From: cje@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Cthulhu's Jersey Epopt)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: MARVEL: DR. STRANGE
Date: 12 Oct 92 20:43:15 GMT
Organization: Miskatonic U. Computer Operations & User Services

speterse%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty)
writes:

>(By the way, what's DR STRANGE doing these days?  I haven't really read
>anything more recent than the excellent Engelhart run in the mid-seventies.
>I recall that the mid-eighties run (Roger Stern?) was well thought of 
>on the net when it came out, but I've heard damn little about it since
>then.)

Stern's run was followed by stories by Peter Gillis which were very moody and
literate but not typical Marvel action.  As a consequence, Doc lost his own
book after # 81.

However, he reappeared immediately as half of a revitalized STRANGE TALES (v.
2), also written by Gillis.  The ST stories tell of an almost beaten Doc.
Y'see, he'd lost (i.e., destroyed) all the artifacts from his Sanctum in combat
with an alien sorcerer named Urthona.  As a result, a lot of old spells sealed
by the Ancient One in his younger days were broken, and much evil magic was
loosed on the Earth.  Doc went around putting out brushfires of evil and
despairing more and more, until he meets Kaluu again (an old enemy of the
Ancient One).  Kaluu says, "Look, your mentor can't help you any more, and you
can't handle this stuff yourself.  Sure, I'm power-hungry, but I've also been
around just as long and the Ancient One.  *I* can teach you how to handle this
'bad craziness'."  Doc goes along with Kaluu because he has no other choice,
but he's not as alert as he used to be, and he loses an eye in the action.  Doc
and Kaluu trace back the evil to a resurrected Shuma-Gorath.  Doc absorbs an
evil minor godling named Arioch and uses the power to beat S-G, but in the
process he loses his earthly perspective.  Kaluu and some others bring Doc back
to Earth by dredging up some unpleasant memories, and Doc returns, sadder but
wiser for having danced with evil powers.

The ST series apparently did well enough that Doc was returned to his own book
(v. 3).  Gillis wrote the 1st 4 issues, and then Roy Thomas took over.

Thomas has been on it since (up to #47).  His Doc was nowhere near as moody as
Gillis's or mystical as Stern's.  In fact, Thomas basically returned to the Doc
he was writing in the late '60s (the wise-cracking Doc who met Tom Wolfe).
However, Thomas's Doc is notable for both high nostalgia value (he's brought
back such one-shot Doc foes as Zota, the Possessors, and Aggamon) and for a
Mark Gruenwald-like systemization of magical history in Doc's world.  The
stories themselves, however, aren't all that good, especially recently, when
every issue is a tie-in to whatever the latest mega-crossover Marvel's doing.
It's sorta like reading DeFalco's THOR (or Doug Wheeler's SWAMP THING): the
stories aren't really bad, but compared to what's gone just before...

Len Kaminski is scheduled to take over Doc with #48.  Judging by his IRON MAN
work, Kaminski is competent but unexciting.  I'm a long-time Doc fan, and I'll
probably stay the course, but I certainly wouldn't recommend the book to casual
Doc readers.

-- 
Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin,

Chris Jarocha-Ernst			Rutgers University Computing Services
Internet: cje@gandalf.rutgers.edu       BITnet: JAROCHAERNST@ZODIAC
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc