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Cover: Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia

Strange Tales #172

Name: Strange Tales #172
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Feb 1974 · Marvel · 0.20 USD

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★ 1st appearance — Desmond Drew★ 1st appearance — Loralee Tate

About this Issue

Strange Tales #172 is the fourth chapter in Brother Voodoo's landmark five-issue origin arc — Marvel's first sustained showcase for a Black superhero rooted in Afro-Caribbean spiritual tradition rather than martial arts or street-level crime. Arriving in early 1974, the issue shifts the character's New Orleans-set stage from Haiti and introduces the supporting cast — Inspector Samuel Tate, his daughter Loralee, and the Cult of the Dark Lord — that would define the social and investigative texture of Jericho Drumm's world for the rest of the run. As part of a series that Marvel explicitly revived to cash in on the Bronze Age's hunger for horror-tinged supernatural heroes, #172 stands as evidence that the creative team had ambitions beyond a simple trend-chaser: Len Wein's serialized, cliffhanger-driven plotting and Gene Colan's atmospheric cinematics gave Brother Voodoo a narrative weight that lifted him above most of his contemporaries. The issue's material has remained in print continuously through three distinct collected editions spanning from 2008 to 2021, confirming its enduring place in the character's canon.

Contains 2 stories

Fiend in the Fog!

15 pp · Superhero

Detective Pete Hawkins (introduction)

Voodoo

4 pp · Horror-Suspense

ComicBooks.com Value

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Raw (Fine) $12

CGC 9.8 · 15 in census $362

CGC 9.6 · 31 in census $98

CGC 9.4 · 36 in census $71*

CGC 9.2 · 23 in census $50*

CGC 9.0 · 10 in census $41*

CGC 8.5 · 22 in census $34*

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CGC 8.0 · 6 in census $30

CGC 7.5 · 14 in census $27*

CGC 7.0 · 9 in census $23*

CGC 6.5 · 5 in census $23

CGC 6.0 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 5.5 · 3 in census $20*

CGC 5.0 · 2 in census $20*

CGC 4.5 · 3 in census $20*

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History

Brother Voodoo was conceived at the editorial level by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, who envisioned a heroic practitioner of Vodou as a culturally distinct counterpoint to other Black Marvel heroes of the era. Thomas handed the assignment to writer Len Wein and artist Gene Colan, who had already co-created the Falcon together with Stan Lee on Captain America, and the two built the Strange Tales arc as a five-issue continuous narrative running from #169 through #173. For issue #172 specifically, Colan was inked by Dick Giordano, colored by Glynis Oliver (then Glynis Wein, Len's wife, who had recently won the Shazam Award for best colorist), and lettered by Gaspar Saladino under the pseudonym 'L. P. Gregory' — a house-name quirk documented across multiple indexing sources. Roy Thomas served as both editor and editor-in-chief on the issue, which was released on newsstands in November 1973 with a February 1974 cover date.

Trivia · 8 facts

Cover date February 1974, on-sale November 1973; part of the five-issue Brother Voodoo origin arc in Strange Tales #169–173.
First appearances of Loralee Tate (Samuel Tate's daughter), Inspector Samuel Tate (New Orleans chief of police), and Detective Pete Hawkins, along with the first appearance of the Cult of the Dark Lord as an antagonist group.
Bambu (Bambu Guede) appears in narration/thought — the loa referenced in Jericho Drumm's voodoo practice.
Main story 'Fiend in the Fog!' written by Len Wein, penciled by Gene Colan, inked by Dick Giordano, colored by Glynis Wein (Oliver), and edited by Roy Thomas.
Cover penciled by Gil Kane and inked by Frank Giacoia.
Letterer Gaspar Saladino is credited under the pseudonym 'L. P. Gregory' — a documented Marvel house practice of the period.
Issue contains a backup reprint of the horror story 'Voodoo' from Astonishing #56 (December 1956), originally written by Carl Wessler with art by Gene Colan and edited by Stan Lee — an unusual instance of Colan appearing on both the new and archival story in the same issue.
The main story from this issue has been reprinted in black-and-white in Essential Marvel Horror Vol. 2 (2008), in color in the Marvel Horror Omnibus (2019), and again in Marvel Masterworks: Brother Voodoo Vol. 1 (2021).