Featuring: Dr. Strange
Release: May 4, 1965
Cover: August 1965
12 cents
Written and edited by Marvel’s mystical madman: Stan Lee
Plotted and illustrated by fandom’s favorite fiend: Steve Ditko
Lettered and bordered by comicdom’s cuddlesome conjurer: Sam Rosen
10 pages
| Previous | #417 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Strange Tales #134, Story B | Reading order | Strange Tales #136, Story B |
| Strange Tales #135 | Strange Tales | Strange Tales #136 |
By the Seven Rings of Raggadorr… By Cyttorak’s Crimson Bands! I send thee through the unseen door… go thou where my spell commands!
This is a big issue for Strange Tales, as Nick Fury takes over the lead feature. This was the issue that introduced SHIELD and Hydra. But in the backup feature, Dr. Strange’s saga is still barreling along. Anybody picking up the title for the first time to check out the new Nick Fury stories will find themselves smack in the middle of a long Dr. Strange story.
Notice Ditko gets credited with the plotting. He’s plotted every Dr. Strange story, but now he’s getting credit. Proper credit is at the heart of his conflicts with Stan Lee.
We enter into a new status quo for the story. Mordo continues his pursuit of Strange, but Strange is no longer just on the run. He has a goal now, to find Eternity.
He seeks out a former disciple of the Ancient One, Sir Baskerville.
Unfortunately Baskerville has betrayed the Ancient One. He lost his hand and wanted the Ancient One to replace it, but the Ancient One failed him. He now serves Mordo, who had promised to heal him. But Mordo lied. This is beyond the power of sorcery.
Strange wins the day with much clever trickery. He suspects a trap, and distracts Mordo’s servants with an illusion image of himself, and then a suit of armor animated by his cloak of levitation.
The servant of Mordo’s is one we’ve seen repeatedly now, still unnamed.
Also unnamed is the girl from the Dark Dimension. Dormammu learns she had betrayed him to save Dr. Strange, and he will be vengeful.
It had seemed liked Dr. Strange had figured out it was Dormammu behind this a couple issues back, but now he seems uncertain. I guess he suspected a couple issues back and now is able to confirm it.
Did he just refer to his amulet as the Eye of Agamotto? No, the Eye of Agamotto is the orb back in his Sanctum. He usually just calls the amulet the amulet. This is very confusing. Maybe it’s not the amulet he calls the Eye, but the mystical eye the amulet creates. Confusing either way.
So the character’s called Sir Baskerville, and it takes place on a moor. Does somebody have Hound of the Baskervilles on the mind? It’s really brought home, when Strange curses, “Baskerville! That traitorous dog!” Emphasis mine.
This latest battle with Baron Mordo is so good, that it’s knocking previous battles with Baron Mordo like Strange Tales #121 off the Best We’ve Read page.
Rating: ★★★½, 69/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Dr. Strange vol. 1.
Invocations:
- By the Seven Rings of Raggadorr — Mordo
- By Cyttorak’s Crimson Bands — Mordo
- By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!
- In the name of the Eternal Vishanti!
Characters:
- Dr. Strange
- Baron Mordo
- Dormammu
- Girl from Dark Dimension
- Sir Baskerville
- Mordo’s servant
Story notes:
- Dr. Strange searches for secret of Eternity, the word the Ancient One repeated during his brief waking moments.
- Dr. Stange follows his hyper-sensitive intuition to London.
- Dr. Strange encounters a servant of Mordo, takes over his mind to confirm, and makes him forget the encounter.
- Dr. Strange visits the castle of Sir Baskerville overlooking a foggy English moor.
- Sir Baskerville had been a disciple of the Ancient One before an accident. He seems to have lost a hand.
- Baskerville arouses Strange’s suspicions.
- Baskerville now serves Mordo and telepathically alerts him of Strange’s presence.
- Baskerville knows nothing of Eternity.
- Dr. Strange mesmerizes Mordo’s servants into believing he has fled to the Netherworld.
- Though Dormammu is distracted, some of his power still seeps through to Mordo.
- Dr. Strange has defeated Mordo this round, but is no closer to the secret of Eternity.
| Previous | #417 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Strange Tales #134, Story B | Reading order | Strange Tales #136, Story B |
| Strange Tales #135 | Strange Tales | Strange Tales #136 |
Test
Received.
I’ve had trouble posting from my home connection and wasn’t gonna write out a long post and lose it.
This thing about not naming (especially female) characters for a long time also existed in other forms of popular fiction. I was in charge of the first published German translation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “The Land That Time Forgot” and the female protagonist is only referred to as “the girl” for several chapters before she is granted a name. I took some artistic liberty because that kind of thing would not have been done in German even back in the 1930s, using German equivalents of “the young lady” or “the Frenchwoman” instead in several cases.