Marvel Masterworks Doctor Strange 7: Master of the Mystic Arts

I enjoyed this book as much as the first one. I find myself being drawn back in, and needing to read another set of books.

Strange Tales!

If you look carefully at the description it tells you which issues/items are included in the volume. There are other volumes that contain A LOT of Doctor Strange comics. Please be careful that you don't order the same thing twice. Doctor Strange fans will also want to check out the Marvel Masterworks series for The Defenders (there are 7 of those).

I really wasn't planning to review this collection but after 2 very strange reviews from "Verified Purchases", I felt the need to straighten out the facts.This volume contains 15 issues of Dr Strange. Dr Strange # 23 through #37 from the years 1977 through 1979. It also contains an excellent Introduction by Roger Stern. Stern is the main writer for the bulk of the volume. It also includes two bonus stories written by Gardner Fox from Chamber Of Chills # 3 & #4. These are included because Roger Stern decided to take characters from those two stories and insert them into the Dr. Strange storylines. We also get some great extras in the back of the book like a cover sketch by Frank Brunner and a character design by John Bryne.As far a being wary of duplications, I don't understand that either. As of December 2016 there are 5 Defenders Masterworks (not 7) and none of those contain any Dr. Strange solo comics. I know with the Dr Strange movie there is a proliferation of Dr Strange trades, but none of these, as far as I know, duplicate the material contained here. In fact this might be the only time this material had been collected ever. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong by leaving a comment below and I will gladly edit this review.The volume opens with Dr Strange #23 done by Marv Wolfman and Jim Starlin. This would be Wolfman's last issue as Starlin would become the new regular writer on Dr Strange with Dr Strange #24. Starlin's run would last be brief then Roger Stern would take over for the duration of the book. Roger Stern at the time was an assistant editor he had previously only written several fill in issues and one shot Annuals. This was his first solo series. Don McGregor would get solo credit for Dr Strange #31 but that was from a Stern idea. Ralph Macchio would write Dr Strange #34 then stay on as a co-writer with Stern for Dr Strange #35 through #37.This volume features a smorgasbord of good art. Tom Sutton with his wispy spider-like art is the main artist for seven issues here. Sutton also inks one issue over Ricardo Villamonte break downs. Sutton's run is followed by Gene Colan who does the final two issues. Jim Starlin also illustrates two issues and Al Milgrom illustrates two of the early Starlin written stories. Alan Kuppenberg pencils one issue.The Filipino artists do the lions share of the inking. Five stories are inked by Rudy Nebres, 3 are inked by Ernie Chan and 2 are inked by Ernie Chan. Tom Sutton & Dan Green also ink two issues each. And one issue inked by the great P. Craig Russell.This book gets my Highest Recommendation.

The previous Dr. Strange masterwork was released in 2013. A delay of this length usually indicates that the material in a follow up volume is substandard. That doesn't seem to be the issue in this instance. While not up to the standard of the Steve Englehart written/Gene Colan drawn stories in the previous volume, the present volume is very entertaining. The delay in the 7th Dr. Strange masterwork is probably best explained by the desire to release it at the same time as the feature film now playing.Dr. Strange has always been a difficult book to write (and by no means easy to draw). This led to a number of stretches of "artist/writer of the month" and this volume collects one of those periods. That the collection works as well as it does is due to the fine writing of Roger Stern and artwork of Tom Sutton. There aren't a great many writers that "get" Dr. Strange but Stern is one of them. His scripting/plotting is impeccable; the "Dweller in Darkness" story line has many Lovecraftian elements as a hidden enemy undermines Strange's confidence little by little. Sutton's artwork on the Strange book is as good as anything Colan did and that is saying something. P. Craig Russell's inks in one issue were not the best match for Sutton's pencils in one issue, however.Extras as unusually generous. Stern reused some minor characters from one of Marvel's horror revival titles "Chamber of Thrills"; we get those original stories here. We also get three pages of house ads and two pages of sketches. Roger Stern also contributes a 4 page, very informative, introduction.This book is highly recommended. It's not a peak of Dr. Strange creativity but it is far from a valley.

Over three years since the previous volume (though volume 8 is just mere months away) we finally get a new installment of the good doctor's adventures.Bound once again in a handsome faux leather binding, this collection reprints stories from the late 70s and reprints them beautifully. The art is crisp, with sharp reproductions of the line work and colours that pop. Essential to such a visually driven series as Doctor Strange.This volume is home to the work of both veterans and future superstars alike but the standout artist here is Tom Sutton. Though Strange's tales have been served by many brilliant artist (you'll find no bigger fan of Gene Colan than me) it's Sutton that brings back a genuine sense of the weird not seen since Ditko illustrated the book over a decades earlier. Sutton though, brings a far more macabre feel to the proceedings.Sutton's stories are brilliantly scripted by a novice Roger Stern, writing to the strength of the art, without the excessive verbiage that tended to obscure the art, that some of his colleagues were guilty of.Some nice extras include a couple of Chamber of Chills stories by Gardner Fox (characters from these appear in the Strange stories in this volume), an introduction by Roger Stern and a couple of pin ups including one from John Byrne.

9 stinking comics! this is a rip off. What a disappointment. Couldn't they have put together an omnibus that is similar to the glorious Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD? DISGUSTING. Shame on Marvel Doc deserves better and so do his fans.

I have been collecting all of the Masterworks Doctor Strange volumes as they have been published. This one is number seven and contains stories from Doctor Strange #23 (June 1977) to #37 (October 1979). For me most of these stories are new (I packed up reading comics just about the time these were being published and it is only in the last few years that I've started reading and catching up with what I missed). The artwork is the usual Doctor Strange mix of somewhere between outrageously colourful to psychedelic, but this volume suffers from having many different writers and artists so nearly every story looks different from the one that precedes it or follows it. There's a four page introduction by Robert Stern, 5 pages of alternate covers and House Ads at the end, followed by four pages of biographies of the writers and artists etc. All in all not quite the best of the Doctor Strange Masterworks volumes, but still a nice addition to the series.

Just writing to agree with Steven Vincent Kempton this is a great if somewhat eclectic run of Doctor Strange stories that benefit greatly from being collected in one volume. Reading one comic every other month (as we had to originally) made it difficult to appreciate the continuity of the whole or to forgive the one or two not quite so well produced episodes. ( Compare Alan Kupperberg's final page of issue 32 to Tom Sutton's first page of issue 33 and you'll see what I mean. Luckily Kupperberg only drew one issue! ) Nebres, Starlin, Sutton and the inimitable Gene Colan all provde sumptuous art though; and Roger Stern and co.tell a series of cracking tales.