NEAR MYTHS: "THE END AT LAST" (STRANGE TALES #146, 1966)

Since this week's mythcomic falls into the domain of a metaphysical myth, this gives me an excuse to look at one of the most famous metaphysical myths in mainstream American comics.

Two issues prior to STRANGE TALES #146, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had just finished the longest, most ambitious story-line in the "Doctor Strange" feature, during which the master of the mystic arts was forced to run from pillar to post, fleeing the minions of his earthly enemy Baron Mordo, who in turn had been granted superior magical power by the extra-dimensional dictator Dormammu. Strange attempts to cope by petitioning another entity, the mysterious Eternity, for help-- thus giving rise to one of Ditko's most visually arresting creations.

However, once Strange does find Eternity-- made to look like the cosmos in humanoid form-- the cosmic being simply tells Strange to pull himself by his own bootstraps. What seems like a brush-off turns out to be the simple truth: Strange does manage to defeat both Mordo and Dormammu without any special resources, ending both threats for the time being in #144.

The done-in-one story in #145 is so negligible that few fans back then could have anticipated that it would give way to "The End At Last"-- which was also the end of the Lee-Ditko collaboration on the good doctor or on anything else, for reasons that have been discussed on the web in great detail.

It starts out with Dormammu, smarting from his recent defeat, deciding to make another foray against the Earth-magician. In addition, the mystic madman decides to launch a pre-emptive strike against Eternity, just in case the ethereal incarnation of the cosmos might give him some trouble.

Thus Dormammu seals Eternity away in his own dimension and spirits Strange into yet another occult contest. However, Eternity doesn't stay sealed very long.

Ditko's artistry was at the top of his game here, and arguably he would never produce another magic-scape battle equal to this "clash of thaumaturgic titans." Dormammu is apparently destroyed, and Strange just barely escapes the dimensional chaos.

Yet despite the intensity and artistry of Ditko's panels, the story lacks the concrescence I've found necessary for a mythcomic. Dormammu, as always, is no more than a typical blustering tyrant despite his unique appearance, while Eternity, while pleasingly enigmatic, remains too abstract to take on any deeper resonance. Even though I would presume that Ditko's Randian outlook permitted no religious sentiments as such, I can't help feeling that he called upon Biblical myths in order to ring down the curtain on the "Doctor Strange" universe by bringing together a figurative "God" and a figurative "Satan"-- though the tone of the contest reminds me more of the pre-Adamic rebellion of Satan and his forces against God than the final conflict of Revelations.

But, even though metaphysical myths allow for more abstraction than the other three types, Ditko's opposition of "upstart evil" and "a force beyond good and evil" simply doesn't generate the symbolic discourse necessary for a full-fledged mythcomic.