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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2015 22:56:29 GMT -5
Got an e-mail today from Marvel offering a print sub to Doc for 40% off cover, so I think I might jump on and subscribe direct on it, cutting out Diamond form the equation.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 22:58:49 GMT -5
Well I am officially on board for the first 12 issues, got the print sub from Marvel, at 40% off cover. I guess Midtown fulfills their subscriptions now, so the books will come to me from Midtown.
-M
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Aug 29, 2015 9:42:50 GMT -5
I will be getting it mostly for Bachalo. Been into him since the early days of Shade. I enjoyed Scalped but have found Aaron very disapointingly basic/average since that. Then again, he didn't even come up wit the story of Scalped as it pretty much was a true story quite welle documented. Southern Bastard is enjoyable but nothing really special storywise.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2015 16:02:23 GMT -5
Marvel released a preview of the first issue via CBR... previewonly a couple of unlettered pages and a ton of variant covers...but the best news is the first issue will have a 5 page back up story drawn by Kevin Nowlan...I love Nowlan's Doc (one of his Doc prints adorns my walls). The back up is supposed to set up a bunch of future storylines.... one of the pages by Bachalo...  or possibly a 2 page spread? -M |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Sept 10, 2015 19:15:54 GMT -5
this is amazing, and the Nowlan news makes it the marvel titles must have for sure.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2015 16:57:20 GMT -5
So my copy of Doctor Strange #1 arrived int he mail today and I eagerly ripped it open (it's polybagged as a print subscription) and read it. Initial reaction---BOOYEAH! There's lots of things to like and few troublesome spots, but on balance it's a good start for the new series. Spoilery review time
Dr. Strange #1
Marvel Comics
December 2015 cover date, release date October 2015
Writer: Jason Aaron (main & back up)
Penciller: Chris Bachalo (main feature), Kevin Nowlan (back up)
Inkers: Tim Townsend, Al Vey and Mark Irwin (main feature), Kevin Nowlan (back uop)
Colors: Chris Bachalo (main feature), Kevin Nowlan (back up)
Lettering: VC's Cory Petit (main & back up features)
Editor: Nick Lowe
Cover: Chris Bachalo (other variants exist)
creator credit given to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko w/main credits in main feature (which don't appear until page 10 of the story)
Background music for reading this: Miles Davis' Sorcerer the opening track of which Prince of Darkness was quite appropriate for the opening battle sequence of the comic
Main feature (26 pages)
The Way of the Weird
pg. 1-Opens w with a montage of faded Ditko art (I think 1 panel might be Colan on the bottom left of the montage) with new captions by Aaron as Doc gives a voice over narration of his origin and who he is-kind of an opening expositional monologue-it's a nice way to catch up new readers and an homage to the great Ditko stuff that has come before and established who he is as a character. Maybe not necessary for long-time Doc fans/readers, but it is never a bad thing to see a little Ditko Doc and a nice way to honor what has come before. I think it's a nifty little way to start things off for both new and old readers.
pp 2-12-Doc battles an extra-dimensional entity (actually a tribe of extra-dimensional parasites it seems) that have intruded on our world. Doc's captioned monologue as he fights focuses on the damage to his hands from the accident that never healed, the challenges it creates and how he deals with it (we get a shout out to Wong here) and how it affects his magical abilities at times-justifying the use of weapons as he draws forth a sword to deal with a tentacled nasty after he is stunned and cannot get his thoughts together to properly cast a difficult but needed incantation, buying himself time to do so as he hacks free of the tentacles that restrain him. We also get the first glimpses of the idea of the cost of magic and the need to pay those debts here. Troubling spot-the parasites have a spokesperson in the form of an attractive female and the characterization of Doc as a bit of a womanizer emerges-a vestige of Fraction's run on Defenders I think. Doc manages to defeat the intruder and as the battle ends we learn it all took place inside the soul of a 9 year old boy who had been infected by the parasite, and whose parents had contacted Doc for help (and a little set up of what Doc's rep is among common folk running into mystical troubles). They offer to pay Doc and he responds that he senses their neighbor is lonely and despondent, and has a birthday coming, so they can pay Doc by baking the neighbor a cake, buying him a goldfish and keeping him company on his birthday-a nice little benevolent touch for Doc.
Bachalo's art is wonderfully wild and weird throughout this sequence of pages.
pp. 13-17-Doc strolls through the streets of NYC after his battle and we see the streets form a sorcerer's eye view-a lot of the normal scenes in B&W with color images of the unseen world superimposed atop them making a very nice visual representation of the seen and unseen world from a Sorcerer's perspective. Doc muses on the nature of the unseen world, comparing it to miscropic mites that infest people but go unseen, people are unaware of them but they still have an impact on the everyday life of people, and the comparison is extended saying each person's soul attracts similar parasitic type entities that abound in the unseen world, some helpful, some harmful. He spots on such harmful parasite latched on to an old man and slays the creature freeing the man from his burden...
