When Curiosity Comics creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko conceived of Physician Strange in 1963, their goal was to produce cheap, disposable entertainment and little more. They could not foresee the lasting cultural affect of their world-building, nor that it would be written into the corporate DNA of a future entertainment empire. Indeed, when Messrs. Lee and Ditko created their master of the mystic arts for a 13-folio redundancy story in Marvel'south Strange Tales #110, they didn't dwell upon the cultural stereotypes, oriental exoticism, and grift ingrained in their storytelling. Cultural awareness — let alone sensitivity— wasn't the norm for comic book creators of their solar day. Every bit such, concerns over misrepresentation simply didn't come up into play, and Md Strange would eventually join an older, larger narrative that makes magic somehow plausible while erasing the actuality of ane civilisation in order to entertain another.

For those unfamiliar with the comics, Dr. Stephen Strange— prior to his indoctrination into the mystic arts-- was a gifted, if narcissistic, surgeon who at the tiptop of his career lost his power to practice after a tragic car wreck severely injured his hands. Desperate to regain his skills and social standing, Strange squanders his wealth and resources on whatever promise of a cure. Desperate and mired in alcoholism, Strange travels to the far Due east chasing the rumor of the Ancient One, a Tibetan mystic who might possess the power to restore Strange's medical skills. Upon reaching Kamar-Taj, the Ancient One's cloak-and-dagger monastery, the wizened mystic confirms there is no cure for Foreign's injuries.

Yet, the Ancient One sees great potential in Strange and offers to school him in ancient magics if he agrees to abdicate his selfish, materialistic means and go a protector of the weak and innocent. Post-obit an astoundingly cursory period of report (frequently observed in those of a particular privilege tutored in the East), the drape of Earth's Sorcerer Supreme is bestowed upon Strange. Soon thereafter, Dr. Foreign establishes his sanctum sanctorum nestled in New York's Greenwich Village, where he protects humanity from those evil forces lurking in neighboring nighttime dimensions.

Western popular civilisation overflows with fantasy storytelling that serves to formulate a distorted vision of Asian and Eye Eastern cultures. It's a narrative that can be traced back to the early on nineteenth century literary fads and theatrical frippery of the Spiritualist movement. History is sketchy regarding Spiritualism'southward point of origin, but many historians credit the enigmatic Play tricks Sisters for sowing the seeds of the tenacious belief arrangement; astounding followers with their power to communicate with the dead via disembodied knocking and rapping. Fifty-fifty after middle sis Maggie confessed it was all a hoax in 1888, the Spiritualist movement continued to gain momentum. As for the Play a trick on Sisters, they died penniless and maligned past a society that one time celebrated them as harbingers of a new era.

In order to remain viable, Spiritualism needed to structure a doctrine beyond the cheap theatrics of mediums, mesmerists, and levitators, so occultists looked to the East for exploitable resources. Ascent from the tide of well-heeled followers and society notables came onetime Russian blueblood Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891). "Blavatsky," co-ordinate to sometime Blondie bass guitarist and Fortean Times correspondent Gary Lachman, "and the people effectually her, made some remarkable, often unbelievable, claims. For example, Blavatsky claimed to be able to manifest and command 'elementals', the sylphs, salamanders, gnomes, and undines of magical legend. She was also said to be able to manifest spirits of a more homo type, at seances and other magical gatherings." Foreshadowing Dr. Strange's mentor, Blavatsky declared her occult powers came from the tutelage of a core of Tibetan mystics with whom she regularly convened upon an astral plane.

Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

"The two all-time known of these enigmatic characters were called Morya and Koot Hoomi," says Lachman. "It was at the Masters' bidding, Blavatsky said, that she was sent to the Due west to stop the modern world's drift into materialism. To claim to have magical powers and to have entered Tibet was bad enough. To claim to take been sent into the modern world by mysterious Hindu Masters in order to boxing with the repressive faith (Christianity) and a bigoted soulless science was, one has to admit, pushing information technology."

In her lifetime, Blavatsky published numerous influential works on the occult including Isis Unveiled and founded the Theosophical Order in 1875—a world-wide organization with an active membership to this 24-hour interval. Indeed, many credit Blavatsky with the genesis of the New Age movement. Sadly, not unlike the Fox Sisters before her, Blavatsky would ultimately fall from grace. Shamed and diminished in the public eye subsequently a report alleged her a fraud (besides as a Russian spy), Blavatsky continued to publish her brand of anti-materialist, hybrid-Asian philosophy until her death, but discussion of her own superpowers and the influence of her Tibetan masters were absent from her later on texts. Not so for the texts of Western pop culture, in fact, the Aboriginal Tibetan master trope remained feasible and eventually wound its way into popular entertainment and the stories of Doctor Strange.

