The Microcosmic Horror of Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange has never been the most popular superhero. He’s an oddity, he doesn’t fit the Marvel formula, and often his writers don’t do him justice. He’s usually a supporting character, functioning as a deus ex machina in someone else’s story. But Doctor Strange’s solo adventures are as compelling as any Avenger’s, and these tales are their own brand of horror, the horror of the psyche, where the scariest stuff comes from within. So Doctor Strange proves to be our most courageous superhero, going where others fear to tread. He traverses the darkest dimensions of Marvel’s universe, and he is the only superhero capable of guiding us through the most unfathomable place of all: our own minds.

Stephen Strange holds a unique position in Marvel’s pantheon. His origin story is the end of his hero’s journey, his powers don’t come at a cost, he doesn’t beat people up all that much. He has no alter ego; in fact, he’s comfortable walking down the street in his cloak and tights, flashing his amulet around. We’re not even sure he has another outfit. He’s not omnipotent, so his superpower is how he uses magic with ingenuity, intuition, and knowledge. When humanity is threatened, there is no question that Doctor Strange will come to its aid, even if he must risk his life. Other superheroes fight for people’s lives, Stephen Strange fights for their souls.

After Steve Ditko and Stan Lee created him in 1963, Lee himself downplayed Doctor Strange as “just a 5-page filler […] for Strange Tales. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him.” In those early Ditko and Lee stories, Strange is conservative, primarily preserving the status quo. He is a protector of our world, keeping the scary stuff out, like the Mindless Ones who dwell in the Dark Dimension and his nemesis Dormammu.

1972’s Marvel Premiere marks a transition for Doctor Strange when he faces a Lovecraftian foe in issues #3 – 10. The first several issues find him fighting a seemingly endless onslaught of adversaries, all of them agents of Shuma-Gorath, an entity like Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth. Shuma-Gorath’s allies include a facsimile Dagon called Dagoth, Kathulos the living planet, and the snake-demon Sligguth. When Gardner Fox took over for Stan Lee in issue #4, a young man implores Strange to help him rescue his fiancée. She’s returned to the couple’s tiny New England hometown to research the Thanatosian Tomes, an analog of the Necronomicon, and it’s driven her mad. The town is an Innsmouth imitation, replete with literally fishy townspeople and a high priestess who worships Sligguth. Fox’s attempt at including the Cthulhu Mythos in his plot may have been more successful if Lovecraft’s estate weren’t so touchy. Instead, Fox tiptoes around his influence and attributes his borrowed story concepts to Robert E. Howard, a correspondent of Lovecraft and creator of Conan the Barbarian.

Writer Steve Englehart and artist Frank Brunner salvage the story in issue #9 by turning the horror inward, and Strange hits his stride as the tone shifts from muddled cosmic horror to psychedelic Alice in Wonderland weirdness. If Ditko’s Strange kept otherworldly horrors at bay, in the hands of Brunner and Englehart, Strange invites them in. He becomes an explorer, unlocking consciousness, surrendering himself to whatever weirdness may come. We discover that Shuma-Gorath can only cross into our dimension via the mind of Strange’s mentor, the Ancient One. To defeat Shuma-Gorath, Strange shrinks to the size of a dust mote and enters the Ancient One’s brain to destroy his ego and sense of self. Englehart writes, “He plunges into that glowing cell — where no man has even dreamed of going before!” The Ancient One’s physical body dies in the process, but it frees his mind to become one with the universe.

Englehart’s and Brunner’s work on Marvel Premiere was successful enough to earn Doctor Strange his own series. Englehart even studied the occult, primarily astrology and tarot, to give authenticity to Strange’s mysticism. In Doctor Strange #4, Strange meets Death when the Orb of Agamotto sprouts tentacles and drags him inside. He rides through the Domain of the Dying on the White Queen’s horse Aragorn and then finds himself among the stars, where Death manifests as a giant skull and asserts, “Death holds sway over all the universe!” In this issue, Strange’s challenge is to defeat his fear of death, which he must do by accepting what seems like his certain end, letting go of fear and anger, and realizing that death is not evil.

Brunner and Englehart understood that Doctor Strange shines brightest when his navigation between dimensions parallels a terrifying trip inward. Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Dan Green is another example of this. The Lords of Shamballa call upon Doctor Strange to help usher in a Golden Age of harmony that will be preceded by the total devastation of mankind. At the story’s climax, Strange realizes that the destruction will not occur on a global scale but in the heart of every man: “…your cataclysm will take place, not without…but within.”

The fundamental philosophy of all occult practice is, “As above, so below,” the belief that the macrocosm exists in the microcosm, an idea that underlies Doctor Strange’s best stories in which the chaotic unknown of the universe is rivaled by the chaotic unknown of the mind. In Marvel Premiere’s issue #3, Doctor Strange asks, “But who knows what goes on within the human brain?” — a question the Sorcerer Supreme will always seek to answer.

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Priscilla Page is a writer, book hoarder, and dog companion who lives in Los Angeles. She spends her spare time single-handedly taking down a shadowy crime syndicate. Follow Priscilla on Twitter @BBW_BFF.