Doctor Strange – The Flight of Bones
I work in an environment where knowledge of the Marvel Universe is good knowledge to have. I’ve educated myself well, but I will not front and say I have too much firsthand experience with the source material.
Doctor Strange is the Marvel superhero of the counter-culture. Syd Barrett was a fan. So I bought a few collections that’ve been collecting dust in the living room. I took a look at the “Flight of Bones” run from around ten years back, and while I must admit that the psychedelic designs are entertaining (seraphim and paisley!) the actual dialogue and “story” (such as there is one) is sub-literate. Collections like these do nothing to dispel the theory that the time I spent as a child doing things other than staying up under the sheets with a flashlight were well spent.
If you’re reading to see what all the Dr. Strange worship is about, i suggest checking out Marvel’s Essential Dr. Strange reprints. Particularly Volume 3 for the writing, and to expand your notion of the type of character Strange can be. He’s not really a superhero in the classic sense, and the entire focus of the books change as new creative teams come on board, much more than in most Marvel characters before the arrival of the indie comics.
Flight of the Bones is above average for Dr. Strange stories of a decade ago, but that means it’s the best of a bad bunch.
Comment by Juana — June 15, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Yes. Design-wise, it was fabulous.
Tony Harris having a great time.
Sadly, they solicited it before he was anywhere NEAR ready to do so, and he bailed out after issue 2 (leaving it to be completed by Paul “Concrete” Chadwick) and it suffered because of it.
The story left me as being “so-so”.
Not horrible, but certainly not great.
It was one of the better venues for Strange at the time, but as the commenter before me had said; that’s not really saying much.
The old Lee/Ditko stuff is the best place to start (and the Essentials are a GREAT bargain).
Then, you should look into the Englehart/Brunner stuff (a TPB called; “A SEPARATE REALITY” collects a great, epic storyline).
Of course, you can’t go wrong with any of the Englehart stuff on the title.
Some advanced ideas there.
And if you like his art as much as I do; hunt down some issues of Gene Colan’s work.
If you want a done-in-one “novel”, look to the J.M. DeMateis penned, Dan Green painted:
“Dr. Strange : INTO SHAMBALLA” original graphic novel.
So good. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
And for RECENT Doc stuff, look no further than:
- THE OATH (by Brian K Vaughan & Marcos Martin)
or even
- “X-StatiX Presents: Dead Girl” (Milligan, Dragotta & Allred)
Don’t let that title fool you.
It’s a Doctor Strange vehicle.
Both of those are available as TPB’s.
Check your local library if you don’t want to spend $ on them before reading.
~P~
PTOR
Comment by SanctumSanctorumComix — June 16, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
OOps… right.
DEFINITELY check out VOL 3 of his ESSENTIALS.
How could I forget?
~P~
PTOR
Comment by SanctumSanctorumComix — June 16, 2008 @ 2:16 pm