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Steven was drunk when he crashed the car, right? RIGHT??

Published 1963

Finally, the first comic in the order that’s actually from Marvel’s early days! And by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, no less. For anyone unfamiliar with Ditko, he’s responsible for the iconic designs of Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and Iron-Man. But what’s interesting is, I always thought the art in early books looked mostly the same. And while there is certainly a similar school of thought they all evolved from, its clear now that Ditko was the weird expressions king.

Now if you know comic numbers, you’ll know this isn’t the first issue of Strange Tales to feature Doctor Strange. But the reading order is running chronologically. That means we need the Doctor Strange origin, which happened in his 4th issue. How do I know this was his 4th issue?

Stan was very… enthusiastic when addressing the fans. Some may call it unhinged. Whatever it was, Stan’s outbursts are one of my favorite parts of this era, so they’ll get more highlights as we march ever onward.

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Now the actual origin is pretty standard. Man is surgeon, man hurt hand, man get sad, man find magic man, man learn magic.
My understanding of the details was definitely challenged by the original version though. For example, I’m not convinced this Steven Strange had any redeeming qualities before learning magic.

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But at this point I have a question for you: What is your understanding of how Steven crashed the car that injured his hands?
Was there a reason? Or just coincidence, to your memory?

Because I swear he had a whiskey-neat in his hand while driving. It’s an image seared into my brain so much so that I had to go back and double-check the movie, and sure enough, no whiskey glass in Doctor Strange (2016) or in his episode of What If…?

So I went on a mission of Fire and Google. I checked Doctor Strange #169, Uncanny Origins #12, and Doctor Strange: Season One. I even checked Strange #1 where he breaks his hands while skiing!

Closest I got was in the Uncanny Origins version, Strange’s narration mentions it “could be the alcohol, could be the fatigue.”
I feel like I’m going NUTS.

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So instead I’m going to take comfort in the fact that his original backstory takes place in 1963, at which point the acceptable blood-alcohol content to drive was anything under .15, about double the level of drunk that’s allowed today.

You could also drink while driving. And even if one of them coppers pulled you over, he had to get out an entire goddamn science kit called the “Drunkometer” to test you:

So I’m going to assume that anyone driving in comics up until about the 80s is just completely tanked.

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But now I have to rate it. And do I rate it by modern standards? Do I rate it for its time? This will set a precedent for the rest of the 60s and 70s, when comics were a little more simplistic, among… other issues.

I mean, its not terrible storytelling by modern standards, its mostly stilted dialogue. But also “man goes to the ‘orient’ to learn mystic abilities” was a pretty common trope going back a few decades from the 60s (see: The Shadow). So I’ll just rate it off of modern standards. But hoo-boy, get ready to see a lot of low scores once we get past all the modern-remakes-of-origin-stories section of the reading order.