Episode 1 - "Silver Age Strange" part 1

Welcome, Weirdos, to the companion blog post for the first episode of Into the Weird, the podcast that explores the madness of the mighty Marvel Bronze Age. I am Grant Richter (@IamGrantRichter), and my most esteemed co-host is the lord of all thinks sinister himself, Mister Herman Louw, host of the Longbox of Darkness podcast (@darklongbox). In every episode, which should be coming out twice a month, Herman and I will be discussing at least one comic from Marvel's Bronze Age, featuring a character from our pre-selected list, in publication order. Among the characters we'll be covering are Morbius the Living Vampire, Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan, Daimon's succubus sister Satana, Adam Warlock (the Starlin years), Captain Mar-Vell (also Starlin), Man-Thing, Man-Wolf, Howard the Duck, Killraven, Deathlok (Luther Manning), and Skull the Slayer.

The character we will unquestioningly be discussing the most often, however, is Doctor Strange. Not only does he have the most prolific amount of published material during this era, but he is the linchpin around which much of Marvel's Bronze Age weirdness revolves. Fittingly, then, we kicked off the priemier of the show but discussing Doctor Strange's first series, Strange Tales volume 1, which began in 1963.

Now, this blog is only intended to be a supplement to the show, not a substitute, so if you haven't listened to the episode yet I recommend to go check it out first then come back here. If you're stuck and work and can't listen to our shenanigans right now, though (boooo!), and you're killing time on the internet instead of working on that overdue spreadsheet (high five!), then think of this of just a lovely little appetizer of your later auditory enjoyment.

Since this podcast is focused almost exclusively on the Bronze Age, and because there's a lot of material in Strange Tales, we didn't break down each issue in great detail, but rather covered the whole series of Doctor Strange stories in one big overview. We started with Steve's first appearance in the four page back up story in Strange Tales #110, which also featured the first appearance of the Ancient One, Nightmare (my personal favorite villain), and what appears to be the Eye of Agamotto (though the actual Eye wouldn't be introduced until later in the series. We also talked about the first appearance of Baron Mordo (issue #111), Strange's origin story (issue #115), the first use by Steve Ditko of his trademark surreal other dimensional backgrounds (issue 116), and the first appearance of the Orb of Agamotto (issue 118).

The story we both enjoyed the most came from issues 126 and 127, which featured the first appearance of Dormammu, Clea ( though she wasn't named, because Silver Age gender politics were super unfortunate), the Dark Dimension, the Mindless Ones, and the first use of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. In these issues, Strange journeys to the Dark Dimension and confronts Dormammu over a planned invasion of Earth. Before the battle, Clea explains to Strange that if Dormammu dies the Mindless Ones will destroy the Dark Dimension. During the actual duel, Strange is overpowered, but the strain of the battle weakened Dormammu's magical defenses that held the Mindless Ones at bay. It's only with Strange's help that the barriers are restored, an act which forces Dormammu to swear a vow not to invade Earth.

This two parter leads directly into a much longer story arch, involving Dormammu empowering Mordo to assassinate Strange, which would free the Dread One from his vow. Herman and I had much more mixed feelings about this one, though the climax of the story, in which Steve uses Judo and magical crab claws to defeat the all powerful leader of a psychedelic magical dimension, made us chuckle quite a bit.

Sadly, the series of Doctor Strange stories in Strange Tales began to fall apart after this arc, which was pretty disappointing to the both of us. Ditko would stay on the title for one more story arc, after which he was replaced by Golden Age Namor artist Bill Everett. While the stories themselves contained a few notable mystical and cosmic landmarks, like the first appearances of Umar and the Living Tribunal, as well as some minor villains who would play a larger part of Strange's history in decades to come, we found the stories themselves pretty lackluster. While we agreed that Stan Lee was a great idea man, we also felt that his talent as a storyteller only extended as far as the ability of his artist.

In our section "Bronze Age Brilliance" we were unanimous in that what we enjoyed the most about this series was exactly how much groundwork was laid for Marvel's mystical and cosmic mythology, and in "Mighty Marvel Missteps" we talked about Strange's unfortunate initial visual portrayal as a racist Asian stereotype, and the lack of cohesion from story to story.

Lastly, in "Get Off My Lawn", I gave a short overview of the Doctor Strange stories in the 1987 volume of Strange Tales, and Herman lamented how the panel-to-panel smart reader does not flow well on the 2015 Doctor Strange series by Jason Aaron and Chris Bacchalo.

In our next episode we'll be talking about Doctor Strange's first self titled book as we finish out our overview of "Silver Age Strange".

Until then, Stay Weird!

*The intro music for Into the Weird is "In the Walls", by Seven Kingdoms, and is used with permission.  Be sure to follow them online at Facebook.com/SevenKingdomsOfficial .*