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DOCTOR_STRANGE
October 27, 2016
The Marvel comic book "Doctor Strange" is a key example
in my mind of what can be done with comics, and series
fiction in general, but I see that I haven't talked
about it very much here at all.
"Doctor Strange", as anyone who follows Hollywood
movie trailers (which is to say, no one with any
sense) knows at this point, is one of Marvel's
leading "Magical" super-heroes. He was a ORIGIN
successful surgeon, a selfish and materialistic
man, whose motor-nerves were damaged in a car
accident-- he no longer has the steadiness of touch
that made him a success, and the field of western
medicine he came out of has no solution to his I've read a few
problem. So in desperation he goes off looking for comments by people
the wisdom of the east, and finds his way to the who think this
abode of the Ancient One, who takes him in and story can be
teaches him a new set of skills, and transforms him updated to remove
into earth's "sorcerer supreme": the secret the "Orientalism".
defender against magical threats.
Good luck
with that.
LONG_SHADOW
There are roughly three things
I've got to talk about:
(1) Steve Ditko
(2) everyone else
(3) power without limit
The original run of Doctor Strange featured the
artwork of Steve Ditko, Marvel's less famous and
much quirkier genius: none of his other work
showed what he could do quite like Doctor
Strange did.
The earliest few stories featured some relatively
conventional effects, like flying via "cloak of
levitation", sending out one's spirit form, or
firing bolts of mystical energy from his hands.
Strange quickly developed some stranger
capabilities, like "The Eye of Agomotto" that
would emerge from the amulet at his neck, float At some point verbal
through the air and mount itself on his descriptions fail:
forehead as an explicitly visible third eye...
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fphaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiles%2Fimage_part%2Fasset%2F211961%2FiKVfwHAw0N7oErukNYjAx6nrSHk%2Fmedium_DrStrangeTales135smaller.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2F4cp.posthaven.com%2Ftag%2FSuperheroes%3Fpage%3D6&docid=0-xZ630YApL0jM&tbnid=nwj9oOb0ZUHgHM%3A&w=800&h=656&safe=off&bih=448&biw=979&ved=0ahUKEwjh_pCL6PzPAhXIiVQKHUoCB0E4uQIQMwgRKA8wDw&iact=mrc&uact=8
And it was not long before he was traveling in https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blackgate.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F03%2FSteve-Ditkos-Doctor-Strange-3.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blackgate.com%2F2014%2F03%2F26%2Fhurry-up-with-that-doctor-strange-movie-marvel%2F&docid=1kL1GCFJDfwO7M&tbnid=YBl9yMUascxoBM%3A&w=1255&h=607&safe=off&bih=448&biw=979&ved=0ahUKEwiz2pi65_zPAhXoyVQKHR61Bu4QMwg_KBYwFg&iact=mrc&uact=8
"other dimensions", and all convention was https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F66.media.tumblr.com%2Fd696f831f21b2d21d06c9c6e2085f8f7%2Ftumblr_n1i8w82jYa1tu5eyto1_540.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fapanhadonarede.tumblr.com%2Fpage%2F35&docid=5wEgb3AFCkO8KM&tbnid=lCIhu_b7v0v9KM%3A&w=528&h=459&safe=off&bih=448&biw=979&ved=0ahUKEwiK5cX25_zPAhUkxVQKHX_OB8U41QEQMwgWKBQwFA&iact=mrc&uact=8
left aside... in one memorable story he needs https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F_4irVuZamOhA%2FTSWo06KDiKI%2FAAAAAAAAFMk%2Ftm9vg8M2jhc%2Fs1600%2Fscan0035.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftoobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F01%2Fthat-other-dr-strange-some-thoughts.html&docid=4IP2XrbDh8Ym2M&tbnid=LisiCyDeDUkgtM%3A&w=1245&h=1254&safe=off&bih=448&biw=979&ved=0ahUKEwiz2pi65_zPAhXoyVQKHR61Bu4QMwgfKAEwAQ&iact=mrc&uact=8
to keep walking, following a path on a sinuous https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F66.media.tumblr.com%2F43643826dbd8d9a0dda2960fd6362d8a%2Ftumblr_inline_nsso5mNvm01r2hrkr_1280.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthemikebecker.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F126222271502%2Flooking-at-steve-ditko-dr-strange-art-and-if&docid=_E7utSm91DzueM&tbnid=cUeo-hpTpr1kUM%3A&w=921&h=664&safe=off&bih=448&biw=979&ved=0ahUKEwiz2pi65_zPAhXoyVQKHR61Bu4QMwgeKAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8
ribbon stretched through space (it's edges https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.bleedingcool.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F01%2F1387799-drstrnge.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bleedingcool.com%2F2016%2F01%2F14%2Fditko-and-lee-doctor-strange-omnibus-confirmed-and-more%2F&docid=dQgzSX4eDXQ0KM&tbnid=cTJBiv6qVZWahM%3A&w=300&h=376&safe=off&bih=448&biw=979&ved=0ahUKEwiz2pi65_zPAhXoyVQKHR61Bu4QMwgjKAUwBQ&iact=mrc&uact=8
showing the goopy look of a horror-movie font)
encountering various strange challenges along
the way as this path threads it's way though
things such as a set of gaping, fanged jaws,
or between the arms (and under the gaze), of a
gigantic stone idol...
