"It is here that I belong...no matter where my heart shall be! Go, man of mystery, and whatever befalls, always know...I shall never forget you!" - the mysterious female

I don't think any of the other series feature an "unattainable woman" (unless it's Sue for Namor). This one is pretty impressive - she lives in another dimension (a long-distance romance). She cries for Stephen at one point.

After "The Domain of the Dread Dormammu", I was all set for a great follow-up. Pages 2-7 were a letdown but the last three pages more than made up for that. The actual battle with D was sort of lackluster with static action shots, only a few great SFX, and even a dearth of incantations.

We get a pretty good illo right off the bat.

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So Strange mulls it over. For some reason I think it's funny that he hangs up his cloak like he's in a dentist's waiting room. (No hook though.)
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And the blonde gets to pop in unannounced through one of those surprise portals. That would set off some alarm bells for me. This is only their second date, after all. A man likes to have some privacy.

She takes him on a tour of the neighborhood, and I like Steve's work on this whole page.

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The Mindless Ones are sort of a cross between Cyclops and the Mole Man.

Lee and Ditko give Strange something approaching a dilemna:

Strange: "Though he represents a menace to mankind, Dormammu is a protector to his own people!"

her: "That is why you must not defeat him! Only he can save us from the Mindless Ones!"

Strange: "Yet, if he lives, humanity shall always be in danger! I wish to bring no harm to this fantastic world...and yet my first duty is to Earth...and the ones who inhabit it!...I must be true to my oath!"

Interestingly, we learn that Dormammu was once "a child". I want to see that illo.

Although Dormammu is virtually unstoppable, Stan and Steve manage to give him an Achilles' heel that has nothing to do with his own power as measured against Strange's. Here's a great illustration of Dormammu's problem. I particularly love the triumphant arms of that One near the back. I do have to wonder though how the guy in front never managed to grab the blonde.

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________________________________________And how about the great look of dismay on D's...face.
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I really like how Ditko crafts "before" and "after" comparison shots by using the exact same panel construction:

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And in between we get stark visual contrast and shadows in this panel which features the climax of the story.

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How nice that the amulet once again takes center stage. The feature could be renamed "Doctor Strange and His Amazin' Amulet". We already know that the Vishani power(s) the amulet. So it turns out that the Ancient One is helping to strengthen the amulet through incantation back in Tibet: "May the light of the Vishanti shine on Doctor Strange..." And he also implores the omnipotent Oshtur to "grant him wisdom and strength", which maybe played a part in the exact nature of Strange's final unlikely victory.

Since Dormammu seems to be the biggest threat to Earth in the short history of the Marvel Universe, it's really awesome plotting that Strange was indeed unable to defeat him based on skill and prowess, and only saved our dimension inadvertently, through altruism in action.

It turns out that Dormammu "has his own moral code!": "I cannot slay you now! I cannot destroy the one who has saved me!" Thus Dorm implies that he himself would have been killed by the Mindless Ones if not for the barrier shield. And most importantly, we know that Strange was the only foe powerful enough to ever cause Dormammu to draw on enough power to have weakened the barrier.

The final page offers two very pleasing revelations resulting from this momentous two-parter.

First, we learn that the Mr. Myagi's (sorry, I mean the Ancient One's) physical weakness in these first sixteen stories was not natural. He's all better now. "That is because of your deed, my son! Your triumph over Dormammu has broken the spell which he had placed on me, ages ago!" Actually I'm not sure why this should be so, and I wonder whether Dormammu threw that in as a bonus because of his code of honor.
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The other rocking development is that Strange gets new threads. I'd completely forgotten about this part and it came as a nice surprise. I guess Stan and Steve decided Strange needed more color instead of just the blue, black, and tan. What I don't understand is why they passed up the obvious opportunity to put the icing on the cake of this first two-part Doctor Strange story. Why didn't Strange put on the new cloak and amulet on this last page?? We could have seen the red cloak billowing behind him as he walked away. I don't get it. Maybe they wanted the "new" Strange to make more of an impression by debuting in the next issue, but I don't see how that effect was much heightened by denying such a great shot as a dramatic moment at the end of the story in which he earned it!

It's not like we don't get a good final panel though. We learn that Strange "shall one day become..."the Master!" when the Ancient One "breathes the final vapors of Valtorr!" And the "unimaginable loneliness" sounds formidable!

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Strange also gets "a more wondrous amulet"!

This prompted me to do a little research on the old amulet. I was surprised that it didn't feature in "The Many Traps of Baron Mordo" after all (something I'd referenced and scanned a couple months ago). In that story, Mordo cowers in the light of Strange's ring. So that does make the end of "Mordo Must Not Catch Me" more logical as Mordo was at last permanently frustrated by the amulet itself.

I also found changes in the visual style of the illustrated amulet. At the end of "Origin" (fourth published story), it was square. In the first two published stories, it was round and ornate. In the third published story, it looked terrible - hardly more than a featureless yellow circle. The new one is round and less ornate than the best illos of the old one, but is more three-dimensional.

Speaking of the amulet, take another look at that final panel. I have to wonder whether Strange isn't in fact storming off in something of a huff:

Strange: "Master, is there some reason why you did not present me with the 'more wondrous' amulet in time for my life-or-death battles against Nightmare, Loki, or indeed the Dread Dormammu???"

Ancient One: "...

...

...

...it was buried in the closet."


"Now we're getting off focus." - the Elder Son of Storytime