If I’m remembering things correctly after all these years, I bought this issue of DOCTOR STRANGE while on a shopping trip to a supermarket, which explains why I might have randomly chosen to purchase this issue of a series that i wasn’t otherwise following. I have a dim recollection that the selection of comic books available at that particular supermarket was slim, but there was no way that I was leaving without carrying one home with me. So DOCTOR STRANGE was my choice. It probably didn’t hurt that I could recognize the Steve Ditko influence in Rudy Nebres’ cover illustration. Ditko’s Doctor Strange stories, consumed in Pocket Books format, were pretty much the only time I had connected with the character.
I will say that the art style on the interiors wasn’t really to my liking. It was too sketchy, too sparse with spotted blacks. Today, I like the work of Tom Sutton just fine, and P. Craig Russell, who inked this issue, is an acknowledged master of the form. But at the time, it was a bit too froo-froo for my tastes. DOCTOR STRANGE at this point in time was drifting a little bit as a title. It wasn’t able to hold onto a writer for more than a couple of issues for whatever reason, and it had been demoted to bimonthly status, a sure sign that cancellation was looming. The book during this period was somehow very steeped in the counter-culture of the early 1970s, and by 1979 that flavor had been falling out of favor. People weren’t really looking to expand their consciousnesses in the same manner.
Ralph Macchio, who’d go on to have a long career as a Marvel editor, stepped in to write the title during this period, producing several issues. Ralph was called upon to write assorted books during this time, but his heart wasn’t really in being a regular scripter. Consequently, his work, while solid, often had the feeling of being temporary, a holding action. It wasn’t looking to take the characters in any particular direction, merely to craft an adequate adventure for that particular installment and stave off the Dreaded Deadline Doom. So this issue’s story is perfectly fine, but also perfectly skippable. It wasn’t a part of any ongoing direction, it was simply a classic Doctor Strange adventure. Coming into the book at this point, though, it was beneficial to me to encounter something like this.
It hadn’t been long before that Macchio had been a fan himself, and he was especially an aficionado of the work of Steve Englehart. Consequently, Macchio crafts his tale around the return of a villain from Englehart’s DEFENDERS days, the mystic Cyrus Black. Ralph also takes the opportunity to connect Black’s backstory with a well-regarded AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL from 1965 that guest-starred Doctor Strange and which didn’t have anything to do with Black before this. This too feels like a move from the Englehart playbook, connecting the dots of past stories to create a larger effect in the manner that Roy Thomas had originated and Englehart had perfected. As a cherry on top, Macchio also involves Strange’s first foe, the eternal Nightmare.
So the story opens with Doctor Strange retiring for the night after enjoying some Shakespeare. But a rat has penetrated the defenses of his Sanctum Sanctorum–and not just any rat, but the avatar of Cyrus Black. The rat mystically transports the slumbering sorcerer to the dimension of Nightmare, where he awakens to discover that the Lord of the Land of Sleep has thrown his lot in with sorcerer Cyrus Black, who desires revenge upon Strange for slights real and imagined. To make sure that we readers are up to speed on Black’s gripes, Macchio and Sutton give us a dense two-page sequence that attempts to pull a bunch of the character’s backstory into a cohesive whole. It’s only halfway successful at this, and it’s a bit of a slog to get through even so.
But this is a Marvel comic of the 1970s, and that means that we need to get to the fighting before too long. Thus, Strange is able to shatter his restraints with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak and engage in mystic combat with both Black and Nightmare. It’s very much the sort of magical combat that the series specialized in during this decade, one in which all of the players can seemingly do or not do anything the plot requires for the sketchiest of reasons. Consequently, Strange spends some time on the back foot before he’s able to get the upper hand. Disappointed at his lackey’s progress, Nightmare steps into the fray himself, admonishing Black, whose self-confidence is already crumbling due to having become aware of himself thanks to the truth-telling power of Strange’s amulet.
Consequently, as the story reaches its crescendo, Black winds up turning his own sorcery upon himself, effectively committing suicide. Disgusted by how this gambit has played out, Nightmare thereafter allows Strange to leave the field and return to the waking world. And the story winds up with Strange contemplating how little difference there is between Black and himself, and how often he thought of self-harm in the days when he was down and out before taking up the martial arts. And in the end, we see the rat from earlier foraging outside of Strange’s sanctum, giving the impression that Black may not be quite so demised as he was presumed to be.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Mr. Brevoort–
You posted about this comic a year ago here:
BHOC: DOCTOR STRANGE #34 – The Tom Brevoort Experience
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Looks like there was an error in my master tracking sheet of my early comics. Oh well.
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This issue reads like a fill-in because it’s a fill-in, despite being done by what appears to be most of the regular team.
What’s going on overall in the series is a long story about the Dweller in Darkness that’s all plotted by Roger, with Ralph scripting the issue previous to this and then scripting the rest of the storyline over Roger’s plots. So this, the only issue in the run to be plotted by Ralph, must have been started as a one-off to buy Roger some clearly-needed time, or to keep Sutton working, or both. Russell may have been able to ink it because it may have been drawn before other recent issues, giving him more time.