If you assigned someone the task of coming up with
a comic-book featuring a magical hero and other-
dimensional monsters, the odds that you would get
something like "Doctor Strange" are pretty low.
The original Doctor Strange had more than a
little strangeness going for it, a feeling that
the mystical features had a touch of actual
transcendent weirdness about them.
I don't know of any Church of Doctor
Strange that treated the comic-book as
a sacred text, but that's a much less
silly idea than some actual Churches It's become fashionable
(like the one founded along the lines to sneer at "Orientalism"
of Heinlein's _Stranger_, or for that in some circles...
matter Anton LaVey's version of
Satanism...) ORIENTALISM
But the Doctor Strange version
of it:
o is not so close to an existing
relgion that I think it
registers as disrespectful
o is imaginative enough that
the slight points of
contact (e.g. a third eye)
don't seem insulting.
After the Steve Ditko version (which perhaps
should be regarded as a collaboration with Stan
Lee... or perhaps not, with Stan Lee, just
judging from the outside, it's often hard to
figure whether he was really doing anything),
many other artist and writer teams worked on
Doctor Strange.
The line you usually hear in these case is
"well of course, the *original* is the only
one worth paying attention to, those later
ones were just lame copies--"
But I'm not going to tell you that. The Ditko The upcoming Hollywood
version may be best, but the following ones film looks like another
were okay too-- this is an odd case where computer graphics out
everyone who worked on the project seems to the wazoo fest, but I
have found something to do with it, they don't hold that against
continually brought something new without it, myself-- what else
undermining what had come before... could you do with Doctor
Strange except work any
I've got a strong tendency visual effects you've got
toward that kind of purism, as hard as you can?
so it's worth remembering that
there are exceptions. Where I expect it to fall
down is the writing,
in particular the
bits of dialog
they've put in the
trailers looks
trite and leaden, as
per the modern standard.
And finally: there's a potential problem with
something like Doctor Strange: the limitations
of Strange's power are very murky. In any
story he might suddenly reveal a new function
of one of his standard talismens; or call on
some new quasi-deity that we've never heard of
before; or pull out some new occult tome and
look-up a new spell...
Even as a young teenager, I remember thinking
that this was very unusual: any fan can list
the capabilities of every member of the Avengers
or the X-men or the Fantastic Four... that's
never been the case with Doctor Strange.
So: does that cause problems with
plotting, where any problem, any Doesn't Doctor Strange
conflict, can be resolved with some seem like a character
new magical hand-wave? badly in need of Kryptonite?
THE_KRYPTONITE_ESCAPE
But the answer is "no":
there's still a sense of tension
in these stories, a feeling that
Strange has to work hard to get That may seem like a simple thing to
to the finish. get this effect, but I don't think it
is at all: consider the later Stephen
Moffat scripts for Doctor Who.
GHOST_QUEEN
And this was all prompted by some
remarks by Alachia Queen (connected
to upcoming Doctor Strange movie):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_1677719153&feature=iv&src_vid=RhMebg51_LE&v=h7p_ffysKa4
She said that she doesn't usually like
magic-based stories, essentially because
it leads to cop-out plot resolution: you
can solve any problem with "magic!".
This does not quite apply to the strange
case of Strange.
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