals not significantly improved, but the storytelling gets a much needed upgrade as well. Lee does a few issues here, and for whatever reason, he has moved on from the limp and lacklustre storytelling of volume in, instead offering something, not darker per se, but far more eclectic, existential and explorative. I still would have loved for this to be darker than it was, but damn me if it wasn't pushing boundaries all the same. Given the time period it released in, I really couldn't ask for more.
Funnily enough, despite my love for Roy Thomas' writing, his work isn't the strongest here. Perhaps it was the book flirting with cancellation, which saw them veer away from the cosmic circus and move a little closer to super-hero tropey-ness, which robbed it of a little of its strength and identity. Not to mention he had to lay the frame work for the Defenders book commencing, which despite giving Doctor Strange a place to go, isn't how I wanted the book to wrap up, but I'll blame that on the sixties kids who failed to support a bloody good book when they had the chance. Forget volume one and just buy volume two, if your OCD will allow you to, that is. 4/5


OmniBen.

[Hans De bisschop · Rating 4 out of 5]

The earlier issues can be a bit of a drag at times, but once you get to the Gene Colan issues its amazing!

[Clayton Barr · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the Moons of Munnopor and the Seven Rings of Zsa Zsa Gabor! This was a fantastic volume! Great art throughout, especially the issues drawn by Gene Colan.

[Nipun Fernando · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all Doctor Strange fans. This omnibus chronicles the adventures of Doctor Strange after artist Steve Ditko left the series, which was taken over by other artists. In this volume, old faces (friend and foe) return, the Master of the Mystic Arts gets his own magazine, as well as a new change in costume (one surprise I didn’t like). My favourite bit of artwork in this album is from the Strange Tales #158 story “The Sands of Death”. In this story, there is a panel in which The Living Tribunal showing Doctor Strange the Earth’s impending destruction. The reason I liked this particular panel was that it was partially featured on the cover of the Pink Floyd album A Saucerful of Secrets. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can appreciate Marvel's hesitance in publishing this run of Doctor Strange. The stories are not comparable to either the Lee-Ditko run before or the Englehart-Brunner-Colan run after. I was surprised by the art, though.

[Jimbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection brings in Roy Thomas and Gene Colan, who single-handedly made Doctor Strange really cool.

I loved this collection. Some of Stan Lee's stories were again--as I mentioned so often in the early sixties, mid-sixties--were still written like bad 50's B movies with one monster after the next. Fortunately, Dormamu and Nightmare and Sattanish and Umar and others saved the stories from the monster of the week kind of storyline.

The art the stories in this collection start out old-fashioned, but move quickly toward why Marvel was the best from the late sixties and onward. (I cannot speak for the last twenty years because, although there were many series I did enjoy, they were inconsistent and Marvel kept restarting each book every year or so and it got to be so confusing and didn't always make the books better.

I will read the rest of the Doctor Strange books in time to see how they got better or worse., but for this collection--yes-- give it a read.

[Josh Trice · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read that gets better as it progresses!

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as great as the first volume, but often much better illustrated. This is the run where Dr Strange inexplicably begins wearing a blue face mask for a while.

Many of the stories are interesting in themselves, but unlike the previous Omnibus, there's no overarching connecting storyline as Ditko invented. Mordo appears a few times, Clea is finally rescued, a subplot involving a British woman with mystic talent who gets involved in a cult and helps Dr Strange a few times like a Dr Who girl arises. Its all interesting enough stuff.

There's a very strange feel to Dr Strange like its not really part of the larger Marvel universe; Strange is super careful to make sure nothing magical is revealed to the general public, which is reasonable, but he also stops any superheroic stuff from being known in a world full of superheroes. Clea takes off flying in a park and people freak out because nobody can fly? In a world with the Fantastic Four?

Roy Thomas does a better job of writing less cringy dialog for the most part but still has that weird Sinatra hipster dialog in non-mystic scenes and there are some subplots that make no sense and feel like padding. For example, one of Strange's former colleagues who absolutely rejects magic shows up trying to hire him to help with a promotion, keeps trying a while, and then vanishes.

While the first book is entirely backup stories from Strange Tales, this is the entire first Dr Strange run. The storyline wraps up in an Incredible Hulk story (with a strangely normal looking Hulk).
Overall its okay, but not as good as the first Omnibus.