Marvel Premiere #9
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMarvel Premiere #9 is the opening chapter of the most celebrated Doctor Strange run of the Bronze Age — the Englehart/Brunner collaboration that would ultimately redefine the Sorcerer Supreme for a generation. Although Shuma-Gorath appears here only as a disembodied voice taunting Strange through a black hole in space, that eerie cameo plants the seed for the full creature reveal in issue #10 and sets in motion the arc whose climax — the death of the Ancient One and Strange's ascension to Sorcerer Supreme — permanently altered the character's mythology. The issue also marks the debut of the Living Buddha, keeper of the Crypts of Kaa-U, and embeds the series firmly in the Lovecraftian cosmic-horror tradition that editor Roy Thomas had been cultivating since Marvel Premiere #3. By fusing Robert E. Howard's pulp mythology with genuine mystical atmosphere, Englehart and Brunner signaled from their very first issue together that their take on Strange would be something rawer and stranger than what had come before.
In "The Crypts of Kaa-U," Doctor Strange follows a trail of ancient evil to the hidden crypts of Kaa-U, where the dying Ancient One awaits. With the Shadowmen closing in and the malevolent Shuma-Gorath stirring within the Ancient One’s mind, Strange must confront forces beyond mortal understanding. Written by Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner, with art by Frank Brunner and cover by Frank Brunner, this 1973 Marvel Premiere issue delivers a haunting, mystical journey steeped in cosmic dread.
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Roy Thomas had twice coaxed Frank Brunner onto the Doctor Strange feature — first for Marvel Premiere #4 and then #6 — only to see Brunner depart each time, dissatisfied with Gardner Fox's scripts and the book's overall direction. Determined to make the partnership work, Thomas offered Brunner the series a third time with a significant sweetener: he could request any writer he liked, or even script the book himself. Brunner chose Steve Englehart, and the two collaborated as co-plotters — Englehart scripting — beginning with this issue. The inking, handled by Ernie Chan (credited in some sources as Ernie Chua), proved contentious; Brunner later recalled spending a full day at Marvel's offices manually correcting Chan's alterations to the Cloak of Levitation trim before the book went to press.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'The Crypts of Kaa-U!' — release date April 24, 1973; cover-dated July 1973.
- First issue of the landmark Steve Englehart (scripter) and Frank Brunner (co-plotter/penciler) collaboration on Doctor Strange; Roy Thomas edited.
- First appearance of the Living Buddha, self-proclaimed Lord of the Crypts of Kaa-U and servant of Shuma-Gorath.
- Shuma-Gorath appears for the first time in any Marvel comic in this issue — as a voice only (communicating through a black hole in space and through the Ancient One's mind); the character's first full, physical/visual appearance comes one issue later in Marvel Premiere #10.
- The issue establishes the central horror of the Englehart/Brunner arc: Shuma-Gorath is attempting to invade Earth by using the mind of the Ancient One as a dimensional gateway, a plot whose resolution would require Strange to kill his own mentor.
- Inker: Ernie Chan (also credited as Ernie Chua); letterer: John Costanza; cover art by Frank Brunner.
- The story has been reprinted in French (Le Fils de Satan #6, Arédit-Artima, 1976), in Brazilian Portuguese (Superaventuras Marvel #6, Editora Abril, 1982), and in English in the Doctor Strange: A Separate Reality trade paperback (Marvel, 2002).
- Shuma-Gorath's name ultimately derives from Robert E. Howard's Kull short story 'The Curse of the Golden Skull,' in which a dying magician invokes 'the iron-bound books of Shuma-Gorath'; the rights to the name are held by Heroic Signatures and licensed to Marvel.
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Reprints
Reprinted in 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)
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