mormammu – Coke & Comics

Strange Tales #119, Story B

Beyond the Purple Veil!

Featuring: Dr. Strange
Release: January 10, 1964
Cover: April 1964
12 cents
Story conjured up by: Stan Lee
Illustrated by the Strange Sorcery of: Steve Ditko
Lettered at midnight by: Art Simek
8 pages

This issue is most notable for finally giving a name to Dr. Strange’s house servant. His name is Wong.

We had seen him twice before but without being named. Here he is in #110 and #116.

Here he is in the Dr. Strange film played by Benedict Wong. Is it coincidental that Wong is played by a Wong? A glimpse at Wikipedia tells me that over 7% of people in China have the surname Wong or a variant. So it’s not an astronomical coincidence.

Strange Tales #118, Story B

The Possessed!

Featuring: Dr. Strange
Release: December 9, 1963
Cover: March 1964
12 cents
Written by: Magical Stan Lee
Drawn by: Mystical Steve Ditko
Lettered by: Mysterious Sam Rosen
8 pages

As we noted in the last post, this issue represents the first time Dr. Strange has appeared on the cover of a comic. He’s allotted a small horizontal strip at the bottom of the cover. He’s on his way to becoming a star.

We again see Dr. Strange’s adventures no longer bear the “Master of Black Magic” subtitle. In fact, I think the stories will soon stop using the phrase “black magic” completely, even though the first several issues mentioned it constantly.

We also get some “clever credits”. It seems to be Stan’s new thing. We just saw it in our last Fantastic Four story (released the same day) and we’ll see it again in other stories out this month.