He almost went back to the future (or to Elm Street)
Hollywood has been trying to make a movie based on Doctor Strange for almost three decades now, leading to some interesting periods when well-known filmmakers were attached to the project. In one of the earliest attempts to make a Doctor Strange movie, Back to the Future co-writer Bob Gale penned a script for a Doctor Strange movie back in 1986 that never went into production. A few years later, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchise creator Wes Craven signed on to write and direct a movie based on the character, only to have that project stall out in the late '90s. Marvel
You can see his house from here
As with many of Marvel Comics' characters, Doctor Strange calls New York City his home, and has an actual, real-world address. His "Sanctum Sanctorum" (his fancy name for his home) is located at 177A Bleecker Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood -- a reference to the former apartment shared by writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich. The real-world version of the address isn't nearly as cool as its comics counterpart, but you can still check it out on Google Maps. Marvel
Amy Grant isn't his biggest fan
In 1990, artist Jackson Guice used the likeness of Christian music singer Amy Grant in the background of the cover for Doctor Strange #15. As one might expect, Grant wasn't too pleased with this unauthorized use of her image, and the singer sued Marvel Comics, indicating that the cover associated her with witchcraft and the occult -- two things that certainly weren't good to be associated with if you're making a career out of Christian music. The two parties eventually reached an undisclosed settlement on the matter. Marvel
He's a hippie hero
The drug-fueled, cross-country adventures of Ken Kesey's bus filled with "Merry Pranksters" were famously chronicled in Tom Wolfe's 1968 novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and at several points in the novel, Wolfe mentions the trippy troupe's love for comic books -- specifically, Marvel's Doctor Strange. In between all of the acid trips and spontaneous parties, the group reportedly kept up on the adventures of Stephen Strange, which actually makes a lot of sense if you've seen some of the Doctor Strange comics from that era. Marvel
He already had a movie (sort of)
The 1992 low-budget movie Doctor Mordrid started out as an official Doctor Strange movie, with co-director and co-producer Charles Band holding the film rights to the character before production on the film began, only to have them run out by the time the movie was completed. In order to get the film released, Band retitled the project and had it revised to include story elements and characters that weren't from the Doctor Strange comics. Legendary comic-book creator Jack Kirby even contributed some of the early concept art for the film back when Band still held the movie rights to Doctor Strange. Marvel
His superhero costume didn't fit
In February 1969, Marvel Comics attempted to inject some energy into what was perceived to be a low-selling Doctor Strange series by giving him a full-on makeover in Doctor Strange #177, complete with a new costume more akin to what other Marvel superheroes were wearing at the time (and are still wearing). The new costume had a full-face mask and removed some of the ornamentation from Doctor Strange's traditional look, but it wasn't received well by fans and only lasted seven issues before the character went back to his old duds. Marvel
He already got name-dropped in the MCU
Although the Doctor Strange movie will be the character's first on-screen appearance in Marvel's cinematic universe, it won't be the first time he's been mentioned. In 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a HYDRA agent mentions the name "Stephen Strange" while revealing some of the people the terrorist organization has been watching around the world. Marvel
He's a real trip
The early adventures of Doctor Strange allowed creator Steve Ditko to embrace the bizarre, but in the early '70s, writer Steve Englehart took the weirdness to a whole new level with stories that he later admitted were conceived with some help from LSD. In an interview published in 1998's Comics: Between the Panels, Englehart described some of his creative excursions around New York City that informed his run on Doctor Strange and other series he was working on at the time.
"We'd rampage around New York City," he said. "There was one night when a bunch of us, including Jim Starlin, went out on the town. We partied all day, then did some more acid, then roamed around town until dawn and saw all sorts of amazing things (most of which ended up in Master of Kung Fu, which Jim and I were doing at the time)."
The experiences led to some of the series' most memorable visual moments, as depicted by artist Frank Brunner. Marvel
He stopped being supreme for a while
In August 2009, after holding the mantle of the world's "Sorcerer Supreme" for more than 35 years, Doctor Strange relinquished the title after successive battles with the Hulk and a supervillain army led by The Hood forced him to call upon forbidden dark magic. The title of Sorcerer Supreme was passed on to a character known as Brother Voodoo, a longtime ally of Doctor Strange and a skilled wielder of occult energy. He didn't regain the title until 2013, after Brother Voodoo -- who had renamed himself Doctor Voodoo -- sacrificed himself to save the world from a powerful mystical entity. Marvel
He had god problems (but a fake letter fixed them)
In a 1974 story arc written by Englehart, Doctor Strange encountered the sorcerer Sise-Neg (hint: his name is "Genesis" spelled backward), who was traveling through time to collect magical energies from other sorcerers in order to increase his own abilities. When Sise-Neg got all the way back to the beginning of time, he ended up remaking the entire universe, prompting some philosophical pondering from Doctor Strange about the possibility that Sise-Neg could actually be, well ... the God.
Stan Lee, who was Marvel Comics' publisher at the time and only saw the story after it hit shelves, insisted that Englehart pen a retraction of the story's suggestion that a comic character was God in order to avoid offending religious readers. Instead of doing so, Englehart and Brunner wrote a fake letter from a non-existent minister praising the story, and had it mailed from Texas to the office of Marvel Comics. The letter was printed in one of the following issues, and the retraction was never published. Marvel
Brace yourselves, Marvel movie fans: Things are going to get weird in Marvel’s cinematic universe with the arrival of Doctor Strange, the superhero sorcerer with a penchant for bending reality as we know it to defend the mortal realm from supernatural threats.
Created by legendary artist and writer Steve Ditko in 1963, Doctor Strange will make the leap from comics to the big screen later this year, with Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch (as seen in the behind-the-scenes images above) playing the lead role in the film. While the film is expected to formally introduce occult elements to Marvel’s movie universe, fans of the character know that the adventures of surgeon-turned-sorcerer Stephen Strange have long been a magnet for the bizarre stories — both in print and outside the pages of the comics.
What could be so strange about the history of the man called “Doctor Strange,” you ask? You’ll find 10 examples in the gallery above along with some fun footage from the film set.
If that’s not strange enough for you, you don’t have long to wait for more superhero sorcery. Doctor Strange hits theaters November 4.
Doctor Strange director and co-writer Scott Derrickson will return to helm the Sorcerer Supreme's next big-screen adventure. Filming will begin in 2020, after Strange's mysterious Avengers: Endgame fate is resolved.
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