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Essential Doctor Strange #2 cover
Cover: Barry Windsor-Smith & Frank Giacoia

Essential Doctor Strange #2

Jan 2005 · Marvel · 16.99 USD; 27.25 CAD
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“The Coming of... Dr. Strange”
About this Collection

This second volume of Marvel's Essential series continues the black-and-white reprints of Doctor Strange's Silver Age adventures, collecting issues from the late 1960s and early 1970s. It includes the conclusion of the epic battle with the dread Dormammu and the introduction of new mystical threats like the Living Tribunal and the alien entity known as the In-Betweener, showcasing the cosmic scope of Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner's run. The volume also features the debut of the sorceress Clea as a more prominent ally and Strange's ongoing struggles with the demonic Nightmare and the villainous Silver Dagger.

In "The Coming of... Dr. Strange," Stan Lee and Barry Smith launch a mind-bending origin with a twist: a young man named Strange, already haunted by unseen forces, narrowly avoids a fatal accident—only to find himself in a surreal confrontation with a doppelgänger who claims he’s already lost. As the Ancient One’s cryptic warnings echo, Strange’s reality fractures, revealing a hospital bed and a memory he must erase before the world learns what even he isn’t meant to know. The cover by Barry Windsor-Smith and Frank Giacoia captures the eerie stillness of a moment that changes everything.

writer Stan Lee · artist Barry Smith · inker Dan Adkins · letterer John Costanza · cover Barry Windsor-Smith, Frank Giacoia

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Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 2 (Marvel Essentials)

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Full credits

writer Stan Lee
letterer John Costanza
cover pencils Barry Windsor-Smith
cover inks Frank Giacoia

Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers

▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers

Sensing evil, Strange is so focused on seeking it out he's almost hit by a truck. He calls upon The Ancient One, who warns him of the nature of the evil, but is still mystified. Then he finds himself confronted by someone (or something) who takes his own form, and tells him he's "already defeated". Only when he discovers his oldest enemy is at the bottom of it does he also realize he was hit by the truck-- and has been in a hospital bed ever since! On recovering, he erases the memory of the night's events from the doctor's mind, as "Many things there are that mankind must not know..."

Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).

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