MYTHCOMICS: "AND THERE WILL BE WORLDS ANEW" (DOCTOR STRANGE ANNUAL #1, 1976)

Since its inception, Marvel’s DOCTOR STRANGE has been such a triumph of visual design that a fair number of quality artists—Colan, Rogers, Starlin, and a host of others—sought to play baroque games of form and shape in the Sanctum That Ditko Drew. That said, though Ditko’s visual rendition of the doctor’s very strange worlds remains unsurpassed, the feature’s scripting was usually not quite as distinguished. Thus, though I’ve argued for the mythic depth of many tales from both of STRANGE’s co-creators Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, I’ve found little complexity in the Lee-Ditko stoiies of the “master of the mystic arts.” It’s been suggested that one of the two creators took some inspiration from the sixties bestsellers of alleged Tibetan monk T. Lobsang Rampa, insofar as those books introduced Western readers to complex concepts (however borrowed) of Tibetan sorcery. But if Rampa was the proximate source for DOCTOR STRANGE, neither Ditko nor Lee pursued any other aspects of esoteric tradition, Eastern or Western. While I would not have wanted to see the creativity of the feature straight-jacketed by adherence to occult doctrine—a failing of Steve Englehart’s version of the character— some metaphysical motifs might have kept the feature from having been so dominated by two principal plots: either Doc Strange goes to some alien dimension to fight tyrannical rulers there, or he defends Earth from being invaded by such extradimensional forces.

“And There Will be Worlds Anew” was ostensibly the sole creation of artist P. Craig Russell (more on that matter later), and there’s no more esoteric tradition in either his art or script than in most other adventures of Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme. However, Russell does pattern his stand-alone story on a metaphysical motif common to Western art: the close association of Beauty and Death. Many Russell works make no bones about his narrative inspirations, often adapted from or patterned after famous (and public-domain) operas like PELLEAS AND MELISANDE and Wagner’s RING continuity. In re-reading ‘Worlds,” I didn’t pin down any specific narratives on which Russell might have modeled his tale, though I did think of Poe’s little-known story “The Island of the Fay,” in which the main character fantasizes seeing the same scene from two viewpoints: a beautiful faerie-bower and a desolate wasteland.

For the first eight pages, “Worlds” isn’t much different from the average Doctor Strange story. Brooding in his domicile after a quarrel with his lover Clea, the magician receives tidings that she’s been kidnapped by an unknown entity. The hero seeks out “the Temple of Man,” which is apparently mainly a big old occult library. Strange’s characterization carries more currents of self-doubt than is usual, but it’s not significantly different from the Strange of more formulaic stories. And after the magician’s quest takes him to a never-visited dimension called Phaseworld, his first action is to engage in battle with the dimension’s ruler Lectra, much as the doctor would in many previous adventures. Lectra only wins the conflict by a standard villain-trope: she shows the hero an image of his beloved in captivity, and he’s forced to surrender to preserve Clea’s life.

However, with the standard Marvel pyrotechnics out of the way, Russell then devotes the remainder of “Worlds” to portraying the beauties of Phaseworld. The two mages set out for Lectra’s home city, Allandra, transported across “the currents of space” (and a relatively mundane-looking ocean) in a mystical ship. On the way a sea serpent attacks, and Strange wounds the creature before Lectra can explain that the beast is meant to guide them through stormy seas. Lectra thus gets to strut her stuff by forcing the storms to cease, conjuring up the Biblical motif. Once the seas are calm, the complex golden city of Allandra rises from the depths.

Russell makes Allandra a true faery-dwelling, all spires and minarets, with no indication that it was ever meant to be lived in. Up to this point Strange has seen no sentient beings except Lectra and a ship-crew of undead sailors. But the city has even fewer signs of life, causing Strange to think, “It is magnificence itself, a city of floating form and sculpture. And yet, beneath the fascination, I sense death.”

Once the two sorcerers arrive at the palace, Lectra outlines her plan to make Strange her consort. She doesn’t have the usual motive of wanting to spawn offspring, though, for her purpose is to meld her sorcerous powers with those of the hero in order to preserve Allandra from doom. She attributes the decay of her world to her sister Phaydra, who then makes an appearance, and the latter remains silent in contrast to Lectra’s volubility. 

However, the silent woman keeps company with a type of bird almost iconic in ballet and opera: a lovely white swan. The swan, name of Tempus, is able to speak for Phaydra, accusing Lectra of beginning their world’s doom by usurping the throne for “vainglorious lusts.” The two sisters battle magically. Strange interrupts the fight, wanting nothing but his missing beloved. The swan metamorphoses into an angel-winged man, and reveals that Clea was never Lectra’s prisoner. The revelation causes Lectra to hurl a spell at Tempus, but when he deflects, her magic destroys a “soul mirror,” leading to the deaths of both sisters and the world of Allandra. Strange alone escapes and returns to his own world.

The conjoined but opposing natures of the sisters is the dominant theme here, though only once does Russell gloss those natures, having the hunky swan-stud state that Lectra “possesses the evil of the mind” while Phaydra “holds the truth and good of the heart.” I’d like to say that this interpretation is supported by the Classical Greek names Russell invokes, but his characters don’t parallel in any meaningful way the stories told, respectively, of Classical Electra and Classical Phaedra. My best guess is that in the story of Electra, she represents Thanatos, since she’s willing to sacrifice Orestes so that their mutual father is avenged, while Phaedra is Eros, given that her passion for her stepson would’ve harmed no one had it not been forestalled by the priggishness of Hippolytus. But again—just a guess.

The original story appears with both scripting and co-plotting credits for Marv Wolfman, but in a COMICS JOURNAL interview Russell denied that Wolfman had done anything but provide dialogue. Many years later Russell persuaded Marvel to re-publish the story with his revisions to the art and the script, and as I have not read this version I cannot comment. Still, Russell’s art nouveau approach to the master magician was at least an improvement on the character’s generally-neglected metaphysical potential.