Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
full blooded weirdness from Englehart and Co., 27 Dec 2007
To me, this is the very best of the 3 Dr Strange collections, which may strike fans of Lee and Ditko as close to blasphemy, but there it is. The star of the show here is writer Steve Englehart. Having shaken up the mystic master's universe in the pages of Marvel Premiere by killing off the Ancient One, sending Baron Mordo nuts and making Clea Strange's apprentice, he continues to plunge into the fray with the first 18 issues of Doc's revived title. The first few stories are illustrated exquisitely by Frank Brunner and Dick Giordano, then we have the return of the fabulous Gene Colan as artist. The stories feature a variety of characters including Silver Dagger, Dormammu, Eternity, Dracula, Satan and Benjamin Franklin! However, this misses the point entirely - Englehart's run is a wonderfully complex and surreal journey of growth for the central character who finds himself tested and rewarded as he faces various challenges. At one point, Englehart went so far as to destroy the entire planet, only to bring it back with a bit of smoke and mirrors, all to teach a significant lesson to dear Doc S. After Englehart, Marv Wolfman takes over as writer, having handled the character very well in the Strange/Tomb of Dracula crossover (reprinted here). Clearly, Wolfman has little time for the supreme near-diety that Englehart had made of the good doctor in his run and quickly removes his immortality and 'sorcerer supreme' status. Wolfman's run is a bit messy, suffering from a variety of artists and little direction. His triumph is to script the one and only Dr. Strange Annual, fabulously drawn by P. Craig Russell. Next, we have Jim Starlin, Marvel's very own 'kozmik kid' fresh from a run on Warlock, who tends to step back into Englehart's territory with the Ancient One returned to life as a tramp and Dr Strange replaced by a warthog called Dr Stranger Yet (Ho! Ho!). Finally, Roger Stern and Tom Sutton return the character to more mundane superhero territory, which I regard as a real pity. Briefly, Dr Strange was a comic that read like an illustrated novel by Herman Hesse or John Fowles, and Gene Colan and Tom Palmer were the perfect artists for the journey. Enjoy!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb collection of mind-bending tales, 31 May 2008
This collection contains a series of epic mind-twisting stories that go far beyond where even the most adventurous of the other Marvel characters dared to journey.
The opener with the religious zealot Silver Dagger and Death itself is a sign of things to come. Steve Englehart gave his imagination full reign in these early tales and Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin and Roger Stern do not disappoint either. The accompanying artwork is great throughout with some real touches of genius.
Here we see the returns of old favourites Eternity, Umar, Baron Mordo and Dormammu as well as the return of the Ancient One. We learn of Clea's origin and Dracula gets his fangs into Doctor Strange and Wong. He even takes on Satan, Oh yes, one small point, the Earth is destroyed and then rebuilt again by Eternity.
Then a couple of real epics which blend into each other as Strange first goes back in time, concentrating on the history of the U.S.A. (it was bi-centennial year) where he meets Sir Francis Bacon and Benjamin Franklin. He faces the wizard Stygryo in several forms, then Xander the Great then journeys into Phaseworld and ultimately the Quadriverse to take on the Creators and their plan to become "Stars" to control the universe. Just when your brain is starting to strain at all this in comes Dr. Stranger-Yet and then the In-Betweener.
The last tale is a mundane one by comparison as Strange and Nighthawk take on Death-Stalker.
Being in black and white you do miss some of the majesty of the originals and twice during the run collected here the deadline was missed and old stories were repeated with a little tidying up, those repeats are included here.
A brilliant collection but you'll need a clear head to see you through.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Three Parts Brilliance, One Part Nonsense, 16 Feb 2008
Dr Strange has always teetered on that razor's edge between the sublime and the ridiculous, and in this volume he wobbles further in both directions than ever before. It's full of mind-blowing magical adventures: in this collection Dr Strange confronts Death, struggles against Unreality to assert his own existence, travels through time, battles against his own potential selves, fights with gods, witnesses the death of a world, bears responsibility for the destruction and recreation of Earth and all its inhabitants, journeys through bizarre, monster-filled space-scapes, accidentally allows a bunch of evil wizards to (temporarily) replace the stars themselves, and has a magical duel with a wild boar in a cape. It is not, in any way, a superhero comic; instead, it is the story of a master magician ascending towards enlightenment by way of a series of surreal, psychedelic quests. It's exhilarating stuff. It just doesn't always make very much sense.
There's masses of very, very good material here. Clea's background is filled out as she progresses towards becoming a sorceress in her own right. Old favourites like Umar and Dormammu put in their inevitable repeat appearances, more dangerous than ever, and The Ancient One gets a lot of screen time for someone who's supposed to be dead. The stories are vastly ambitious epics, full of inspired lunacy, while the art is complex and stunning, making impressive use of layout and full of homages to Ditko - and, when he's not doing it himself, to Colan. But the plots only barely hang together, and sometimes, as with the Creators arc which concludes this collection, doesn't really make any sense at all, while every new revelation about the cosmology of Strange's universe just makes it even more confused and self-contradictory than it already is. Is Eternity the embodiment of all universes, or just Earth's universe, or just the souls of all humanity? Given his nature, how was it possible for the In-Betweener to make the mistake he did, and how was Strange able to best him? Just what is the relationship between the Creators and the Quadriverse? If anyone has any answers, I'd be delighted to know...
Overall, I definitely do recommend this volume to anyone who's read and enjoyed the last two. It magnifies both the faults and virtues of the earlier stories, but the virtues are so great that the faults are easily forgiven. It's very, very odd in places, but anyone who's made it to the end of volume two can clearly cope with high weirdness. Just don't try too hard to make it all fit coherently together: you'll only give yourself headaches. We must simply accept on faith that it would all make perfect sense if only we were as enlightened as Dr Strange.
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by Stan Lee
by Roger Stern
by Steve Englehart
by Jack Kirby
