Benedict Cumberbatch IS Doctor Strange.

off to see this tonight - will report back on whether katz's deli provides the backdrop to the final battle

are any of the post-60s Doctor Strange comics worth reading? I feel like once you remove Ditko and Colan's trippy artwork and Stan Lee's "hoary hosts of Hoggoth" dialogue, the basic concept itself is not really that interesting?

The issues drawn by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer are as beautiful, and as psychedelic, as the Ditko issues. There's a very good 60s run written by Roy Thomas, and drawn by Colan and Palmer, where Dr Strange gets to wear a mask for a while. In the early 70s, Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner (and later Colan and Palmer again) had a very good run on the title - Englehart was probably the first Dr Strange writer to actually have some knowledge of the occult. In the 80s, Roger Stern (w/ artists like Marshall Rogers and Dan Green) also wrote a fine sequence of issues (the Rogers-drawn stories are full of weird colour overlays and effects that are visually pretty striking, tho' the printing on the comics themselves was not always up to the task).

Colan is tremendous, probably my favorite marvel artist after Kirby.

I adore those Marshall Rogers/Terry Austin issues (#'s 46 -52 I think?) and there was a one-off Michael Golden drawn issue in there that's one of the most beautiful Marvel comics to see print, in my opinion. Paul Smith's run soon after this was very good, too.

What about P Craig Russell?

There's quite an interesting story behind PCR's Dr Strange story:

A Dr. Strange story was originally conceived, albeit in a much different form than either of these two, by Russell in 1973. It was envisioned by its creator as a 60-page story, and he drew up the first 20 or so pages. It was accepted by then-editor Roy Thomas…and then promptly sat in a drawer for three years. It was eventually released in a much shortened form (scripted by Marv Wolfman) as Dr. Strange Annual #1. Now fast-forward 20 years to 1996. Writer Marc Andreyko suggested that PCR resubmit it, in a form closer to the original 60-page opus. Russell did, and it was (again) accepted. Russell realized that he’d need to redraw and rethink the whole thing, seeing as two decades had passed.
http://gfbrobot.com/2011/11/17/uncollected-classics-doctor-strange-by-p-craig-russell/

Def agree abt that Golden-drawn issue of Dr Strange, AH; and I bet ppl like Arthur Adams and Jim Lee looked at it v closely.

P.S. That particular uncollected classic has just recently been collected (or the collection will be released soon).

nice!

it's over-referenced due to it being stuck firmly in Dr. Doom's continuity at this point, but the "Dr. Strange/Dr. Doom: Triumph & Torment" book (with art by Mike Mignola!) is pretty cool

paul smith sounds like a good fit for strange. i never saw those back in the day.

so is this cool and trippy?

trippy as in outer space and crazy colors, not trippy as in Inception/Matrix CGI buildings

I regret getting rid of a bunch of those Paul Smith issues that I got in the 80s, those were v good. Is the Michael Golden one referenced upthread the one with the crazy artist/Salvador Dali character..? that one was great

i'm definitely doing some torrenting tonight, i only have the 70s stuff

xpost No, that one was by Tony Salmons which I love as well. The Golden dealt with Strange (SPOILER!!!!) grieving over Clea and then entering some alternate Marvelverse where everything is a facade (maaaan). Sort of an "A Christmas Carol" type scenario if I recall. Gotta dig that one up again.

To get back on track here I cannot wait to go see this flick.

xpost that's giving me dematteis defenders feelings

aka i'm in

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/doctor_strange_55.shtml

I'd forgotten about 'Les' and 'Ted'! Terry Austin inks, always helps.

my main concern is that this movie will have flashes of psychedelia but ultimately it'll end up with doctor strange and the villain going more-or-less conventionally toe-to-toe at an nyc landmark

well, this ended up having some pretty genuinely wiggy sequences, the wiggiest of which weren't hinted at in any of the trailers i saw, and the ending was a bit cleverer than i expected, so i guess it's a thumbs-up from me in that regard. hey kids: watch this movie on shrooms!

it's enjoyable overall, and there are a few shots where i thought 'wow benedict cumberbatch looks just like doctor strange!' but it did suffer a bit from superhero-origin-story syndrome and the timeline of his training seems weirdly, unnecessarily compressed. poor rachel mcadams is wasted in a thankless role, tilda swinton and benedict wong are fun, and the doctor's cape puts in an unexpectedly charismatic performance. solidly mid-tier marvel movie i guess?

apart from the relatively original resolution to the big boss battle and the occasional visual bit (although the Inception-style effects didn't do it for me at all) this is probably the most Marvel Marvel movie yet. Competent, respectful, but ultimately pretty tedious.

McAdams, Mikkelsen and Ejiofor shouldn't have bothered (weird to see Michael Stuhlbarg too, but he probably needed the cheque), and the attempts at snarky humour are really bad too.

rubbish, rubbish, rubbish

earned nothing. impossible to follow. tedious cliche after cliche rushed through. unbeatable odds for incredible stakes explained by bored actors in harry potter level performances and the inevitable handy resolution happened somewhere left of screen just before credits id have been embarrassed to have my name in.

