Doctor Strangefate #1 [1996] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Doctor Strangefate #1 [1996]

This one probably needs some background explanation. Well, not "needs", but I feel like giving it.

Marvel and DC have a historical relationship with ups and downs. From 1976 to 1982 they were friendly enough to manage four crossovers, then the delayed production of a fifth led to a collapse in the relationship, mostly blamed on abnormally large editor-in-chief.

Some welcome changes in management later and they got on well enough to reprint those earlier crossovers in the early 1990s, and then a few years later began to do some new ones. After a few one-shots they went all-in with a 4-issue DC VERSUS MARVEL series, and for various story points that I'm sure make perfect sense if you read the whole series (which I didn't) in the week between #3 and #4 both DC and Marvel released six one-shots each under the "Amalgam Comics" label. These comics presented a mixed universe where everything is combination of something from each company.

(to quickly finish the history, they continued to get along well enough for a second wave of Amalgam one-shots the next year, as well as various other crossovers, culminating in the much delayed JLA/AVENGERS in 2004. Don't think they've done any since, and they don't seem to be able to work together enough to even keep collections of the books in print. You'd think with Avengers and Justice League both being in the titles of big budget movies in the last decade the owners of a book called JLA/AVENGERS would want to have it available to sale)

Anyway, twelve one-shots released in one day. I only picked up two initially, SPIDER-BOY by Karl Kesel and Mike Wieringo and SUPER SOLDIER by Dave Gibbons. The second wave the next year was much more to my taste, with five bought new. I picked up a few more over the years, including this one from the first wave.

The lead of this comic is, of course, a mixture of DC's Doctor Fate (created by Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman) and Marvel's Doctor Strange (created by Steve Ditko). Yeah, some of the amalgamated names are clever, some are like this. I almost picked this one up new because of the artwork by José Luis García-López, one of my favourite classic super-hero artists, who did relatively few full length comics of interest to me in the 1990s (he was primarily used by DC for their merchandising artwork and style guides). To add to that, he was inked by Kevin Nowlan, I think for the first time, another great artist whose style works nicely with JLGL. But the solicitation made it clear its plot was heavily intertwined with the crossover, as opposed to the goofy one-shot flavour of most of the other books, and the writer wasn't someone I tended to read.

Seeing it around over the years, the price eventually matched my interest in the art.  And the art was pretty good.  The character has most of Fate's costume, with the helmet, mixed with Strange's cloak of levitation and the Eye of Agamotto inside the amulet. The background is a mix of the Egyptian iconography of Fate and the distinctively Ditkovian elements from Strange, so you get that iconic Strange window from his Greenwich Village brownstone on the tower hq of Fate.

The secondary mixed characters don't work quite as well. For some reason the Hulk is mixed with Solomon Grundy as the Shulk. Doctor Strange's assistant Wong is mixed with Mister Mxyzptlk as Myx. The Scarlet Witch and Zatanna somehow combine to become Wanda Zatara, the White Witch (a different White Witch from the long-time Legion of Super-Heroes member), who at least has a good visual, but acts like neither of the source characters I'm familiar with. The story, such as it is, has Strangefate, being one of the few characters aware that they're in a combined universe, trying to capture the new MacGuffin character introduced in the main series, Access. He succeeds, but then Access escapes, and we get the revelation that Strangefate is in fact Charles Xavier (created by Jack Kirby). This is presented as a surprise ending, though the fake letter column makes it clear it's the established identity of Strangefate in the hypothetical Amalgam universe.

So, y'know, worth it for the artwork, JLGL and Nowlan make a great combination. It's especially interesting to see JLGL doing some Marvel characters. He's been pretty much exclusive to DC since the mid-1970s (with a few exceptions) after some early work at Charlton and Gold Key, and I don't think he's ever worked directly for Marvel, so the only times he's drawn their characters are the cross-company books he did, this and the 1981 BATMAN/HULK book.

That kind of makes me think, how many other creators have only ever worked for either Marvel or DC in their careers, not both. Eventually it seems almost everyone goes crosstown (or now cross country) between them. Even Stan Lee eventually wrote some stuff for DC, after all. I guess Curt Swan is the biggest one, I don't think he ever did anything for Marvel, not even any of the crossovers. I guess Sheldon Mayer, maybe some of the other old-time humour book artists. Doesn't look like Joe Shuster ever worked for Marvel. And Bob Kane, if you consider him a major artist. Hard to think of any major writers. Maybe John Broome. And it looks like Paul Levitz hasn't written for Marvel, which makes sense since he was an employee of DC from a young age until recently. Hm, I might have to research this some more to see who else qualifies.

Well, that's a digression. Anyway, some decent art, well worth a dollar, maybe don't go much higher than that, and just be aware the story won't make much sense without the surrounding crossover, and maybe not even then.