Doctor Strange -2016-

[Goaty]

Everpresendict Omnibatch is playing him: Holmes, Smaug, Khan... Where will it end!

Chief Judge Cal...?

[GordonR]

Comics - and especially Marvel comics - in the 1960s (when Strange was created) and 70s weren't subtle, especially when it came to race.  If a character was supposed to be Hispanic, you'd pretty quickly know they were supposed to be Hispanic. 

They'd have a Hispanic name.  They'd speak in a style of written dialogue that would make modern day political correctness crawl off into a ditch to die.  They'd make references to bull fighting or Mexican food or soccer, or anything else a 1970s white, New York (and probably Jewish or Irish-American) comic writer thought Hispanic people were all about.

There's absolutely nothing about Strange that suggests to me he's supposed to be Hispanic.

btw, Sir John Mills (no, really...) played Doctor Strange in a 1978 TV movie.  He wasn't Hispanic, either.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

His name in Spanish would be Esteban Extraño.



That works so well, this is actually approaching such feasibility that I think it should be a thing. The mystical El Médico Extraño with his mysterious paella-based powers.

[GordonR]

btw, Sir John Mills (no, really...) played Doctor Strange in a 1978 TV movie.  He wasn't Hispanic, either.

Actually, I take that back.  Mills played Strange's old Sorcerer Supreme mentor.  Strange was played by actor Peter Hooten, who still doesn't sound Hispanic.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Enough of this glorious Hispanic toss I've spotted something pretty bloody major in one of the screencaps:

[Bat King]

That's a good point that my 10 year old self didn't spot. Yeah I read Powerman and Ironfist around that she too... (same UK reprint title maybe? I think I Defenders had their own title but a quick search suggests it was called Rampage). Luke didn't talk like Danny. But I thought Danny was Chinese.

OK Gordon wins... my 10 year old self was some sort of crazy odd ball. Imagine that.

[TordelBack]

Comics - and especially Marvel comics - in the 1960s (when Strange was created) and 70s weren't subtle, especially when it came to race.  If a character was supposed to be Hispanic, you'd pretty quickly know they were supposed to be Hispanic. 

They'd have a Hispanic name.  They'd speak in a style of written dialogue that would make modern day political correctness crawl off into a ditch to die.  They'd make references to bull fighting or Mexican food or soccer, or anything else a 1970s white, New York (and probably Jewish or Irish-American) comic writer thought Hispanic people were all about.

There's absolutely nothing about Strange that suggests to me he's supposed to be Hispanic.

btw, Sir John Mills (no, really...) played Doctor Strange in a 1978 TV movie.  He wasn't Hispanic, either.

There's no argument there, but there's no chance 9 year-old me was aware of any of that. I was too busy wondering what the bullpen,'third rail' and Irving Forbush might be. As far as I was concerned modern magic in the Americas came from the Caribbean, Haiti or San Monique, or one of those, so if you weren't a black Voodoo priest you were a mysterious Spanish or Portugeuse (maybe even French, who knew) dude. Magic wasn't for white folk, that was guns and gyrocopters, possibly jetpacks.

[Hawkmumbler]

btw, Sir John Mills (no, really...) played Doctor Strange in a 1978 TV movie.  He wasn't Hispanic, either.

Actually, I take that back.  Mills played Strange's old Sorcerer Supreme mentor.  Strange was played by actor Peter Hooten, who still doesn't sound Hispanic.

Hush now, we promised never to speak of that...thing, ever again.

It is buried now, alongside the Reb Brown Cap. America movies.

[I, Cosh]

Comics - and especially Marvel comics - in the 1960s (when Strange was created) and 70s weren't subtle, especially when it came to race.  If a character was supposed to be Hispanic, you'd pretty quickly know they were supposed to be Hispanic. 

They'd have a Hispanic name.  They'd speak in a style of written dialogue that would make modern day political correctness crawl off into a ditch to die.  They'd make references to bull fighting or Mexican food or soccer, or anything else a 1970s white, New York (and probably Jewish or Irish-American) comic writer thought Hispanic people were all about.

There's absolutely nothing about Strange that suggests to me he's supposed to be Hispanic.

btw, Sir John Mills (no, really...) played Doctor Strange in a 1978 TV movie.  He wasn't Hispanic, either.

There's no argument there, but there's no chance 9 year-old me was aware of any of that. I was too busy wondering what the bullpen,'third rail' and Irving Forbush might be. As far as I was concerned modern magic in the Americas came from the Caribbean, Haiti or San Monique, or one of those, so if you weren't a black Voodoo priest you were a mysterious Spanish or Portugeuse (maybe even French, who knew) dude. Magic wasn't for white folk, that was guns and gyrocopters, possibly jetpacks.

What about Gandalf?

[Jim_Campbell]

What about Gandalf?

Sounds a bit like Ganja. Clearly West Indian. Until Tolkien-The-Racist turned him into Gandalf the White, obviously.

Cheers!

Jim

[ThryllSeekyr]

I think magic came from the old world!

[I, Cosh]

Arf!

[ThryllSeekyr]

More pictures.....

They call this part of his Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich-Village New-York and after his accident.

[TordelBack]

I think magic came from the old world!

Well that's the thing - in my childhood head there was old world 'medieval' magic, which was wise white folk like Merlin, Gandalf, Dalben, Sparrowhawk* and, errr, Aslan, then there was scary modern magic, which was Voodoo, maybe She, ouija boards and the Antichrist (I'd yet to see Temple of Doom). Dr Strange belonged to the latter camp, and thus was tied in with Live and Let Die and the confusing world of the Caribbean in general. 

Not suggesting my worldview was particularly subtle or informed, but then I did grow up in a virtual monoculture.

*LeGuin disagrees with me here.

[M.I.K.]

It's actually (mainly) yer faux-Oriental Madame Blavatsky style Theosophical Shangri-La guff like in The Champions.