Talk to me about Dr. Strange

[Pancake]

A little background, I never enjoyed reading comic books. Ever. I tried a few times over the course of my life but the side to side up and down, reading caption bubbles and then narrator text, and the general premise of low word count to page turn ratio made comics an unenjoyable passtime to me. For the same price I can get 300 pages of words!

The problem has always been, especially in the last decade of Marvel movies, that I enjoy the stories and characters.

Then I went to the theatre and saw Dr. strange, quite by accident as I was a guest and didn’t pick the movie. I’d never heard of Dr. Strange before but I fell in love. No, not just because I’m unhealthily attracted to over confident, broody, damaged assholes, well not entirely anyway. It’s the magic.

Magic has played such a big part of my fiction reading since I struggled through Tolkien at the age of 8, but it never occurred to me I’d find it with such richness in superhero comics.

So... as I sit here watching Dr. Strange for an embarrassing 16th time I have to admit I should learn more about his world. Is my only hope reading the comics? Is there as much or more magic in them as the movie? Where does the movie take place in the comic book timeline?

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Hi. I read through the Secret Wars and through the Infinity Gauntlet stuff back when they were new.

The movies hold up on their own in the same way the Battlestar Galactica reboot stomps all over the 70s original. (Except Lorne Greene.)

Comic timelines are also a funny thing, they do retcons at whim and sometimes a whole timeline reboot. The cynic in me calls it a grab at selling more issue #1. Or zeros. Lulz.

 

[Pancake]

Is there Dr. Strange specific comics though? I don’t need to read about Hulk or Captain America. Do they take place during the time of the movie? Like when he was studying? Or after?

 

[Free]

The benefit of the movies is, you end up with a lot of write-ups like the following:

Doctor Strange Comics: A Reader's Guide to the Mystic Arts

Or, simpler:

https://www.quora.com/I-want-to-start-reading-Doctor-Strange-comic-books-Where-should-I-start

 

[Noodles]

Is there Dr. Strange specific comics though? I don’t need to read about Hulk or Captain America. Do they take place during the time of the movie? Like when he was studying? Or after?

There have been, but I have noticed through my pick and choose reading that Doctor Strange pops up here and there a lot.

Reading anything he is in would be kind of a crazy task I think and it would involve a lot of peripheral reading. Though his appearances aren't always super meaningful. Just recently in stuff I have read he was one of the Avengers in the Mockingbird books and he shows up briefly in Gwenpool to do some dimensional stuff and help Gwen get some identification as part of the universe.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Comic timelines are also a funny thing, they do retcons at whim and sometimes a whole timeline reboot. The cynic in me calls it a grab at selling more issue #1. Or zeros. Lulz.

A comic I am currently reading resets to #1 every year. In a way it makes sense - vol 2 no 1. It is frustrating though because if you talk about issue 2 you could be talking about multiple books.

 

[Han Held]

A lot of times I find reading/knowing the comics makes the movies harder to enjoy. "First Class" was the first Xmen that I liked, simply because it was like "Oh, we're throwing everything away and doing some reboot/alternate reality thing? Cool." which let me turn off my critical side.

I have a lot of nitpicks with Dr Strange, but it's a good enough movie I was able to put them aside -I think I would have been better off going into the film cold, tho.