Doc Strange
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For the Marvel comics superhero with a similar name, see: Doctor Strange.
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Doc Strange is a fictional character and a superhero who originally appeared in Thrilling Comics #1 (Better Publications (also called Nedor Comics) 1940). The character was revived, and renamed 'Tom Strange' in the modern age in Tom Strong #11 (published by America's Best Comics) by Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse.
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[edit] Character history
His civilian identity is Doctor Thomas Hugo Strange, a scientist operating in the United States. He operated under the name 'Dr. Strange', later 'Doc Strange' during the Golden Age of Comic Books.
The character debuted in 1940, a scientist who developed a serum called Alosun, which is described in the comics as a distillate of sun atoms. Ingestion of this serum gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly, and invulnerability.
Doc Strange had a teen sidekick named Mike.
Doc Strange appeared in the following titles in the Golden Age:
- America's Best Comics #1-23, 27
- Thrilling Comics #1-64
(Mike first appeared in Thrilling #24.)
[edit] Revivals
[edit] AC Comics
He was briefly revived on the pages of Femforce as part of the Vault Heroes, a group of Golden Age superheroes who volunteered to have themselves cryogenically frozen following World War II, so that they could be revived should the world need them. He died shortly after being unfrozen, making the heroes realize that the cryogenic process did not work perfectly on everyone.
AC Comics went on to reprint many of his Golden Age adventures in various anthologies.
[edit] America's Best Comics
Doc Strange, along with other heroes from Nedor Comics, were revived by Alan Moore in his series Tom Strong. This revival set the characters on a parallel world called Terra Obscura, which was also the title of the resulting mini-series.
His character was renamed 'Tom Strange', presumably to set him apart from the Marvel Comics sorcerer Doctor Strange, and to present him as a Terra Obscura version of Tom Strong.
In Tom Strong #11, Moore and co-creator Chris Sprouse more fully introduce the idea of Terra Obscura being a parallel Earth, "but in our own dimension. In our own galaxy". In this issue, Tom Strange is revealed to have run across the Milky Way for 30 years to reach Strong for help in stopping an alien menace which killed or imprisoned most of the science-heroes of Terra Obscura. Strong himself theorized that the duplicate Earth "must be due to some near-inconceivable fluke of mathematics, of statistical probability".
Described by Strong as the most powerful being he's ever met, and in a different league from Strong entirely.
He operates with the modern incarnation of SMASH.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Tom Strange is capable of flight (or at least vast Hulk-like leaps in the Golden Age), superhuman strength, and surviving indefinitely in the vacuum of space (without air or water), and has invulnerability to re-entry, extreme impacts (falling to earth from space) and bullets. He is also a brilliant scientist.
