Nope, not that Doctor Strange! The forty-first issue of Tales of Suspense pits Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, against an evil villain named… Dr. Strange. But it’s not the master of the mystic arts you are thinking of. The Dr. Strange in this issue has a vague ability to control electricity, more from being smart (I think) than anything else.

The issue starts out with Tony on one of his many famous dates, at a charity auction dinner where he has just donated enough money to build a hospital for orphans. Tony’s date (who is never named in the issue) wants to know why he won’t settle down. In response, we get a bunch of flahsback style panels showing Tony working on various scientific projects. In essence, his answer is no wife would want to be married to such a busy guy. And, of course, he also thinks to himself about how he’s not telling her about what he does as Iron Man.

Not only does Tony offer to build a hospital, he also says he can get Iron Man to show up and perform for the kids at the hospital. We see a bunch of panels of Iron Man doing neat tricks with his resistors, juggling cars, catching canon balls and generally doing fun stuff the kids like.

But, as this is happening, a sinister evil we have never encountered before is watching. This is our evil Dr. Strange. This dude seems to be in jail for… reasons? And he was hit by lightning! To fool the guards this guy has been faking that he has fainting spells caused by the lightning that hit him. He can sort of control electricity, I guess. It didn’t seem real clear in the issue.

Anyway, this guy seems to be expecting Iron Man and is able to send out some kind of electrical signal that basically hypnotizes Tony. And soon, Iron Man is busting a bad guy out of prison. Interestingly, when cops and guards see Iron Man, they somehow instantly assume he’s under a spell of some sort, not just turned to the dark side.

We find out that Dr. Strange is essentially trying to take over the world to prove his love for his daughter. Of course, his daughter just wants like a decent person for a dad. Anyway, Dr. Strange demonstrates a bomb and says he’ll blow up the world if he doesn’t get to be ruler. The military tries to bomb the heck out of the guy but he’s got a force field so it’s no good.

Lucky for us, Iron Man is out of his spell. He’s able to figure out a plan to go after Dr. Strange. He gets onto a submarine and launches himself, as Iron man of course, through a torpedo tube at Dr. Strange’s compound. Turns out the force field didn’t go under water.

Iron Man breaks into the compound and there’s a bit of a tussle. Dr. Strange does whatever it is he is able to do to turn off electricity and figures that will kill Iron Man. He almost succeeds but Dr. Strange’s daughter passes Iron Man a flashlight which has some batteries in it. Apparently that’s enough to run the whole Iron Man suit.

And, of course, in the end Iron Man is victorious.

It will still be a couple months before we see the appearance of a Dr. Strange that actually matters but I wonder if the writers here were just testing out the name.

This story is not largely notable in the context of Marvel 616. It does however contrast how Iron Man is perceived by the public with someone like Peter Parker. Tony seems to have everything he could want, including an adoring public, except for a steady girlfriend. The most notable thing here is there is an appearance of J.F.K. and Nikita Kruschev for a very brief cameo.

Still, even though the bad guy’s powers are not well defined, and the story is kind of silly overall, it’s a fairly fun read. It is odd to read about someone called Dr. Strange and not have him be the character we know so well.

Next time we’ll be catching up with the golden haired god of thunder himself as we read about Thor in Journey Into Mystery #93!