#the strange tales of the doctor

[616stephenstan]

Page 1 is out!!!

I hope you all enjoy it :))) It’s my hc that Zelma created this account for Stephen to deal with all those imposter accounts.

Note: Writing is VERY HARD lol

(2/?)

[comicwaren]

“I know you said you don’t really do holidays, but--” – Kitty Pryde

Cover art for Marvel Holiday Tales to Astonish #001

Art by Luciano Vecchio

[annaarenas890]

Dark magic.

[browsethestacks]

Original Art - Strange Tales #125 Pg 18 (1964) by Steve Ditko And George Roussos

[comic-covers]

(1967)

[mrhyde-mrseek]

CLASSIC LIT MEN RANKED FROM LEAST TO MOST DATABLE (As Decided By A Lesbian)

•DRACULA - crusty old creep, absolutely horrid, ruined the lives of at least eight people, turned one of said people into a vampire and nearly turned another, Hollywood likes to ship him with Mina for reasons that I don’t understand because he ALMOST TURNED HER INTO A VAMPIRE THAT HER FRIENDS AND HUSBAND WOULD HAVE HAD TO KILL.

•DR. MOREAU - it’s been a hot minute since I last read the book, but the fact that he performs vivisections on wild animals to turn them into humans is fucked up on SO many levels.

•ERIK - murderer, stalker, would probably combust if shown any semblance of actual affection.

•CREATURE - made to be pretty but Victor fucked that up somehow, killed 3 people out of revenge, would also combust if shown any sort of real love.

•GRIFFIN - canonically buff & smart, but he’s also an egomaniac & self-admitted ass (there is textual evidence for that latter point) with a god complex who plotted a reign of terror so . . . maybe not the best choice.

•THE TELL-TALE HEART NARRATOR - yeah, he doesn’t need romance. He needs psychological help. Desperately. If murdering an old man because his glass eye creeped you out, hiding his body in the floor, then hallucinating his heart beating during a police interrogation isn’t a red flag, then I don’t know what is.

•JEKYLL/HYDE - on one hand, he’s a middle-aged chemist who represses every desire he has; on the other hand, he’s an Uncanny Valley-flavored criminal who beat a man to death with a cane, so you can’t really win with this one.

•ICHABOD CRANE - he’s not a bad person, and he is well-educated, he’s just less interested in an actual, committed romantic relationship and more interested in the money he’ll inherit from it.

•SHERLOCK HOLMES - he’s in the middle because I actually don’t think he’d make a bad boyfriend—he’d just be oblivious to the efforts of anyone who tried to make a move on him.

•VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN - like Griffin, he also has a god complex, but this twink somehow managed to make Robert Walton fall head-over-heels in love with him two seconds of seeing him freezing to death in the Arctic, so there has to be SOMETHING there.

•THE TIME TRAVELLER - he seems like a really sweet, passionate guy. He’d definitely ramble to you about his time machine. My only qualm is that we hardly see him interact with people (at least, people in this stage of evolution).

•JOHN WATSON - he’s kind, he’s supportive, he’s a badass, he’s canonically good-looking and charming (a feature that Holmes uses to their advantage multiple times in the stories), and he’s a doctor. He’s perfect.

[mckiwi]

Strange Tales of Halloween

Hosted by A Strange Server. Each prompt will be treated as a daily journal entry written by Stephen Strange.

On AO3

Beginning<<< Prev< >Next

Prompt: Candles

Thursday, October 24th, 2024

I woke up, in bed this time thankfully, but my mood was immediately dampened when I found the Cloak had wax on themselves again. 

This time, however, I was smart and asked where the Cloak got the wax from. They led me over to one of the meditation areas. 

Someone left candles. Lit. 

Melted wax. 

EVERYWHERE. 

I didn’t have waxing the floors on my priority list, but I guess that’s what today’s plan is now. As I write this, we’re taking a break. I rounded together a few apprentices and we finished cleaning the meditation area fairly quickly, but then it looked stupid for one room to be waxed and not the others, so we did that as well. Now that we’ve started, might as well do the whole building, so we’ve made a day of it. The Cloak still has wax all over them. I’m not even going to bother scraping all that off until the entire building is done being waxed. 

Volviéndose loco,

-S

[splooosh]

He Flies!

Jack Kirby

[fanartka]

... and then the cunning sorcerer flew up to him with his scarlet magic Cloak and shouted “Hey, Dormammu I've came to bargain!”

[doctorstrangereview]

0018: Strange Tales #126

Cover Date: November 1964 On-Sale Date: August 11, 1964

It all changes here! In celebration, Doc reclaims some cover real estate and the blurb even depicts a scene from the story. What changes? Doc meets Dormammu! Up until this moment, Dormammu has simply been one of the funky names Doc calls on to put the whammy on his foes. Also, until now, most of his foes haven't been all that impressive on power level with Nightmare and Loki being the possible exceptions. And Doc doesn't call on either to power up. Dormammu is on whole other level.

