Today, we look to see who is the first magician superhero with "Doctor" in his name.
In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
With the release of Black Adam in movie theaters, fans are suddenly a lot more interested in Doctor Fate than they have in many years, so the question on the minds of a number of readers (especially those who like to pit DC and Marvel against each other) is who was the first magician superhero to use the name "Doctor"? Let's find out!
WHEN DID DOCTOR STRANGE DEBUT?
By 1964, Stan Lee had slowly but surely phased out the idea of back-up stories in Marvel's various anthology series. You see, Marvel's anthology series used to be made up of three or four different fantasy or science fiction stories an issue. Once Marvel began to turn these titles into superhero comics, like Journey Into Mystery becoming Thor's comic and Tales of Suspense becoming Iron Man's comic, the back-ups still continued. However, the superhero stuff was so popular that slowly but surely the books all evolve into dual superhero feature books (this was also because Marvel was restricted to just eight comic books a month, so this way, you could do a Captain America comic AND an Iron Man - all in one comic!). In early 1963, this point had not yet been reached, so, say, Strange Tales (which then starred the Human Torch) still had multiple back-up stories after the lead Human Torch story.
In Strange Tales #110 in April of 1963, a new feature debuted. Steve Ditko came up with the initial five-page Doctor Strange story by himself and brought it to Stan Lee to see if he would be interested in running the story in one of Marvel's anthologies. Lee liked it and since he planned on using it in Strange Tales, they came up with the name Strange, although there was some initial debate over whether he should be a Mister or a Doctor. Lee wrote into the Comics Reader earlier in 1963 to promote the new character in strange fashion, "Well, we have a new character in the works for Strange Tales, just a 5-page filler named Dr. Strange. Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. It has sort of a black magic theme. The first story is nothing great, but perhaps we can make something of him. 'Twas Steve's idea. I figured we'd give it a chance, although again, we had to rush the first one too much. Little sidelight: Originally, we decided to call him Mr. Strange, but thought the 'Mr.' was a bit too similar to Mr. Fantastic -- Now, however, I remember we had a villain called Dr. Strange just recently in one of our mags. I hope it won't be too confusing!" (The story wasn't even the FIRST back-up story in the issue!).
As you might imagine, this Doctor Strange fella caught on in a big way, and before 1963 was finished, Strange Tales was purely a Human Torch/Doctor Strange comic book series, with no other back-up stories involved.
WHEN DID DOCTOR FATE DEBUT?
In March 1940, Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman introduced Doctor Fate in the pages of More Fun Comics #55. This was very early in the Golden Age of superheroes, and superheroes very often were introduced to features just sort of in media res, as Doctor Fate is already an established superhero with a love interest who needs saving and everything. However, one thing that is clear about Doctor Fate is that he DID have magical powers...
However, even though he clearly had magical powers, it is pretty funny how the style of Golden Age superhero comics was such that most of the Doctor Fate comics involve him just punching bad guys out...
And these stories are all by Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman, so it's not like the creative team changed! Fox and Sherman just mostly had Doctor Fate punching out thugs despite all of his magical powers (they also eventually gave him a bonkers origin that I'll write about in the future).
In 1965, Fox and Murphy Anderson brought Doctor Fate back in Showcase #55, and suddenly, Doctor Fate was much more of a magic-based superhero...
I doubt that that change was inspired by Doctor Strange, but it's at least a POSSIBILITY.
In any event, this seems to suggest that Doctor Fate was the first Doctor magician superhero, right?
Well, not so fast!
WAS THERE ANOTHER DOCTOR BEFORE BOTH HEROES?
Lee Falk's Mandrake the Magician debuted in 1934 in comic strips and he was the clear influence on a number of characters, including Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Doctor Occult, who debuted in 1935's New Fun Comics #5. Doctor Occult was actually the first published superhero by Siegel and Shuster (they had an idea for another Super-Man, who they eventually debuted in some other comic to mild success).
Occult began as a sort of generic private eye who specialized in the supernatural, but eventually became more and more of an ostentatious supernatural hero himself...
That sequence is from 1936's More Fun Comics #14 (New Fun was renamed More Fun). So not only is Doctor Occult the first magician superhero with doctor in his name, he's actually technically the first COMIC BOOK magical superhero period (obviously, as I noted above, Mandrake the Magician was already in comic strips, and Mandrake was a MAJOR influence on a number of characters).
So Doctor Fate and Doctor Strange don't have to worry about competing with each other, as they're both behind Doctor Occult.
If anyone wants to know about an interesting comic book first, just drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!