It wasn't merely narrative tropes that gave permission for cultural appropriation. Live performance and the Art of the Con further informed the identity of Marvel'south master of the mystic arts. As you might take surmised, much virtually the occult is performative and has ever made for some lively theatre. Few performers were as influential to the imagery of Doctor Foreign than Alexander the Crystal Seer AKA Alexander the Man Who Knows. Born Claude Alexander Conlin (1880-1954), the native S Dakotan was a latecomer to the supernatural trade just took annotation of the salesmanship of his predecessors and plied his mystical craft through sold-out performances and numerous best-selling books.

Alexander: The Human Who Knows

Clad in turban and flowing satin robes, Alexander claimed he was one of the few Westerners to main the yogic magic of Indian gurus and fakirs, a questionable scholarship he shared with Blavatsky. "Role of Alexander'southward genius was to realize that his audiences would be more willing to explore that ambiguity if he associated his initiation into these powers with Oriental mystique," says Chris Noto-Jones. "The chances were good that nobody in his audition had ever been to India or fifty-fifty met anyone from Bharat; public information about India was heavily exoticized."

Like Blavatsky earlier him, Alexander also fortified his brand through publication. "[Yard]y personal favorite is the 1924 championship Oriental Wisdom, its Principals and Exercise," says Noto-Jones. "in which he explains how 'the Orient has always been looked upon as the Corking Fount of inner knowledge' where discoveries about the nature of the listen and the universe have been made that have yet to exist accounted for in Western science. That is, according to Alexander 'Oriental Wisdom' should not be seen as anti-scientific, simply rather as a repository of scientific discipline-in-waiting or not-nevertheless-scientific discipline —Oriental Wisdom was knowledge that looked like magic simply for every bit long every bit it took scientists to understand and contain its principles and practices." It is precisely this mystification of aboriginal knowledge that comprises the DNA of Md Strange and the volumes of exoticized imagery we consume without consideration for the damage it does to other cultures.

C. Alexander

"Perhaps the greatest genius of his life's performance is that it was such a successful commercial enterprise —a grand grift," says Noto-Jones. "In the end, Alexander's operation of 'Oriental Magic' became enmeshed in the sale of an entire counter-cultural worldview, which professed to expand the scientific globe into new (and aboriginal) realms. One of the most important things I've learned, I call up, is that these kinds of claims are piece of cake in a cultural climate that already mystifies the Orient."

The early 20th century delivered a colorful cabal of run-ups to Dr. Strange as White characters empowered with mystical abilities derived from a fabricated vision of the East became a staple of American popular amusement. Every Sunday, Lee Falk's Mandrake, the Magician arrived on the doorstep courtesy of the Sunday Funnies, Fred Guardineer'south Zatara could exist constitute between the pages of Action Comics, and the airwaves were alive with the radio adventures of Chandu the Wizard.

It is with Chandu that our magic carpet ride through the distorted history of oriental exotism begins its descent. Making his radio debut in 1931 from the Mutual Broadcasting System, Chandu the Wizard was the creation of Henry Earnshaw, Vera Oldham, and RR Morgan. The serial ran for six years before cancelation and saw resurrection in 1948, but non before it was realized for the silvery screen in the 1932 Play a trick on Film Corporation characteristic starring Edmund Lowe and Bela Lugosi in the role of Roxor, the evil sorcerer. In 1934, Chandu would return to cinemas for a 12-part Sol Lesser picture show serial in which Lugosi flipped from the villain's part for that of Chandu himself.

Chandu The Magician

Chandu'south backstory is more than a little familiar by this betoken. In the 1932 film's opening sequence, we acquire that afterwards 3 years of study in a secret Southeast Asian Temple, Captain Frank Chandler has mastered the mystic arts in record time. Sayeth the Yogi: "In the years that m hast dwelt amid usa, thou hast conquered the will of the spirits and yard hast institute thy reward in the powers proclaimed by Shiva. Thousand shalt await into the eyes of men and they shall be as straw in thy easily. M shalt cause them to run into what is not in that location even unto a gathering of 12 times 12. My son, I proclaim thee one of the sacred company of the Yogi and bestow upon thee the name of Chandu…"

With a dramatic flip of his cape, Chandu proceeds to demonstrate his newly confirmed skills starting with the classic Indian rope trick. Upon willing the rope to stretch to the ceiling, a fellow yogi deftly shimmies up its length and disappears into darkness. Chandu then manifests an astral form that hovers to a higher place as he walks through a path of fire unscathed. Finally, the Yogi Chief confirms Chandu'southward training is consummate and they tin teach him no more. Chandu somewhen returns to the West where he employs his mastery of black magic to right wrongs and rout evil at every turn.

credit: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Corroboration that Lee and Ditko took inspiration directly from Chandu is murky, but the circumstantial evidence abounds. Contrary to his customary bravado, upon the grapheme'due south debut, Lee bestowed much of the credit for Dr. Strange's cosmos on Steve Ditko, stating in a 1963 Comics Reader interview, "Well, we have a new character in the works for Strange Tales (just a 5-page filler named Dr. Foreign) Steve Ditko is gonna draw him. It has sort of a blackness magic theme."

