Doctor Strange Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot

Until April 5, I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted Marvel omnibus volumes every day! Today I’ll be starting a brief trip into the mystical side of Marvel by peering into all of the omnibuses that don’t yet exist for Marvel’s Doctor Strange.

This post explains titles and potential Doctor Strange Omnibus Mapping for entries on the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot. You can vote right now (until 5 April 2024 @ midnight US ET) or watch our mega-length announcement stream reviewing every single voting option.

Doctor Strange has been around since the 60s, but he is a curious case where Marvel has focused most of their omnibus energy into his late-80s and 90s series. They knocked that out in three large volumes, but his original Silver Age line lags – as does his modern material (aside from Jason Aaron’s 2015 run reviving the character)

If you’re not sure of what to vote for, stick around for my explanations. Or, if you’ve already voted, learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including some of my mistakes and regrets as one of the editors of the options on the final poll.

Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how Marvel could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of Marvel creating a book with that title or covering that period.

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Doctor Strange Omnibus Mapping: Classic Doctor Strange

The Doctor Strange omnibus line is the most unusual of all the classic lines not only because of its late beginnings in 2016, but because the scant first two volumes of the classic line only collect four Masterworks between them while all of Strange’s 1988 series was collected in full in just five years!

That is partly due to the first classic omnibus focusing only on Steve Ditko’s run as artist, which explains why it didn’t run for the typical “3 x Masterworks” length. At 409 pages, it’s one of the shortest of all Silver Age omnibuses.

What does that mean for more collections of classic Doctor Strange? Let’s dig in to material that’s covered in my Guide to Doctor Strange.

Doctor Strange Vol. 3
This next book in the classic Doctor Strange omnibus mapping could collect Masterworks 5-7, which include Marvel Premiere (1972) #9-14, Doctor Strange (1974) #1-37 & Annual 1, Tomb of Dracula (1972) #44, and Chamber of Chills (1972) #3-4.

However… there could be another reason for a third short omnibus! That’s because the hotly-demanded run of Doctor Strange by Roger Stern begins with issue #27. It could make sense for this to end with issue #26 to allow the next volume to exclusively collect Stern’s run.

You don’t have to have an opinion on that to vote for this book. Your vote just means you want the next Doctor Strange omnibus.

Doctor Strange Vol. 4
If Doctor Strange’s omnibus line were obeying the rules, this would be a straight-forward collection of Masterworks 8-10, which collect Doctor Strange (1974) #38-73, Man-Thing (1979) #4, Marvel Fanfare (1982) #5-6, What If? (1977) #18, and material from the Marvel Comics Calendar 1980, Crazy (1973) #88, and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (1983).

However, it would only take another 13 issues to make this an exclusive collection of Roger Stern’s entire run on Doctor Strange by having it start from #27 and run through #75. Sure, that would be very long for a classic Marvel Omnibus – but we’ve already seen this line break the rules once with one of the shortest books! Yet, if it pushes that far, that leaves us with another very slim book to get from here to the first omnibus of Strange’s 1988 series So, who knows!

Again, your vote isn’t a comment on any of that. However, it is a vote in favor of the vast amount of Stern’s material being in this book, because that will happen no matter how you slice it!

Krisis Regrets: We goofed on not calling this “AKA by Roger Stern,” since it’s one of the most-demanded books year after year. On the other hand, at this point we all know Marvel seems to be done with creating creator-centric chunks of books from prior to 1980, so I think it’s fair to assume this will not have Stern’s name on it and will likely obey Masterworks mapping with only a minor deviation.

We Skipped It (on purpose): Doctor Strange Vol. 5
I’ve already seen some write-ins asking for Doctor Strange Vol. 5 or “Doctor Strange: Strange Tales.” Since the mapping of the prior book is unclear and the next period has yet to be touched by Masterworks or Epic Collections, it seemed to us like there was no obvious book here to map

Clea
Doctor Strange’s paramour from the Dark Dimension has a heightened profile the past few years thanks to a tease of her in the MCU and her taking over the title of Sorcerer Supreme recently for a year of Jed MacKay’s run on Strange. That makes this a perfect time for a “Greatest Hits” style omnibus for the character!

Want to know what this book ought to contain? Check out my buddy-in-mapping Vin’s guide to Clea at CosmicCircus!

Doctor Strange Omnibus Mapping: Modern Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange’s 1988 series got covered in omnibus in record speed between his two movies, but after that he has just one omnibus volume – of his 2015 Jason Aaron revival. Of course, Strange never had an ongoing series from 1997-2014, which helps explain the absence of omnis!

Let’s take a look at how we can rectify that problem. All of these series and issues are covered in my Guide to Doctor Strange.

