User blog:Nausiated/Project 11/61: Just Like Magic

This year marks the one year anniversary of starting Project 11/61.. Which if you don't know what this is year read this and all subsequent blog posts I have written over the past year to get yourself up to speed.

I have just recently finished an Expanded History page for Doctor Strange covering his chronology from his early age and then covering about all his chronological appearances between 1961-1969 including all flashback and retcon tales. It was a quick one but here are some notes:


 * There are not a lot of flashback stories for Dr. Strange detailing his past prior to the events that led to him becoming a mystic. That was a nice change of pace given that every other major hero I've done up to this point have had every mundane aspect of their activities prior to their first appearances (The worst so far being Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man, so far) I suspect this may change leading up to the Doctor Strange movie comes out in 2016. I expect that there will be a retold and expanded origin and various other flashback tales, which has been the constant with every character who has appeared in a Marvel Movie.


 * It's interesting to note that Doctor Strange's origins actually lock him into a specific year of birth: 1930. While Strange's origin stories don't really map out the length of time he trained under the Ancient One, a lot of the narratives don't really read like it took a lot of time. It wasn't until did they lock that year in. I suspect this was from the flashback in  which locked his car accident in the 1960s. This would make some logical sense as one who is practicing the mystic arts isn't going to learn it in a few months, it'd probably take decades of practice at least. Although not implicitly stated, Strange must use mystical means to keep himself youthful. Something that has been depicted in Doctor Strange comics in the past (the particular issue where he first does this escapes me at the moment, but it was either in Doctor Strange Vol 2 or the Doctor Strange run in Marvel Premiere Vol 1.)


 * On the subject of Stephen's early life, as a lot of you know I try very hard to ensure that the application of the Sliding Timescale are implemented in writing issue summaries of characters. When it came to Dr. Strange I didn't think it could work both ways. As I said above, thanks to a Marvel Handbook Strange's year of birth was locked in the year 1930. What makes this funny was an earlier story in depicted a 19 year old Stephen Strange listening to the band Deep Purple. Which is a pretty amazing feat since Stephen would have been 19 in 1949 and Deep Purple did not form until 1968. I guess the Ancient One was not only looking after young Dr. Strange, but also providing him with rocking tunes from the future. ;)


 * Another thing about Stephen's origins is that the origin told in is never revisited nor is it referenced in any Marvel Handbooks. Which I found odd, considering it told a story about why Stephen was so driven by money (answer: because his father was an angry skinflint). Also based on appearance listings in various of the most recent Marvel Indexes (particularly the most recent run indexing Uncanny X-Men Vol 1) all point out that the stories in Uncanny Origins Vol 1 are considered cannon, since for the most part they are just retelling origin stories. The story actually fits in well with the rest of his early life with the exception of one point: In Uncanny Origins #12 it states that Stephen's father died before he graduated from medical school. This refutes other claims that Stephen's father died after he set up his medical claims. Since the Handbooks reference this later point of death it can be assumed that the story in Uncanny Origins was in error regarding the death of Stephen's father.


 * It's interesting to note that the appearance of the "Masked" Doctor Strange (circa through  who appeared in  through  is a bit of an enigma. While you can trace the points where the Sub-Mariner and Silver Surfer were plucked from their respective timelines, Strange is not so easy. Part of it I would attribute to a poor writing choice on the part of writer Jeph Loeb. The premise of the story was the Hulk was pulling his fellow founding Defenders from points in history where they experienced loss. For whatever reason he decided to use the Dr. Strange who wore the black mask. A better point of time would have been when Clea left Dr. Strange to return to the Dark Dimension in ... But of course you couldn't have went with the nostalgia of the black mask as Strange abandoned it year earlier.


 * And what was up with that mask anyway? Well according to Wikipedia, back in the late 60s Dr. Strange was not a hot selling book (which to me is hardly a surprise the stories were all pretty repetitive) and in an attempt to boost stagnant sales writer Roy Thomas and artist Gene Colan attempted to make Strange more like a super-hero, which included the application of the flimsy "Stephen Sanders" identity (that was quickly abandoned in when they revived Strange in 1971) and the mask. It was kind of an awkward plot contrivance given the fact that since his first appearance in  Strange made no attempts to secret his identity. In the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko stories, everyone seemed to know who he was, right down to members of the public, news media, and the authorities knew who he was. So the sudden concern about his identity being public and then the need to hide his identity was quite silly.

Well that's it for now. Next on the list is the original X-Men (Professor X, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman and Beast) I will be covering events from their early lives all the way up to events prior to ... Which is kind of breaking my "1961-1969" cut off a bit, but I really don't feel like going back and writing about the All-Old All-Boring X-Men of the 60s again if I can help it (Unless of course, I am writing about anything they have done post Giant-Size X-Men #1).

This is going to be a lengthy endeavor complicated further by the fact that I am in the process of packing up and moving over the next few months, so it might be slow going. After I am done with the X-Men I will be focusing on characters who appeared in the first three Fantastic Four Annuals, including Spider-Man and basically everyone who appeared at the Fantastic Four wedding who I haven't covered yet!