The First Dr. Strange Story

It’s a fact of comic book publishing that many of the key names of characters have, over the years, been recycled from earlier sources. So while the Marvel Comics Doctor Strange doesn’t really have anything to do with his earlier namesake, and while Steve Ditko and Stan Lee were in no way influenced by this much earlier character, there is a surface connection at the very least. But the original Dr. Strange who appeared in THRILLING COMICS during the Golden Age of Comics (and who later became more regularly known as “Doc” Strange” ) was actually derived from another figure entirely–that being the pulp magazine hero Doc Savage.

In the wake of the massive and almost instantaneous success of Superman, new publishers were casting around for their own super-doers who might prove to be as popular and as lucrative. The hero pulps of the 1930s were an obvious place to turn for influence, as they were the immediate antecedents to the comic book super heroes (and they were mostly all still being published, so there was still a ready audience for them.) Thus it was that writer Richard Hughes and artist Alexander Kostuk based their new cover feature on the Man of Bronze.

Unlike most of the super heroes of the time, Dr. Strange didn’t wear a skintight costume. Rather, he would typically venture forth into the world of adventure clad in a red T-Shirt and riding pants and boots–attire more in keeping with his inspiration.

Dr./Doc Strange proved to be popular, and his series ran in THRILLING COMICS from 1940-1948. He also appeared in AMERICA’S BEST COMICS, his publisher Nedor/Better/Standard’s version of WORLD’S FINEST COMICS featuring their most successful features in one book.)

Decades later, Alan Moore revived the character as Tom Strange in his AMERICA’s BEST COMICS (no relation) series TOM STRONG.

By the standards of the time, this first Dr. Strange story is an epic, running for an almost-unbelievable 37 pages! On top of which, each page was unfailingly built on a grid of eight equal-sized panels, giving the story a rhythm akin to that used by Dave Gibbons in WATCHMEN (though hardly for such substantial purposes.) It just goes on and on and on.