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Doctor Strange (1974) #1-2, 4-5
Doctor Strange: A Separate Reality
Though the world at large believes that he is no more than an eccentric authority on the occult, former surgeon Stephen Strange stand in defense of the moral coil as the Master of the Mystic Arts and Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. As his skills hve thrived, so too have his challenges.
This collection contains material originally published in magazine form as Marvel Premiere #9-10 and #12-14 and Doctor Strange (Vol. 2) #1-2 and #4-5.
This collection contains material originally published in magazine form as Marvel Premiere #9-10 and #12-14 and Doctor Strange (Vol. 2) #1-2 and #4-5.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
2 people are currently reading
157 people want to read
About the author
Steve Englehart
1,395 books97 followersSee also John Harkness.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 5, 2017
Englehart & Brunner's run on the Dr. Strange is a real good and essential one, with series-shaking events like the Ancient's death and Strange's ascension to Sorcerer Supreme and immortality(!!!).
Clea never was so beautiful, and is really hard to believe how the sagas of Cagliostro/Sise-Neg (Englehart is a fan of Phil Collins and Genesis, but that was a requisite to write Marvel's most psychedelic series, I guess) and Silver Dagger, with their criticism to godhood and organized religions like Catholicism, survived and were published in the Comics Code Authority era... 'Nuff said.
July 29, 2020
The complexity of the story and inward journey of Doctor Strange might have caught the attention of psych major (or a movie mogul in the making) but it still seems a bit too far out for the typical comic book collector to read while waiting on his troop to play Chainmail. And yes, his, since everything in this collection of issues suggest it is a boy’s own adventure with the unwritten Clea playing the part of a patient Penelope or an alluring Andromeda, not so much a powerful character in her own right. The Ancient One provides some Gandalf-like motivation as Strange seeks his supremacy, and another tip off to the ultimate boy’s own-ness of this current run is the winged horse Aragorn introduced in various Marvel comics in the early 1970s, yet drawing inspiration from the proto-D&D source, Lord of the Rings. If only Englehart and Brunner’s storyline had been extended a couple more years, they could have worked in a lightsaber, they would have covered all the nerdy bases of the decade.
January 11, 2012
A reprint of some of Dr. Strange's adventures from the early 1970s. Written primarily by Steve Englehart, this trade features (apparently) all of the issues drawn by Frank Brunner. Stephen Strange is one of Marvel's greatest characters, though not always handled well. These stories feature Doc travelling through space, time, other dimensions, and even "unreality" before ultimately confronting Death (and death). Typical crazy mystical '70s-era Marvel psychedelic nonsense. Brunner's Neal Adams-influenced art and layouts are pleasant. It's interesting that the story reads more as a succession of issues, rather than a single, coherent storyline, collected as a trade as we see nowadays. (Although the four Silver Dagger issues -- the last half of the trade -- reads more like a single story.) Not quite worthy of three stars, I'd give this one two-and-a-half if possible.
January 12, 2024
Englehart and Brunner's embrace of cosmic horror and the full-colour psychedelic artwork make this as weird a trip as 1970s superhero comics could hope to offer. I had a black and white "phonebook" Essentials volume of the earlier Dr Strange stories; the writing was pretty corny and black and white just doesn't bring the saturated green and purple psychedlia these strange tales rely on. This, instead, is the one you want, and the very explicitly Lovecraftian Shuma-Gorath arc is some good stuff. (As is the closing Silver Dagger arc.)
May 31, 2017
More cool Lovecraft-type stories in the Marvel Universe. All art done by Frank Brunner, his stuff is always top-notch.
May 26, 2019
Probably the most important run when it came to bringing Doctor Strange into modern times. Pretty good stuff.
November 10, 2020
Forgot I had this on the shelf. The Genesis story was fun. So ... teleporting from MX to NYC, then flying transatlantic via Cloak, mmm? Why not!
April 16, 2022
Englehart and Brunner issues are worth it. Some other issues are very generic.
June 11, 2022
Good back story, but the stories where Dr Strange is trapped in the orb lasted too long.
July 29, 2016
This is great so far. Its everything Doctor Strange promised to be and the stories I've been searching for...
Dr. Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme and faces his first trials at becoming worthy of the title. At the end he sums it up for Silver Dagger, comparing the limit Dagger could reach in the world of magic as a "man of learning" as opposed to Dr. Strange's transformation into a "man of knowledge" after facing his mortality. He came to really see and appreciate what it is to be human by going beyond it.
Silver Dagger seemed more like a prop for the story than an actual threat. His back story and redemption were interesting, but they seemed compressed toward the end. I would have liked to see him stick around or at least hear some of the conversations he had with the caterpillar in the unreality.
I think it deserved another issue where the conflict between Silver Dagger and Doctor Strange's worldviews played out and Dagger's redemption had more weight. And it could have explored Clea and Doctor Strange's connection as they merged giving them a deeper understanding of each other (the whole masculine and feminine reuniting to become a stronger whole).
There was some great stuff in here. Some of it missed the mark of what I'm looking for, so the search continues for the perfect Doctor Strange story.
Dr. Strange becomes the Sorcerer Supreme and faces his first trials at becoming worthy of the title. At the end he sums it up for Silver Dagger, comparing the limit Dagger could reach in the world of magic as a "man of learning" as opposed to Dr. Strange's transformation into a "man of knowledge" after facing his mortality. He came to really see and appreciate what it is to be human by going beyond it.
Silver Dagger seemed more like a prop for the story than an actual threat. His back story and redemption were interesting, but they seemed compressed toward the end. I would have liked to see him stick around or at least hear some of the conversations he had with the caterpillar in the unreality.
I think it deserved another issue where the conflict between Silver Dagger and Doctor Strange's worldviews played out and Dagger's redemption had more weight. And it could have explored Clea and Doctor Strange's connection as they merged giving them a deeper understanding of each other (the whole masculine and feminine reuniting to become a stronger whole).
There was some great stuff in here. Some of it missed the mark of what I'm looking for, so the search continues for the perfect Doctor Strange story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2008
Doctor Strange is one weird ass comic book. This particular book is a little uneven but is helped by the terrific artwork, which looks great and really helps the story move. Its two stories in one. In the first, Strange fights a powerful sorcerer who is trying to make himself into God and Strange follows him back to the beginning of time and then witnesses either the beginning of the universe or the re-creation of the universe. If taken literally its potentially blasphemous as the evil sorcerer re-creates mythological events with allusions to the Garden of Eden myth. That made it kinda fun for me though. In the second story a religious fanatic called Silver Dagger murders Strange and Strange spends the bulk of the story trying to escape another realm inside his Orb of Agamotto where he runs into unreal representations of people and things he's met in the real world. It's some pretty trippy stuff.
The surreal and the metaphysical parts work really well. Strange struggles against adversity coming out stronger in both stories. It's hard to make out what Strange's powers and limitations are though. He seems to be able to do anything and face any adversity because he can literally alter reality when he needs to. How do you create a credible threat for a character like that?
The surreal and the metaphysical parts work really well. Strange struggles against adversity coming out stronger in both stories. It's hard to make out what Strange's powers and limitations are though. He seems to be able to do anything and face any adversity because he can literally alter reality when he needs to. How do you create a credible threat for a character like that?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 11, 2015
I am a massive fan of Doctor Strange, he's up there with Batman and Spider-Man as my favourite comic characters, and it has saddened me for years how underused he is, and how difficult it is to write a good Doctor Strange story. I've only found a few truly good Strange stories and this volume is now on that list. Englehart has been very faithful to Stan Lee's original take but really pushes the boundaries, anything could happen and he will take Strange to unimaginable places, while continuing the very trippy other dimensions. Furthermore it creates a more epic scale now that he's the Sorceror Supreme. The artwork is excellent and pays perfect homage to Ditko while still making his own mark on the character.
March 8, 2014
Dalla morte dell'Antico all'arrivo di Sise-Neg, stregone supremo del futuro, che porta il buon dottore e il suo arcinemico Mordo fino ad assistere al big bang!
Storie immaginifiche, e disegni buoni. C'è molto Gary Friedrich in queste storie, che meritano decisamente di esser lette. Dr. Strange è sempre stato un personaggio anomalo nel pantheon dei super eroi, ha sempre dato il meglio di se in storie di questo tipo, magico-mistiche e fantasy, affiancate alla sua vita quotidiana, piuttosto che in storie tipicamente super eroistiche.
Storie immaginifiche, e disegni buoni. C'è molto Gary Friedrich in queste storie, che meritano decisamente di esser lette. Dr. Strange è sempre stato un personaggio anomalo nel pantheon dei super eroi, ha sempre dato il meglio di se in storie di questo tipo, magico-mistiche e fantasy, affiancate alla sua vita quotidiana, piuttosto che in storie tipicamente super eroistiche.
August 26, 2015
This collects the eight or nine issues Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner spent working on Dr. Strange (Bruner then left, Englehart stuck around). That makes it open oddly—they came on board for the last two issues of Strange's battle against the demonic Shuma-Gorath—but overall the stories here are solid as Strange confronts Shuma-Gorath, Baron Mordo, the future sorcerer Sise-Neg and then the deranged witch-hunter Silver Dagger. What's most interesting is Englehart's treatment of the magic as something deep and complex, not just (as he puts it) a gun you shoot by saying the right spell.
March 28, 2013
70s Marvel is great, and this installment of Doctor Strange was no exception. Spaced out philosophy and the occult ... great stuff.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews