Doctor Strange has long had a clear cut sense of morality, viewing good and evil largely as absolutes. Gillis was more interested in shades of grey, making a distinction between good and evil and black and white magic. Even black magic can be used for the greater good, but only at great personal cost...
Strange Tales #4 (1987) - Doctor Strange
Pencils: Chris Warner
Inks: Randy Emberlin
Dr Strange's darkest quest begins in Hong Kong. A fedora and white suit garbed Dr Strange and disguised sidekick Rintrah are on the trail of a rogue mystic amulet, The Wings of Needless Sorrow. As the name implies, it brings misery and death wherever it goes. Stephen averts a mass suicide by taking the amulet on himself, as he's no longer pure enough to wear the Eye of Agamotto. It's a pretty somber tale, indicative of the path of no return Strange is heading down.
Strange Tales #5-7 (1987) - Doctor Strange
Pencils: Larry Alexander, Terry Shoemaker
Inks: Randy Emberlin
Sadly, issue 4 was Warner's last. He left for fledgling indie Dark Horse, where he's spent the rest of his career. Potts took a while to settle on a replacement, with the little known Alexander providing a reasonable first fill-in. Late 80's pinch hitter Shoemaker then takes over pencils for a four issue run.
Strange returns to the Ancient One's temple in the Himalayas, sacrificing his dying sherpa guide along the way in exchange for the aid of the New Defenders. For the benefit of New Defs fans like me, it's explained in #7 (by Bill Mantlo) that to protect Earth, the surviving quartet moved the fight with the Dragon of the Moon to the borders of the land of the dead. Now with their earthly vessels turned to ash, they are trapped between the living and the dead, only temporarily freed by Strange's blood sacrifice.
In a haunting tale at the Ancient One's ruined temple, Dr S encounters an odd teenager who turns out to be long dead. It's an ineffectual trap set by many armed demon Erlik Khan, master of the Khat minions. Trivia alert: Gillis named him after a Robert E Howard character, perhaps a tip of the hat to the also Howard monikered Shuma-gorath.
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| Presumably for expediency's sake, Dr S introduces these Defenders as if old friends, even though he's never met three of them. |
Issue 7 is the one and only Strange Tales crossover, with the first Cloak & Dagger half by Mantlo and Alexander carrying straight into Gillis and Shoemaker's Dr Strange conclusion. Cloak is in need of Stephen's help, so he and Dagger teleport to the temple to find him. Nightmare is revealed to be behind Cloak's woes, in a bad guy plot to draw out his old enemy Strange. The second half of the tale is basically a big knockdown fight between a giant sized Nightmare versus Doc, Rintrah, the New Defs and Cloak & Dagger. Yes, it's one last hurrah for PBG giant fighting. Increasingly reliant on black magic, Strange manipulates his allies C&D into defeating big old Nightie. It's a cool all action change of pace from all the hand wringing, although it doesn't really advance the story any. Still, great to see his Defenders characters alive and kicking, albeit barely.
Strange Tales #8-10 (1987-1988) - Doctor Strange
Pencils: Terry Shoemaker, Richard Case
Inks: Randy Emberlin
Stephen finds himself at a low ebb. All the ancient horrors he unleashed are reimposing their will on the world, and diluting his white magic has rendered himself near powerless to stop them. In dire need of guidance, who should walk in but... Kaluu. Unless you're a Strange expert to the degree of PBG, you may be wondering "Who?". Essentially the Ancient One's Baron Mordo, the two grew up together in 16th century Kamar-Taj. Whereas Ancient utilised white magic to aid his people, Kaluu used black magic to conquer. Kaluu was sealed away by Strange and the Ancient One in his original 1966 appearance written by Denny O'Neil. With the seals broken by the Doc's bout of book burning, Kaluu returns to Kamar-Taj temple, offering to teach Stephen the black arts.
Strange reluctantly ditches his conscience Rintrah for the devil on his shoulder that is Kaluu. In his previous only appearance, Kaluu was an off the rack, humourless world conquering bad guy. Gillis injects him with a sly, charming personality and a level of complexity beyond pure good and evil. Both Kaluu and Strange want to save the world, the difference being that only one of them cares whether innocents die in the process.
The pair come to a newly constructed temple in Africa, where the populace worship an elder spider god with the catchy name Ghaszaszh Nyirh. The depiction of starving Africans is no doubt well intentioned, but images of villagers dressed in rags wielding spears gives it an unfortunate old colonial feel. Kaluu persuades Strange to use one of the child sacrifices as a walking magic bomb to destroy the temple. This is pretty dark stuff, even by Gillis standards. By this point issues are becoming grimly repetitive: each time Strange is faced with a Hobson's choice, which leads him to descend further down the dark path of black magic. In the fight with the spider god, Strange's concern for Kaluu leaves him open to attack, so Ghaszaszh takes out Stephen's left eye. Injury as a trigger for personal growth was a recurring motif with PBG (see also Angel's eyesight, Rann's hand, Mari's legs). Luckily for Stephen, he looks cool with an eyepatch. Lesson learnt about attachments and sentimental weakness, Strange commits to the black path from this moment on.
With #10, Strange finally lands a new regular penciller in newcomer Richard Case. His storytelling is clear, but personally I prefer an artist with more flair, especially on this title chock full of mystical weirdness.
Next, the conclusion of the black magic saga and Strange Tales vol 2.
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