Some very nice mystical worldbuilding by Aaron here, all depicted very well by Bachalo's quirky visual style.
pp. 18-20
Doc goes to The Bar with No Doors a tavern only accessible by mystics that exists somewhere in NYC and meets with his Algonquin Table of Mystics (or what's left of them as Doc is late to the meeting) and meets with Shaman, Scarlet Witch and Doctor Voodoo-they all assume Doc is late because he was with a woman (that troubling womanizer characterization again) but then they discuss to two entities Doc just encountered, both of which are unusual in this dimension-Shaman posits it could be the sign of something more-these are the birds fleeing before a coming storm which confirms something the woman spokesperson told Doc in the opening battle. An elderly mage (who fought Nazis in WWII) overhears and chastises Doc about not paying the price for his magic in a wonderfully portrayed uncomfortable confrontation.
Note for DubipR-in the background of the bar decor there are several tikis and I thought of you as soon as I saw them! The art here is solid, but it's the weakest part of the issue-these quiet scenes of talking heads may not play to Bachjalo's strengths as an illustrator/storyteller.
pp. 21-26-Doc returns to the Sanctum and finds a young woman looking for him. She has a mystical problem-her scalp has developed a demon of sorts, Doc starts to examine it; it's another entity he has never seen before leading him to mus on Shaman's words and the old man's chastisement and he wonders if these ar ethe birds what will the storm be like as it seems something explodes form her scalp (the art on the last page is unclear a bit-is it a metaphor of things to come or actually physically happening-one of Bachalos's few misteps with the issue. To be continued...
back-up feature (5 pages)
The Coming Slaughter
Meanwhile in the 13th Dimension we meet the sorcerer supreme of that dimension at a bad time, he is wounded and at the end of his rope, he tries to craft a mystic warning through his amulet, the Eye of Thelema to warn of the coming of a new threat that is destroying magic-The Empirkul but he is interrupted by the arrival of Withhunter Wolves and the Inquisitor of the Empirikul and his troops who kill the mage and destroy the message. The look like a sci-fi version of the Inquisition and of early modern witch-hunters, but are an intriguing opponent being set up. Nowlan's art is gorgeous as always.
Overall grade B+ (or like an 8/10) A good start, well crafter for the most part, interesting set up and plot, just a few concerning bits the way Doc is portrayed carrying over from recent year sin other Marvel books. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2015 14:49:05 GMT -5
Not quite the new series, but the Doc push by Marvel is starting up, they announced this weekend at a London Con Doc is getting an omnibus, reprinting the full Lee/Ditko run in color.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2015 18:59:02 GMT -5
I'm getting it too and I'm looking forward seeing it for the first time. I'm getting both print and online format.
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Post by Randle-El on Oct 27, 2015 10:46:07 GMT -5
I got a copy off the rack the other day at my LCS, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. As one who enjoyed Bachalo and Aaron's collaboration on Wolverine and the X-Men (one of the few post-Claremont X-Men runs that I've read), I was looking forward to a return of this creative team, and it didn't disappoint.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 8, 2015 22:01:27 GMT -5
Finally got my October DCBS box.. (it came just in time for me to be out of town for 4 days)...
I liked it. It might just be because I'm re-reading it for a book club, but it really reminded me of the Dresden Files... alot. Good start, though, as usual, there's no mention of any that has happened previously, or that is going on elsewhere... I'm trying to get over that, and just read Marvel books as separate books and not a cohesive universe.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2015 10:37:57 GMT -5
My in-depth analysis/review of Doctor Strange #1 in 6 words or less...just ok.
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Post by berkley on Nov 10, 2015 22:16:31 GMT -5
Glad to hear about the reprint of the Ditko Strange but I'll wait to see how it looks before committing to it. I'm always suspicious of the colouring in particular in these modern reprints.
The look of the Bachalo artwork, the descriptions here of the first issue, and the Aaron interview linked to earlier in the thread all confirm that this is not a series I want to read, but I'm still hoping for something more to my taste after the current team leaves the book. Kieron Gillen might be interesting, though I've never heard him say anything about the character.
But no matter who the writer is I'm afraid it's unlikely we'll get anything much different under the current conditions at Marvel. It seems that whoever the writer is, he or she will be expected to write the current version of Strange as a kind of magical Tony Stark, and that's something I'm not interested in reading.
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