Our story continues immediately after Doc's battle with Baron Mordo last issue. We see his astral body returning to his physical body. Now, Mordo's body should be in the house as well, but that never gets addressed. He must have gotten out somehow; we definitely haven't seen the last of him. No sooner than getting up from his comfy, funky chair (sadly, not the one with the dragon head), he's in the grip of a powerful spell, without his consent, that manifests itself as a floppy white and yellow bullseye. There's a nice touch from Ditko. Doc goes in the top of the bullseye and at the spell's terminus, The Ancient One's pad, he comes out the bottom. It even has a funky curl, like it's squeezing him out.

The Ancient One is dressed today in a fine frock. The original coloring is red, but the Masterworks recoloring makes it a vivid fuchsia. Once again I prefer the recoloring. Today's crown has less ostentatious horns that the last story but the detail is more intricate. The Ancient One makes a ghost thing visible to Doc just as it leaves. Doc prepares himself to jump to the old guy's defense, but he's like "Don't worry about it, he's just a messenger of the Dread Dormammu. Oh, by the way, Dormammu is gonna invade our dimension and take over. I just got back from being Mordo's captive and haven't had my old man nap yet. Can you deal with this?"

"Sure thing, daddio! Send me!" And Doc disappears into some whirling and hairy dots. Perhaps this is Ditko's answer to Kirby Crackle. The next thing Doc knows he's somewhere else, floating through a ring of smoke and heading toward a nasty beastie indeed. The smoke ring is a nice call back to the splash page!

The as-yet-unnamed nasty beasty is the G'uranthic Guardian who will show up here and again. I don't know if this is actually a living being or some magical construct that guard's Dormammu's "palace." Doc approaches the nasty beastie who looks down on him and shoots out some light that probes his brain, without his consent. It's a test of some kind that Doc passes and the cool six-sided doors open for him. He steps through, and we get get our first look at how bat-crap crazy Ditko makes this very brightly lit "dark" dimension.

That's right, the other side of this door is floating in nothing and Doc is walking along a floating ribbon all curled up. Nightmare's realm was weird, but this is drug-trippy crazy! What was Ditko on? This imagery continues throughout the story, so get yourself a copy if you want to see it all.

Next, we get our first glimpse of Dormammu. He doesn't quite look like his popular image yet. For one, he's wearing a two-tone green thing with funky shoulder accoutrements and not the purple we're used to seeing him in. His head isn't surrounded by flames, but smoke and his head is blue, instead of red. He only has a hint of eyes. He's also sitting in a funky throne. We will later learn this is the Azure Throne and it is almost never depicted as blue.

Dormammu is like "WTF? Who the hell is this? Where's The Ancient One?" One of the sychophants surrounding Dormammu isn't toadying up enough and dares to question Dormammu's ability to instantly wipe out the mortal and he instantly imprisons them until he doesn't feel like it anymore.

Meanwhile, Doc is facing a series of challenges as he moves toward the big bad. His first challenge is a little yellow creature who feeds on spells. Doc figures this out quickly and feeds him until he pops like a balloon. This is being watched by a certain silver-haired lady. Yes! We are finally introduced to the as-yet-unnamed Clea. At first he thinks this is The Ancient One returning, but realizes it can't be "for he is young -- and fair to behold!" While Clea's libido gets fired up, Doc is drawn into some object that looks like a flying magic carpet. "Oh well," thinks Clea, "better luck next time."

Doc defeats a bunch more of Dormammu's minion who appear before him. Dormie's not happy. He banishes them to limbo.

Dormammu is like "Enough of this! If you need something done, you just gotta do it yourself. Bring it on, earther!" Clea senses things are coming to a head and decides to shout about it.

The entrance Dormie conjures for Doc is just bizarre. It's like a big sheet of paper with a mini, desaturated bifrost coming out of it. Clea attempts to warn him off, but Doc proceeds to the ominous assignation. Doc finally confronts Dormie at last! "I won't kill you until the Ancient One shows up." Doc replies "Nah! You gotta deal with me." "No really, send in the Ancient One." "Nope. It's gonna be me." "You're funeral, blue dude!"

And we break here until next month. Last month was great, but this is just freaking crazy! Ditko is in top form here. Who knows how many pencils were ground to little nubs to draw these 10 pages? Visually, it's spectacular. Ditko had spent a number of stories with lazy backgrounds, but he must have been saving it up for this story. Dormammu's motivation for invading earth isn't exactly original, but it starts a great story. There isn't really anything in the way of plot holes. It doesn't mess with continuity. And it's the springboard of a new era where the villains are more powerful and the stakes are greater. I can't wait for part two!

[smbhax]

From "The World Beyond" in Strange Tales #122, July 1964. Stan Lee script & co-plot, Steve Ditko pencils & co-plot, George Roussos inks & possibly colors, Artie Simek letters.

[616stephenstan]

My “If Marvel won’t do it! I will 😤” series until Victor returns the title

- Suddenly finding himself with more free time, how would Stephen and his family utilise it?

- Rated T+ (because I’d like to show them to my mum)

- Tagged “Strange Tales: Retirement”

[tomoleary]

Steve Ditko Strange Tales #146 page 6 (1966)

“Color designs likely by Stan Goldberg or Marie Severin”

As printed

[panelswithoutpeople]

Strange Tales No. 118

by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

[browsethestacks]

Original Art - Strange Tales #172 Pg 18 (1974) by Gene Colan And Dick Giordano

[pat1dee]

Marvel Comics Index - Heroes From Stange Tales

1976

Cover by Tim Conrad