“Where mankind is menaced by magic… there must Doctor Strange go to combat it!”
By the hoary hosts of hoggoth! Welcome to my review of the Doctor Strange Omnibus, Volume 1, which collects the B stories of Strange Tales #110-111, 114-146 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2. Right off the bat I was hesitant to even pick this one up. My exposure to Dr. Strange has been very limited. I’ve seen the 2016 movie as part of the marvel cinematic universe and read some of the infinity gauntlet tie in issues from the Sorcerer Supreme run. Lets just say before reading this omnibus I probably wouldn’t have even considered myself much of a fan of the Dr.
Written by Stan Lee and art by Steve Ditko I have to say this was definitely a nice surprise of entertaining story, beautiful art just an overall enjoyable read that I would recommend to anybody who enjoys Marvel comics. The issues are only 8-10 pages which is a little less then half the size of a standard size marvel comic, which makes each issue a very quick and fun read.
The book starts with the very first appearances of Dr. Strange which admittedly are some of the weaker issues. We’re introduced to some of Dr. Stranges more popular villians like Baron Mordo and Dormammu very early on, however there is a handful of people tampering with black magic who shouldn’t be that Dr. Strange has to deal with first. One thing that surprised me was the Ancient One being an old man, probably just because in the movies it was a woman, and given this stuff was written in the 60’s and womens place in society wasn’t viewed quite the way it is today its not overly surprising to see the character was originally written as a male.
For me, this book really found its stride around issue #130 (Not all previous issues of Strange Tales contained Doctor Strange, this is only about 20 or so issues into his run of B side stories) Coincidentally enough, Strange Tales #130 also features Human Torch and Thing from the Fantastic Four meeting the Beatles, which is a really cool shoutout of the time, unfortunately for me this omnibus only contains the B stories so I did not read the Beatles stuff. Anyways, this is also the issue the epic battle between Dr. Strange and Baron Mordo (with help from Dormammu) begins, and continues for 10-15 issues. What a wild ride. I love when comics end with a cliffhanger and the following issues picks up right where you left off. Especially when reading collected editions such as this one it really helps keep the book a page turner.
Another thing I noticed was that Wong, Doctor Stranges sidekick although present in some of the issues did not have much of an impact on the overall story. I would like to see Wong used more and play a bigger role like he does in the marvel cinematic universe. Either way that isn’t enough to take anything away from this book! If you’re into the 60s silver age content or a fan of Doctor Strange at all, I’d say this is a must read!