Doctor Strange (1997 – 2010) (AKA by Vaughan, JMS, Waid, et al)
There’s just no obvious title to give this book other than to say it covers over a decade of Strange’s mini-series an appearances.

I think the obvious material for this to collect would be the content of his Flight of Bones paperback (material from Marvel Shadows & Light (1997) #1 and Shadows & Light (1998) #2; Doctor Strange: Flight of Bones (1999) #1-4; material Marvel Double-Shot #4; and Mystic Hands of Doctor Strange (2010) #1), followed by Strange (2004) #1-6 (an origin retelling), Doctor Strange: The Oath (2006) #1-5 (by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin), and Strange (2010) #1-4 AKA “The Doctor is Out” (by Mark Waid and Emma Rios).

Voting for this book is a voting for a compilation of those 23 issues, at minimum.

Beyond that, this book could also include any or all of Tales of The Marvel Universe (1997) #1 (a brief Dr. Strange & Wong story), Spider-Man: Lifeline (2001) #1-3 (in which Strange co-stars throughout), Witches (2004) #1-4 (because where else will it be collected?), X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl (2006) #1-5 (which stars Strange throughout), Fear Itself: The Deep (2011) #1-4 (a Defenders-esque title starring Strange – could be better in Defenders book), a key guest appearance in S.H.I.E.L.D. (2015) #5-6, plus any key moments from Brian Bendis using Strange in his New Avengers.

Doctor Strange by Aaron Companion (Secret Empire arc, Magic Bullets, Sorcerers Supreme)
The Doctor Strange by Aaron & Bachalo Omnibus collects Doctor Strange (2015) #1-20 & Annual 1 and Doctor Strange: Last Days of Magic. However, there was other Strange material happening to the side of that run and just after it which has not been collected in omnibus.

This book could collect Doctor Strange/Punisher: Magic Bullets (2016) Infinite Comic & #1-4, Doctor Strange and The Sorcerers Supreme (2016) #1-10 by Robbie Thompson & Javier Rodriguez, and Doctor Strange (2015) #20-26 by John Barber – a Secret Empire tie-in arc.

That’s a slim omnibus. I think there are arguments to be made that it could be consolidated into the next option, and if you feel that way I think you should vote boldly for the next option! However, as a poll about preferred books and not preferred maps, I don’t think anything about “Doctor Strange by Donny Cates” communicates that it will also include these 20 issues of material that occur before the start of his run.

Doctor Strange: Damnation (AKA by Donny Cates)
We’ve never had all of Donny Cates’s run on Strange collected in the same place as all of the Damnation mini-event – there’s always something left out!

This would collect Doctor Strange (2015) #381-390 & Doctor Strange: Damnation (2018) #1-4, as well as all of the Damnation tie-ins from Johnny Blaze: Ghost Rider (2018) #1, Iron Fist (2017) #78-80, Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider (2017) #15-17.

That’s 21 issues, some of which are extra-length. We’ve seen slimmer collections of Cates’s material – his name sells books!

Doctor Strange by Mark Waid
This would be a straight-forward collection of Waid’s return to writing Strange in Doctor Strange (2018) #1-20 & Annual 1 and Dr. Strange (2019) #1-6.

It’s a perfect length for a modern omnibus with no additional material required! However, I think many folks would make the argument that buyers would expect this to also include Strange (2010) #1-4 AKA “The Doctor is Out” (by Waid & Emma Rios) and S.H.I.E.L.D. (2015) #5-6 (by Waid & Julian Totino Tedesco).

You’ll notice we left the year range off of this title so this vote can be for whatever map you prefer.

Doctor Strange by Jed McKay (includes Death of Doctor Strange)
We generally tried to avoid including any currently-running books in the poll option, but this run has already accumulated an omnibus-length amount of material!

This would begin by collecting Death of Doctor Strange (2021) #1-5 by Jed MacKay & Lee Garbett plus all of it’s tie-in Death of Doctor Strange one-shots: Avengers (2021) #1, Spider-Man (2021) #1, White Fox (2021) #1, Blade (2021) #1, X-Men/Black Knight (2021) #1, Bloodstone (2022) #1, and Strange Academy Presents: The Death of Doctor Strange (2021) #1.

That has never been collected in one place before and brings us to 12 issues. Then, MacKay wrote an immediate epilogue to that story starring Clea in Strange (2022) #1-10.

Together, they make for a very satisfying 22 issue omnibus telling a complete story. Does it have to end there? It depends on how long MacKay will continue on Doctor Strange (2023) while also writing Moon Knight, Avengers, and X-Men – three of Marvel’s biggest titles! Right now the title is solicited through issue #18 with no signs of it ending, which would make this an increasingly huge omnibus if we hold out for MacKay’s run to end.

Your vote isn’t a vote on where the book would end – only that you definitely want it to begin!