* In a message originally to Allen Prunty, Jimmy Anderson said:
He hasn't always been minor though, has he?
He has been around according to Wizards 200 Greatest Comic book
characters he's #88 so not exactly minor not major just in the middle.
He's been around for a long time... and there's a lot of controversy
from drugs to hare krishnaism. Read below from the Wiki.
Allen
===
Dr. Stephen Vincent Strange, also known as Doctor Strange, is a
fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by
Marvel Comics. Created by artist and character conceptualist Steve
Ditko, the character first appeared in Strange Tales #110 (cover-dated
July 1963). A former neurosurgeon, Strange serves as the Sorcerer
Supreme, the primary protector of Earth against magical and mystical
threats. Debuting in the Silver Age of comics, the character has been
featured in several comic book series and adapted in a variety of
media including video games, an animated television show, and films.
Inspired by storytellings of black magic and Chandu the Magician,
Strange was created to bring a different kind of character and themes
of mysticism to Marvel Comics.
Doctor Strange was a brilliant but egotistical surgeon. After a car
accident destroys his hands and hinders his ability to perform
surgery, he searches the globe for a way to repair them and encounters
the Ancient One. After becoming one of the old Sorcerer Supreme's
students, he becomes a practitioner of both the mystical arts as well
as martial arts. Along with knowing many powerful spells, he has a
costume with two mystical objects - the Cloak of Levitation and Eye of
Agamotto that gives him added powers. Strange is aided along the way
by his friend and valet, Wong, and a large assortment of mystical
objects. He takes up residence in a mansion called the Sanctum
Sanctorum, located in New York City. Later, Strange takes the title of
Sorcerer Supreme.
In 2012, Doctor Strange was ranked 83rd in Wizard's "200 Greatest
Comic Book Characters of All Time" list,[citation needed] and 33rd in
IGN's list of "The Top 50 Avengers".[1] The character was first
portrayed in live action by Peter Hooten in the 1978 television movie
Dr. Strange. A Marvel Studios live-action film adaptation starring
Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role is set for a November 2016
theatrical release
---- Beginnings
Doctor Strange debuted in Strange Tales #110 (July 1963),[4] a split
book shared with the feature "The Human Torch". Doctor Strange
appeared in issues #110-111 and #114 before the character's eight-page
origin story in #115 (Dec. 1963). Scripter Lee's take on the character
was inspired by the Chandu the Magician radio program that aired on
the Mutual Broadcasting System in the 1930s.[5] He had Doctor Strange
accompany spells with elaborate incantations; though these often
referenced established mythological figures, Lee has said he never had
any idea what the incantations meant and used them simply because they
sounded mystical and mysterious.[6] Ditko showcased surrealistic
mystical landscapes and increasingly vivid visuals that helped make
the feature a favorite of college students at the time. Comics
historian Mike Benton wrote,
The Dr. Strange stories of the 1960s constructed a cohesive cosmology
that would have thrilled any self-respecting theosophist. College
students, minds freshly opened by psychedelic experiences and Eastern mysticism, read Ditko and Lee's Dr. Strange stories with the belief of
a recent Hare Krishna convert. Meaning was everywhere, and readers
analyzed the Dr. Strange stories for their relationship to Egyptian
myths, Sumerian gods, and Jungian archetypes.
"People who read Doctor Strange thought people at Marvel must be heads
[i.e., drug users]," recalled then-associate editor and former Doctor
Strange writer Roy Thomas in 1971, "because they had had similar
experiences high on mushrooms. But I don't use hallucinogens, nor do I
think any artists do."[8] Originating in the early 1960s, the
character was a predictor of counter-cultural trends in art prior to
them becoming more established in the later 1960s, according to comic
historian Bradford W. Wright: "Dr. Strange remarkably predicted the
youth counterculture's fascination with Eastern mysticism and
psychedelia."[9]
As co-plotter and later sole plotter in the Marvel Method, Ditko took
Strange into ever-more-abstract realms. In a 17-issue story arc in
Strange Tales #130-146 (March 1965-July 1966), Ditko introduced the
cosmic character Eternity, who personified the universe and was
depicted as a silhouette filled with the cosmos.[10] As historian
Bradford W. Wright described,
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