Obviously Lee didn't harbor a not bad deal of faith in the character'south future. "The first story is nothing slap-up, but mayhap nosotros can make something of him—'twas Steve's thought and I figured we'd give it a chance, although once more, we had to rush the outset one besides much."

Foreign's early on stories were bumming, one-off tales about ghosts or haunted houses and offered lilliputian in the fashion of action, suspense, or emotional impact. The grapheme was on the chopping block until Ditko convinced Lee to allow him to plot the stories. Cheers to his lengthy tenure in post-Comics Code comics similar Foreign Suspense Stories and The Matter!, Ditko knew his style around tales of magic and mysticism, as Noto-Jones notes: "Stephen Foreign was part of a Ditko tradition that carried back to the 1950s; the glory-craving bounder whose journeys in a snow capped East led him to a comeuppance from a wise and aboriginal mystic."

Benedict Cumberbatch as Curiosity's Doctor Foreign

Doc Strange's debut struck a quieter chord with readers than his Curiosity Comics predecessors, just he would ultimately amass a sturdy following… perhaps for reasons across the creators' intent. "This series was indeed foreign," says Sean Howe in Marvel Comics, the Untold Story. "Steve Ditko contributed some of his nigh surrealistic work to the comic book and gave it a disorienting, hallucinogenic quality. Dr. Strange's adventures have identify in bizarre worlds and twisting dimensions that resemble a Salvador Dali painting. They involve mystical spells, trances, astral travel, and occult lore. Inspired by the pulp-fiction magicians of Stan Lee'south childhood as well as by the contemporary Beat culture, Dr. Strange remarkably predicted the youth counter culture's fascination with Eastern mysticism and psychedelia."

For over 58 years of publication, the Md Strange comic has amused and entertained, simply information technology as well helped to embed a counterproductive fascination with Eastern mysticism and diminish the authenticity of other cultures in the minds of readers. This is ofttimes the case with White privileged storytellers who run across their task as catering to an audience with whom they share a common cultural background.

Considering the troubling history of Oriental exoticism from Blavatsky to Alexander and Chandu, film studios at present have a gilt opportunity to retool the narrative. The Md Strange film took several progressive steps forward by offering audiences a reality inspired by culturally authentic characterization, design, location, non to mention the brilliant casting of artists of colour like Chiwetel Ejiofor as Baron Mordo and Benedict Wong every bit Wong. Representation and equity, even in a fantasy context, matters more than words can say. Sadly, the film's credibility was knocked back several paces thanks to the misreckoning whitewashing of the Ancient One with the casting of Tilda Swinton in the office— a studio blunder deserving of its own lengthy exploration.

Messrs. Lee and Ditko never anticipated the scrutiny their creations might one day face up, nor how their ideas would affect the futurity of popular civilization. In their stories, Lee and Ditko invoked a long tradition of toxic alchemy to create Doctor Strange's world, a earth nosotros now seek to cast afresh. Information technology'due south time for ardent fans of the medium, indeed fans of Doctor Strange in detail, to have a look back at the character's racist genesis and explore how we can amend the narrative going forward. As contemporary storytellers seek to shed old narratives steeped in Oriental exoticism information technology behooves fans of comics and film to scrutinize the backstory of properties like Doctor Strange and then we may foster the kind of cultural agency and actuality we all deserve.

(A tremendous give thanks you to Jim Jewell for his editorial assist and insight.)

COLE HORNADAY is a professional writer, marketer, graphic artist, prop maker and recovering actor. He holds two BAs from the University of Oregon (in Broadcasting and Theatre Arts), an MFA in Acting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied graphic blueprint at Shoreline Community College.

Cole has been a contributing writer for Boxoffice Magazine, Buzzine.com, and SeattleStar.net and is proud to have designed graphics, masks and props for a multitude of Seattle theatre groups including Annex Theatre, Balagan Theatre, MAP Theater, Seattle Public Theater, Theater Schmeater, 14/48: The Earth's Quickest Theater Festival and Radial Theater Project (world wide web.colehornadaydesign.com). On occasion he can be found performing his ain original work at Annex Theatre'southward Spin the Canteen and Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery. He is writer, host and co-producer of The Panel Jumper: A Web Series Devoted to Comic Book History and Lore and its cabaret incarnation, The Panel Jumper LIVE performed at West of Lenin in Seattle, WA's Freemont neighborhood (world wide web.thepaneljumper.com).

Additionally, Cole can be heard sharing the microphone with three other well-meaning geeks on The Perfect Bound Podcast where topics range from comics and moving picture and more comics.