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Post by Calenture on Oct 25, 2007 19:57:06 GMT
Strange Tales #135 August 1965The very first S.H.I.E.L.D. story and Dr StrangeProbably there was no comic book that better caught the vibe of the times better than Marvel Comics Strange Tales. And issue 135 was the one where Marvel's wartime heroes were moved into a new age when Colonel Nick Fury and his men were drafted to S.H.I.E.L.D. in true James Bond fashion to fight the menace of H.Y.D.R.A. Jack Kirby's first splash page shows Nick having his cigar surgically removed. The operation was unsuccessful, but they did clone a few decoys of the hero and introduced readers to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base, an aircraft-carrier sized craft hovering above the cloudline, and also H.Y.D.R.A.'s training school, where in the spirit of the time an emancipated woman comes top of the class in killing. But when you flipped half-way through the book, you came to the story which was closer to my heart. If Nick Fury appealed to the gadgets and guns espionage thrills of the times, Dr Strange with its mysticism, magic and occultism and projection into astral worlds where strange paths led through not-quite-empty space, definitely connected with the other vibe of the time. Steve Ditko's drawing style was curiously reactionary, but it was perfect for Doc Strange and the other book he became famous for, Spider Man. Ditko's art is weirdly shadowed and lit with geometrical weirdnesses forming in thin air - or thin something... The astral world as drawn by Ditko was a place where paths led from somewhere by circuitous routes to where you probably wanted to go. It was a place occupied by monsters and demons and also some people In this story, the lovely Clia has innocently planted a power drainer which has weakened the magical walls keeping an arch-demon prisoner... ...and now Strange has to travel to the Scottish castle where the reclusive Lord Baskerville, in true Lovecraftian fashion, is about to let dread Dormammu into the earthly vale. But needless to say, Doctor Strange and the forces of good prevail, and the evil is driven back into the astral world whence it came. To view the pictures more closely, click on them to visit Flickr, then click on them again and use the "All sizes" buttons above them.
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