Even back then, I suspected that this new Marvel character Dr. Strange might have something to do with Roger Corman’s 1963 horror comedy The Raven.
Based very loosely on Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, the Richard Matheson-scripted movie featured Vincent Price and Boris Karloff as sorcerers battling each other with hand gestures that caused colorful mystical rays — just the sort of arcane duel that artist Steve Ditko would make a signature element of the Dr. Strange feature.
“You mean he only used his hands?” Price’s Dr. Erasmus Craven says. “Then his skill is far greater than I ever dreamed of … The magic by the gesture of the hands is the most advanced sorcery.”
Then too, Ditko’s Stephen Strange bore a fairly strong resemblance to Price.
“Rival wizards dueling with hand gestures and beams of lights, levitation, castles, and cloaks,” mused reviewer Dr. Hermes. “Boris Karloff as the inspiration for Mordo seems possible and Vincent Price could easily have been used as the model for Strange (although at first, Steve Ditko gave him an exotic, vaguely Asian look).”
“The Final Battle of Craven against Scarabus is an ingenious series of special effects gags that demonstrate how imagination can triumph over a low budget. (My favorite bit is when gargoyles transform into puppies through dramatic lighting and sound effects),” noted Fangoria. “It also anticipates Dr. Strange’s brand of magic with its extensive use of dramatic hand gestures.”
The Raven was released on Jan. 25, 1963. Strange Tales 110, which introduced Dr. Strange, appeared on newsstands in April 1963. Did Ditko see the film — or the TV commercials anticipating it — as he was developing the new feature character for Marvel?
In any case, by February 1963, the Dell Movie Classic Poe’s The Raven was on the newsstands, an authorized adaptation featuring a script by Don Segall and art by Frank Springer.
The Dell effort was workmanlike, at best. But Marvel’s feature would soar as on a Cloak of Levitation.
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