I just read Doctor Strange (1974) #1-5
Here's a review:
Those five issues are all part of a single story arc where a dying Doctor Strange has to transverse the realms of unreality within the Orb of Agamotto into the lair of Death so he can save Clea from the man who almost killed him: Silver Dagger.
Silver Dagger is an interesting villain as he is clearly not as powerful as the Sorcerer Supreme, but he more than makes up for it with cunning. By using Clea to invade the Sanctum Sanctorum, Silver Dagger is able to approach a sleeping Stephen Strange and, using his homonimous silver dagger, he literally stabs our hero in the back. Leaving him for dead while escaping with both Clea and The Eye of Agamotto.
The majority of the 5 issues are divided in two settings, as Doctor Strange fight against both unreality and death while an imprisoned Clea has to listen to Silver Dagger, a religious fanatic who almost became Pope if not for the politics of the Vatican. After the disappointment, he became paranoid about Satan and wizards; deciding then to use "filthy" black magic as a weapon of God against demons such as Doctor Strange.
The two sides also marks the two themes.
Doctor Strange's metaphysical adventure in unreality serves as a test of sorts; while soul suckers and dream versions of other superheroes give us nice action scenes, they are not resolved by violence, but by a depper knowledge about life, reality and death. As if trying to escape his own unconscious, Doctor Strange real battle is against what makes him a normal human being, who fears death and has a clear grasp on reality; indeed, it is not the magical superpowers that makes him Doctor Strange, but his transcendent knowledge about nature and reality.
Silver Dagger, on the other hand, is a kind of shallow metaphysician. Claiming to be a weapon of God and to act in the name of a supernatural being, he often reveals himself a very shallow, bitter person. He tries to "save" Clea, who he sees as a sad story of a poor girl with no money who went to New York to become a hippie only to be seduced by a demon. There is nothing deep or transcendent about his speech, only empty self-righteousness and clichés like "I am not insane. They thought too that Christ was insane...!"
When the confrontation between the two men finally happens, Silver Dagger uses his mystical artifacts as a weapon. But "The Eye of Agamotto is not a weapon", Stephen Strange says; instead, it is a tool of knowledge and the strenght of the Eye is not in what it destroy, but in the truth that it reveals.
An excellent start for what promises to be a very good run. Englehart clearly done his homework on the kind of New Age "everything is one" mysticality that guides the stories; at the same time, something of a hippie himself, he has clear real world adversaries who he want to target and he walks a fine line while doing that. He is not at all subtle or shy when making his critiques of religion or advancing his own metaphysical views, but he does so in a way where a genuine fun and exciting superhero story is woven into that. His Doctor Strange is not just powerful, he is also wise and what I hope for the rest of the run is that this wisdom keep being what guides the adventures.