I would think "tedious cliche after tedious cliche rushed through" would be really easy to follow

they were. they had fuck all to do with advancing anything more than marvels next cheque.

...

Can't wait!

Any thoughts on the controversy over Tilda Swinton being Tilda Swinton and not Tibetan? On the one hand, whitewashing (though, weirdly, to ensure access to the Chinese market by not having a Tibetan character). On the other hand, the comic book Ancient One is a Western cliche of an Asian wise man, so ... dunno.

If you have no moral problem with, and indeed get excited just anticipating queuing up to, giving money over and over to Marvel, given the way it's treated human beings for the last 55 years, but you get huffy about the casting of imaginary space wizards in one of their films, you're a fucking clown

A lot of the people angry about this probably don't know about Marvel's history. I did see some Asian sff writers suggest to their twitter followers not seeing this film, Great Wall and Ghost In The Shell for the whitewashing.

I think a lot of people probably differ on who they hold accountable for a company's ugly history. The individuals who did the bad things (many of whom are gone) or just holding the company responsible for every wrong they haven't righted.

Ancient One is a cliche but minus the racial caricature in some portrayals he doesn't seem much different to me than innumerable wise old men in Asian fantasy and martial arts stories. I don't see how that could be worse than whitewashing.

seems almost just as fucked up to suggest that casting an asian in that role will result in a stereotype so better not

As long as Marvel maintains a high level of diversity in their casting in general, they can assign roles to whichever actors they feel are most appropriate afaic. While there's outrage at not hiring an Asian actor to portray the Ancient One or (bafflingly) Iron Fist, there's not much positive attention paid to the fact that they've hired a number of non-white actors to portray characters that have traditionally been white in the comics or that, for example, they've chosen to bring the newer Latino version of Ghost Rider into the MCU rather than the previous versions.

Thought the way they handled The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 was a pretty elegant solution to the problem of bringing horrendous 1960s racial caricatures into the 21st century.

I think I got this from ILX in the first place, but: http://www.cbr.com/opinion-i-dont-want-an-asian-american-iron-fist/

In general I'm not offended, but the specific reason for making this films wise one not Tibetan is fucking disgusting.

If anything, the idea of pushing Marvel to cast an Asian actor as Iron Fist feels a little racist. "Because he does martial arts, see? Why would a white guy do that stuff?"

xpost Agreed on that point.

Shang Chi was the asian guy and son of Fu Manchu or something wasn't he?
Iron Fist was intentionally a rich white guy I thought

Yeah, that's right. Maybe people confused the two characters?

So long as Iron Fist has a fist like unto a thing of iron, I'm cool as to who plays him

My feelings about the Ancient One are complicated by me generally being in favor of more Tilda Swinton everywhere all the time.

shes really good in this tbf

classic RAG, classic sic, good work everyone

???

just listened to the score on Spotify and it far, far exceeded my expectations. Michael Giacchino bats about .500 for me (Let Me In and John Carter were great scores, his Star Trek stuff spotty) but this is one of the best things he's done and probably my favorite score album from any of these Marvel Universe things (though I have love for the first two -- silvestri/cap and doyle/thor).

Seen that P Craig Russell collection (which has Sandy Plunkett too) with a bunch of other Dr Strange books today. It probably wouldn't take too long to read most of Dr Strange. I might get this stuff someday if it ever comes out without the hateful recoloring.
Also seen Russell's Elric stuff with decent scans.

I wonder if all this is going to make Dr Strange a bigger character with more stories or if he'll just go back to his regular status.
I never read any Namor comics but if he gets a film I suspect people won't be enthusiastic about the reprints. I think he's quite cool and his setting is a huge opportunity but aside from John Byrne, Bill Everett, Fantastic Four, I don't think there are many fan favourite stories about him.

I may have asked this before but was there a Warren Ellis story in which the Ancient One sexually abuses Baron Mordo?

if there wasn't, 'ol Warren was asleep at the desk that dat

Enjoyed this. Do like that Kaleidoscope visual thing. Might be a bit cliched in places but I think it overcomes it, certainly not another X-Men Apocalypse. Quite fun really.

Comes with 2 scenes after the start of the end credits. One places it further into the Marvel Universe and the other presumably sets up a sequel.
There's also a warning right at the end of the credits about being distracted while driving being dangerous, which I thought quite apt.

WARNING: distracted driving could lead to passing through several trials and becoming an awesome superhero

Thought this was very by-the-numbers Marvel flick except for the trippy visuals, which were great

Hadn't realised that US didn't get this til today. I saw it a week after it appeared.
Still thinking US get films way before we do. & that we'd be behind UK too. But Xmen Apocalypse had a similar release schedule I think.
Odd since I'd think of Marvel films as being from the US.