The Sorcerer, The Ally, and the Avengers!

 

Even as early as its Silver Age books, Marvel was discovering the value of story crossovers in regard to not only profit but also as a means to entice readers to pick up a title that they'd passed on or didn't know about. In addition, the practice may have also helped to light the match of the budding collectors of the day, well before the marketing insanity of multiple crossover "events" would make even collectors balk. The early days of crossovers also offered the likelihood that the same writer would be handling scripting for each of the issues, while art buffs benefited from the opportunity of either seeing the same artist pull double duty or a different artist's take on the other book's character(s). Some examples that may come to mind in that respect were the Daredevil/Fantastic Four crossover featuring Dr. Doom (with artists Gene Colan and Jack Kirby), the X-Men/Avengers story involving Magneto (both penciled by John Buscema), and the Avengers/Incredible Hulk tale (featuring the work of both Sal Buscema and Herb Trimpe) which introduced an intriguing new villain, Psyklop.

In 1968-69, Avengers scribe Roy Thomas was also handling the first solo series of Doctor/Dr. Strange (the good doctor's masthead title abbreviated at about the halfway point) and would feature two crossovers during its 15-issue run. Regrettably, the second crossover, depicting the threat of the Undying Ones, would occur posthumously following the book's cancellation, in issues of Sub-Mariner and Incredible Hulk--but the prior crossover would have its conclusion take place in a more high-profile title, as well as bring in a guest-star along with a threat drawn from no less than the realm of the gods.

To understand the nature of this threat, we'll have to backpedal a bit to when Strange, in his new, masked guise, engaged in final battle with Asmodeus, the leader of the Sons of Satannish, who had turned on his own mystic cultists in order to gain their power and subsequently assumed Strange's form so that he could purloin the spell he needed from the Book of the Vishanti in the Ancient One's possession. But due to a heart condition, that battle would end fatally for Asmodeus--aka Dr. Charles Benton, a former colleague of Strange's whose lust for power would finally destroy him, though not before uttering the spell which would, er, spell our world's doom.

From the story's follow-up, we learn that Strange has one hour to avert the threat before it's too late (good grief, talk about impending doom)--and his only hope lies with those enemies who had been dealt with by Asmodeus, now located in a dimension that contains a hostile force of its own.

The mystic whom Strange has in mind turns out to be Victoria Bentley, a woman that Strange had met during a conflict with Baron Mordo and who resides in England--along with another figure who just happens to be her new neighbor and someone Strange had seen while attending a social occasion at Avengers Mansion.

Thomas has taken a welcome interest in the Black Knight and given him ample exposure in Avengers stories--having only recently been a factor in their battle with the Masters of Evil, though not yet an Avenger at this point. In the current crisis, the Knight would play a crucial part in Strange's mission to Tiboro's realm, saving the sorcerer's life after Strange's rescue of him and, afterward, making it possible for the two of them to depart with those they sought.

Yet when we next see Strange in the pages of The Avengers, we learn that he's suffered a setback in his plan to wrest cooperation from the remaining members of Asmodeus' Satannish cult--and so Strange's astral form appears and summons two Avengers to a cemetery where a grim sight awaits.

We don't know how much of the sixty minutes allotted to Strange remains at this point--though if the issue's cover is any indication, the clock runs out at some point and the threat of "fire and ice" materializes. We can at least assume that Strange having to perform an operation on the critically injured Knight eats up a good bit of that time, in addition to the time already expended in the battle with Tiboro and dealing with the Sons afterward; and so when that operation proves successful, reports of incursions begin reaching the Avengers, and a hasty plan of action is formed.

Hopefully, whatever Strange has planned with the confiscated Crystal of Conquest bears fruit--because by the look of the issue's symbolic double-splash pages, as well as the scenes which follow, the Avengers will be hard-pressed facing off with two colossal enemies of Asgard.

Finally, however, Strange is prepared--and when he casts his spell, the result is as unexpected as it is decisive.

Without peeking into Marvel's sales records for these books in early 1969, it's hard to say whether either benefited from Strange's crossover appearance. Colan's exquisite work in the Dr. Strange issues alone should certainly have brought a few converts into the fold; yet I would think it's usually the book getting the handoff from the other book's cliffhanger which reaps the reward of curious readers, and the cliffhanger in this case occurred in Strange's title. However things worked out, after two more issues Dr. Strange would shift to bimonthly publication for its final three issues, even as Colan came aboard The Avengers as artist from April to June of that year. And thanks to Thomas, Strange would be brought back as part of The Defenders in 1971, with a new series for the character being green-lit in 1974.