So Ralph was playing substitute here, and pinch-scripter on the rest of the issues.
Even so, it would have been good to have some character involvement that didn’t feel quite so fill-in-y, but you get what you get. It’s a nice-looking issue, even if it doesn’t help make the series feel like it’s going anywhere with any sort of momentum.
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I always had a problem with many magician types. It was basically all “pull a spell out of my butt I never used before to beat the bad guys” Gets kind of boring when they all start to do that. Dr. Fate and Dr. Strange started out having about a dozen spells that they could use or were their “goto” spells but then became sone of the butt guys. The Specter was always a “pull from my butt” magic character. And people complain Superman has too many powers!
Sargon the Sorcerer was interesting because he had to touch something to be able to use magic on it and later on that ability only lasted an hour. Ibis the Invincible, while of the “butt mages” had limitations. He had to hold his Ibisstick and command it. Gag him and no magic. And it could be taken away and used by anyone else with the caveat that any harmful magic directed at Ibis would rebound and affect the caster instead. Zatara/Zatanna are also “pull from my butt” characters but at least they have to speak their spell backwards. Prevent them from talking, no spells. Also their spells were limited to a couple of short sentences which limited their powers a bit [after all, a word balloon can only hold so much, especially in the 40s and 50s].
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Under Orlando, Scarlet Witch has been the worst of the lot for always having exactly the spell needed. It’s the main reason I don’t read it anymore.
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Wait! Is the Scarlet Witch alive again? I thought she died/killed herself after she reshaped the world and unlived thousands and thousands of mutants and only a few hundred are left? Then again, I drop Marvel when the came out with Civil War so I have no idea what they have done in the last 25 years.
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She went amnesiac and was courted by Doctor Doom who left a decoy robot version of her where she and Pietro grew up and Hawkeye had sex with the robot.
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Instead of “pull from my butt” magic, Jess Nevins – The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes calls it “various plot-device abilities” ( see Zanzibar ) or “plot-device powers” ( Mystico ).
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Doctor Strange’s battles either either involve energy project ( blasts ) or binding spells ( Crimson Bands of Cyttorak or ( Ruby ) Rings of Raggadorr ) or magical vapors/gases ( Vapors of Valtorr ( which Baron Mordo used to shrink a person in the Ditko era ) & Mist of Morpheus ( Michael Golden issue ) ) or shields. ME, I wish he or the Ancient One had lived up to the title of being Sorcerer Supreme and do Merlin like things ( Enchant an object or person — Captain Britain(s) & Ebony Blade ) or even Nicholas Scratch who magically mutated his kids ( Salem’s Seven ). I would have given the Ancient One credit for enchanting the Cloak of Levitation.
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Yeah, that’s what he had early on, limitations were fairly clear. But the longer the series went plus his long Defenders stint, the more spells he had and the more he could do in his astral form.
Do you remember the issue where he decided to wipe out ALL vampires on Earth with a spell? Took out Dracula and everyone else. When was that? Middle/late 80s? When the supernatural comics were basically dying on the vine.
I never had a problem with his cloak or his Eye, those were clearly defined gadgets, though the Eye seemed to be able to do a bit more as time went on. And those have remained his primary gadgets from the beginning. I don’t think he has added any new ones since then.
In some ways, I think a D&D/Pathfinder-type magic user would be more fun as a magical comic book hero. Even at their most powerful, they have clearly defined limitations and spells and spell use per day. Get them started in their hero role around level 10 and let them gain one more level and spells/extra casting each year published until they reach level 20. Kind of like how Superman got stronger and more powers the first 8 years of his comic.
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When he rid the Earth of vampires he was using a spell in the Darkhold ( which was dangerous for him to do — people tend to lose their soul to that book ) and it was easy thing to do. I don’t really know what the point of that was ( other to tell a story ), since vampires were brought back ( Like the Scourge storyline: Killing off super-villains ( not all of whom I would list as losers or villains that never should have been created in the first place. I like the Fly and Hammer and Anvil ).
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IIRC there was a string of stories in the 1980s wrapping up big menaces. Vampires, destroyed. Another story supposedly destroyed the Serpent Crown. A couple of others I can’t recall right now.
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It’s not like this is unique to magic. Tony’s ability to build all kinds of tech. Or Spider-sense, which even under Spidey’s original creative team can do things that don’t make sense (spot a villain’s hideout even when he’s not in it, for instance).
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Seems like there’s a curious lettering error on page 22: the balloon “Perhaps you will find the all-enveloping Mists of Munnopor a more worthy challenge” has its tail pointing at Strange, when from the art in that panel and the action in the subsequent ones it’s clearly Black who is speaking that line.
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I disliked this story. Black had been such a pathetic failure in his Defenders appearance, I’d have left him despondent and forgotten.
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