Maybe the problem is simply that he hasn’t had his own series in so long, that the current writers are unclear as to what he is like. I don’t know why Marvel won’t give him his own book anymore. His earlier series were never big sellers, but they did well enough to last a decade or so at a stretch.

So if anyone at Marvel is reading this, I am available to write the next Doctor Strange series. I have several great ideas.

a) Extremely powerful mystical characters fighting people like Stilt-Man is a really, REALLY dumb idea.
b) Steve Ditko was and most likely still is one of the greatest geniuses in comics, based solely on his long Dr. Strange arc in STRANGE TALES. Actual character growth … in a (nominally) superhero book? Astounding even now, but nearly unthinkable in 1965. Well, played Mr. Ditko.

Strange hasn’t had it as bad as some as far as being locked in the superhero box, but he certainly does get the short end of the stick a lot of the time. He should be portrayed (as was stated above) as the cool guy no one really gets; you might get invited to his party, but you’ll never really figure out everything that’s happening there.

Stephen Strange, the All-but-Unknowable Swinger. I like it.

That little pondering aside, I think what really presently hurts him, as well as several other characters (Thor, Silver Surfer, Superman, Aquaman), is the perception that there’s only one way to approach superheroes or superhero like characters. The approaches taken on franchises like Spider-Man, X-Men, or Batman isn’t an across the board formula for success for each and every super-character type.

C’mon Stephen — let the ‘stache loose and show them who’s boss…

When a)Nominal Royal-Ass-Kicker is beaten by b)Surprisingly Powerful Bad Guy, which only makes it that much more impressive when c)Nominally Weaker Character Who is Actually the Hero saves the day, that’s good writing and works, sparingly.

However, when a) is ROUTINELY beaten by b)s and c) routinely saves a)’s bacon, that hurts a)’s believability as an actual bad-ass and is BAD writing. A) looks like a wimp and is made fun of behind his back. He has been “Worfed.”

Superman was “worfed” in the first season of Justice League. Dr. Strange has been “worfed” by most writers.

And of course, Worf…

I guess the concern can be pushed to all powerful heroes.
Silver Surfer, Thor, Hulk (who is now in a planet where his supa dupa strengh is nothing special compared to the people who live there), Sentry (since in New Avengers he’s only here to quickly kick @$$es or to show that the bad guy is way to powerful)…
I guess the current Marvel isn’t confortable with that kind of characters.

Bat2supe.

I have an upcoming column expanding on this idea, so I don’t want to get too into it. But really the Gerber Defenders — Doc, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, and the Hulk — were so awesome because they most resembled the actual readers. They were outcasts and nerds who were brilliant and talented but lacked the social skills to have any kind of real life. Later the X-Men picked up the outcast ball and really ran with it but in the 70′s it was the Defenders. And Dr. Strange was the cool friend — every nerd gang has one, it’s either the guy with the cool computer or the one with the great record collection — who’d let them hang at his house because they didn’t want to go home.

You know why nobody has been able to make Dr. Strange work since the 70′s? Because none of the people trying it understand that. They keep making him aloof, stuffy, a stodgy professorial square. No no no. Doc worked in the 70′s because he was COOL. He had the hipster pad in the Village and was shacked with the hot otherdimensional chick (actually Living Together Without Being Married, which was pretty racy in 1974.) You just knew that Captain America and the other Avengers thought he was a little too much of a swinger.