Featuring: Dr. Strange Release: September 8, 1966 Cover: December 1966 12 cents Script by Stan Lee, defender of the faith! Art by Bill Everett, keeper of the flame! Lettering by Artie Simek, printer of the word! 10 pages
By the Demons of Darkness! By the oath I now speak! Umar commands– reveal what I seek!
At the end of last issue, we briefly met Dormammu’s sister Umar.
Given how weird and cool Dormammu looked, it’s disappointing to see his sister look just like a human woman. You can try to explain it off as these beings having amorphous forms or such. But it mostly seems like a failure of creativity and design.
Featuring: Dr. Strange Release: August 9, 1966 Cover: November 1966 12 cents Gloriously edited by Stan Lee Graniloquently scripted by Roy Thomas Gorgeously drawn by Wild Bill Everett Grudgingly lettered by Artie Simek 10 pages
It is the Sacred Griffin– the beast appointed by the priests of the Babylonian god Marduk to stand eternal vigil over the mystic text! It has ever been written in the Words of Flame that he who defeats the fearsome sentinel… is the destined possessor of the book!
Dr. Strange gets the cover again. Seems like he and Nick Fury will be trading off who gets featured.
We’re skipping the Nick Fury half of this comic to finish off the Kaluu arc.
O’Neill had been the writer for the last few issues, but Thomas fills in for this one. His scripting is described as “graniloquent”. Looks like Stan will return to the title next issue.
As you can see from the list down the page, Thomas is all in on the invocations.
So far, the Kaluu story has been terrible. Will Thomas turn it around?
Four issues into the battle, and Dr. Strange and Kaluu still haven’t met. So if we get that far, it will be a step up.
We’d heard Ancient One whine for several issues now about how powerful Kaluu is. But now Kaluu seems to fear that he will lose if his foes get any time to plan.
Featuring: Dr. Strange Release: July 7, 1966 Cover: October 1966 12 cents Editing: Stan Lee Writing: Dennis O’Neil Art: Bill Everett Lettering: Sam Rosen Technical advice: The Forbush Family Ghost 10 pages
“I dunno if he’s breaking any laws, but it won’t hurt to question him!” “Yeah… chances are he’s not exactly a member of the Chamber of Commerce, dressed in those duds!”
On the first page, we learn Kaluu has spent 500 years in a nameless dimension. Last issue, the dimension was named Raggador, sometimes spelled “Raggadorr”.
Meanwhile, we have some very confusing word balloons. Who is speaking in that middle balloon? It seems to connect to both Dr. Strange and Ancient One’s balloons. Are they speaking in unison?
What is up with the Ancient One and the flying carpet. He seems to be passing through it. It seems to be intentional. He’s drawn with only his torso sticking out of the carpet for the rest of the comic, but they don’t explain why.
“Zowie! He’s the ever-lovin’ gearest! Far as I’m concerned, the mods have had it! That crazy cape really comes on strong!” “Man! Like there’s a boss bunch’a threads! That dad is gotta be what’s happenin’!”
The first issue of Dr. Strange without Steve Ditko. I think the first Spider-Man stories without Steve Ditko actually went pretty well. That John Romita guy is doing all right. But what even is Dr. Strange without Steve Ditko?
Stan Lee never cared about Dr. Strange. He never understood the character. He never understood the character’s appeal. He accepted the character had fans and was fine with that.
You can see this in his treatment of the character. The gap between the early issues, the character rarely being featured on the cover, the story always the back story of each issue, behind Human Torch and then Nick Fury.
He wrote the character for dozens of issues, but almost all the writing really came from Ditko.
On the other hand, Stan Lee loved Spider-Man. And you can tell. There are eternal disagreements over how much of the character and stories come from Lee and how much come from Ditko. But it was a much more collaborative process than Dr. Strange ever was, at least early on. And Stan Lee loved the character of Spider-Man like a son.
So when Ditko left Spider-Man, Lee put everything into making sure the next issue would keep the readership. He found the best artist for the job, told an extraordinarily eventful story, and plainly put his all into assuring readers that Spider-Man would continue to be great after Ditko.
For the first issue of Dr. Strange without Ditko… Lee writes half the script then hands the back pages to his new hire to write, a guy who’s scripted like 5 comics by this point. He just doesn’t care.
This is the second recent comic to refer to Stan Lee as being on vacation. Some reprints of this issue omit that, and change the credits to read “Smilin'” instead of “vacationing'”.
Bill Everett isn’t a bad choice for artist. He created Sub-Mariner and Daredevil. He’s been doing solid work illustrating the Hulk. But Ditko brought something wild and unique to these pages, while Everett is, well, less wild.
Though I’ll give him some credit for this image. He’s certainly taking his best shot at being Ditkoesque.
