Marvel Premiere #10
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMarvel Premiere #10 delivers three seismic events in Doctor Strange's history at once: the first full, visually realized appearance of Shuma-Gorath — one of the most enduring Lovecraftian horrors Marvel ever introduced — the death of the Ancient One, and Stephen Strange's formal ascension as Sorcerer Supreme, a status-quo shift that defined the character for decades. The issue's central moral dilemma, forcing Strange to kill his own master in order to seal the dimensional portal being used by Shuma-Gorath, was an unusually dark and psychologically demanding story beat for a Bronze Age superhero comic. By rooting its monster firmly in pulp-horror tradition — the name itself lifted from a Robert E. Howard short story — while spinning it into Marvel's cosmic mythology, the issue helped establish that Doctor Strange's corner of the Marvel Universe could sustain genuinely uncanny, eldritch threats rather than recycled super-villain plots.
In "Finally, Shuma-Gorath!", Stephen Strange ventures into the mind of the Ancient One to confront the cosmic entity Shuma-Gorath, which feeds on the consciousness of its host. With the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, Strange must make an unthinkable choice to end the threat. Written by Steve Englehart and illustrated by Frank Brunner, with inks by Neal Adams and others, this 1973 Marvel Premiere issue features a cover by Frank Brunner.
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Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner had only just begun their collaborative run on the Doctor Strange feature in Marvel Premiere with issue #9, making #10 only their second issue together; the plot was developed jointly by both creators, with Englehart scripting over their shared story blueprint, under editor Roy Thomas. Brunner handled pencils, inks, and cover art, with coloring credited to Cory Adams (also listed in some sources as Glynis Wein on the cover) and lettering by John Costanza; inking assistance came from the informal studio collective known as the Crusty Bunkers. The Shuma-Gorath name itself had already made a quiet Marvel cameo — Roy Thomas had slipped it into Journey into Mystery Vol. 2 #1 (1972) by substituting it for different monsters in a Robert E. Howard adaptation, and Gardner Fox had named the entity as the lurking threat behind earlier Doctor Strange arcs in Marvel Premiere — but it was Englehart and Brunner who gave it a physical form and set it at the center of a climactic confrontation. Comics Bulletin later ranked the Englehart/Brunner Doctor Strange run ninth on its 2010 list of the top ten 1970s Marvel achievements.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First full, physically depicted appearance of Shuma-Gorath, the extradimensional chaos entity and member of the Great Old Ones; the character had previously been named but unseen in earlier Marvel publications.
- Death of the Ancient One: Doctor Strange is forced to kill his own master with a mystic bolt to seal Shuma-Gorath's dimensional portal, using the Ancient One's mind as its entry point to Earth.
- Stephen Strange formally becomes Sorcerer Supreme in this issue, with the dying Ancient One's spirit confirming the succession — a status Strange would hold for the majority of his publication history thereafter.
- Written by Steve Englehart (script and co-plot) and Frank Brunner (co-plot and pencils/inks/cover); only their second issue together on the Doctor Strange feature, which they began with Marvel Premiere #9.
- Shuma-Gorath's name was borrowed by Englehart from Robert E. Howard's short story 'The Curse of the Golden Skull' (first published 1967), in which a dying magician invokes 'the iron-bound books of Shuma-Gorath'; the rights to the name are held by Heroic Signatures, not Marvel.
- The story is titled 'Finally, Shuma-Gorath!' and was reprinted in Marvel Treasury Edition #6.
- Shuma-Gorath went on to become a playable character in Capcom's 1995 Marvel Super Heroes arcade game and the subsequent Marvel vs. Capcom series — a wider cultural footprint the comics themselves never generated — with Capcom reportedly requesting the character by name to Marvel's surprise.
- A creature visually based on Shuma-Gorath appeared in the 2022 MCU film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness under the renamed identity 'Gargantos,' a change driven by the licensing complications surrounding the Howard estate's ownership of the name.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Marvel Treasury Edition #6 (1975), Le Fils de Satan #6 (1976), Superaventuras Marvel #6 (1982), Doctor Strange: A Separate Reality #[nn] (2002), Essential Doctor Strange #2 (2005), Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange #5 (2011), Doctor Strange Epic Collection #3 (2016), Doctor Strange : Une réalité à part #[nn] (2016), Marvel. Официальная коллекция комиксов #118 (2018), Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts Omnibus #1 (2024)
Key issues in Marvel Premiere
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