Before we start that though, here's Doctor Strange's Astrological Chart. Well I think it's interesting. I can't determine exactly who established Doctor Strange's date of birth. Maybe it was Stan Lee but my hunch is Steve Englehart who had a short but significant run on the title.
Rising Sign is in 08 Degrees Aquarius
Sun is in 25 Degrees Scorpio.
Moon is in 03 Degrees Scorpio.
Mercury is in 02 Degrees Sagittarius.
Venus is in 02 Degrees Sagittarius.
Mars is in 11 Degrees Leo.
Jupiter is in 20 Degrees Cancer.
Saturn is in 08 Degrees Capricorn.
Uranus is in 11 Degrees Aries.
Neptune is in 05 Degrees Virgo.
Pluto is in 20 Degrees Cancer.
N. Node is in 23 Degrees Aries.
So was this purposeful? I'm certain that making Doctor Strange a Scorpio was. Scorpio is the sign governing the occult. Though it may be accidental it is interesting that his Moon is also in Scorpio and that his Rising Sign is Aquarius.
When it comes to super hero comic book Doctor characters with esoteric significance it does not get much more blatant then the Silver Age Flash Rogue Doctor Alchemy, created by writer John Broome and illustrator Carmine Infantino. He first appeared as Mister Element in "Showcase" #13, March 1958. By his second appearance in issue #14 he had somehow made or gained possession of the Philosopher's Stone and changed his identity to Doctor Alchemy.
Art by Mike Vosburg
Albert Desmond was described as having a multiple personality disorder, like the Batman villain Two Face, one a normal law abiding citizen and the other a grandiose, amoral super villain. This makes Doctor Alchemy another example of an Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy figure as well as symbolically representing Mercury's periodic retrograde action. The identity issues are compounded for Albert Desmond. While in criminal mode he was prone to act as either of his identities, Doctor Alchemy or Mister Element. At one point the shift from mild-mannered Albert Desmond to Mister Element was induced through hypnosis by the Reverse Flash, Professor Zoom. It was discovered that the fluctuating personalities were being caused by the pulsations of a distant star called the Dragon's Eye, giving the character a very overt astrological connotation. At a later point it was revealed that Albert Desmond had a "psychic twin", a man who by chance was born at the exact same moment as Albert and was coincidentally named Alvin Desmond. The Gemini referential Twin symbol is a major esoteric element.
Inherently evil, Alvin Desmond felt his sinister urges wane during the periods of time when Albert Desmond was operating as Mister Element or Doctor Alchemy. When with the Flash's help Albert finally shed himself of his evil side, the sociopathic traits fully returned to Alvin. Through the psychic connection Alvin was able to locate the Philosophers Stone and became a new Doctor Alchemy.
The DC Comics' version of the Philosophers Stone is highly powerful, capable of transmuting any element into another, and in complex combinations. For example, at one time Doctor Alchemy was able to instantly transform all the elements composing the body of the Flash into water vapor (he got better).
Art by Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko. Cool.
It is commonly presented that the Fantastic Four were the first Marvel super heroes of the Silver Age. In fact that honor belongs to yet another mystical Doctor, the character that would come to be known as Doctor Druid. In June of 1961, nearly half a year before the first issue of "The Fantastic Four", a Lee and Kirby character called Doctor Droom was introduced in "Amazing Adventures" #1. It is understandable that Druid/Droom is often overlooked. The character disappeared after six issues when the title was reformatted as "Amazing Adult Fantasy" and he did not resurface again until the '70s in the pages of "The Incredible Hulk". At that point the obscure Doctor Droom was rechristened Doctor Druid in order to avoid confusion with Doctor Doom.
Art by Al Milgrom. The costume says it all.
Doctor Anthony Ludgate Druid (Lud = Light) was a psychiatrist and occult expert who was summoned by a Tibetan lama who had traveled to the United States seeking medical treatment. The lama put Druid through a spiritual test to ascertain his worthiness, and finding him so, untapped the potentials of his mind and trained him in mystic arts. Druid possessed telepathy and a degree of magical power with his primary ability being hypnosis and other feats of mesmerism. He was also described as being a descendant of the legendary Irish bard Amergin. Despite his place in the Marvel history books, Doctor Druid has been treated rather shabbily. He did serve as an Avenger for a short time in the mid-eighties, but he was mind controlled by Ravonna, at the time impersonating Nebula. When Ravonna was cast into Marvel's multi-functional Limbo Doctor Druid followed her (a rather tongue-in-cheek exit for the character). He later returned and headed a new group of Defenders, but was again brainwashed, this time by a demon called Slorioth. Druid went insane and was eventually killed by Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan. He's still dead.
Professor Power first appeared in "Marvel Team-Up" #117, May 1982. Created by writer J. M. DeMatteis and illustrator Herb Trimbe, Anthony Power was a prominent historian, university professor and an adviser to four Presidents. Ultra-patriotic, Power was devastated when his son Matthew returned from Vietnam virtually brain dead. Power had an epiphany, deciding that the cure for America's social ills was for the nation to be ruled by by a single, worthy individual. He organized an underground network of like-minded individuals who funded Power's elaborate, high-tech plot. He further hired former agents of the CIA, FBI, SHIELD, and AIM to serve as his private army, arming them with lasers and flying chariots and dressing them like ancient Roman soldiers (making his organization very similar to the Golden Age Doctor Light's Roman criminal underground). In his first appearance Professor Power abducted and tested his soldiers and equipment against the Mugwump Spider-Man and the Dionysian Wolverine (see Mystos Mustela).
Art by Herb Trimpe.
In issue #118 Professor Power was the villain in a team-up of Spider-Man and Professor X. A few months later, in a Marvel Team-Up between Spider-Man and the blue ape-man Beast, Professor Power clad his brain-dead son in a super suit of high-tech armor and transposed his own mind into his son's body, making him a very strange gestalt entity. Speaking of gestalts, I find the symbolic potential of team-up titles like "Marvel Team-Up", "Marvel Two-In-One", "DC Comics Presents", certain runs of "The Brave and the Bold" and even the singular teaming of Superman/Batman in "World's Finest" to have great symbolic potentials.
Art by Kerry Gammill
When it comes to mythological resonance and sheer weirdness underlying symbolism, Wonder Woman is in a league of her own. Towards the end of the sixties Wonder Woman went through a "mod" period. Phase shift is not something that should be unexpected in a lunar goddess character named Diana. Wonder Woman revoked her godly powers and gained a spiritual martial arts mentor by the name of I Ching. The Wonder Woman adventures of this era were more espionage-adventure oriented, channeling elements of shows like "The Avengers" and the James Bond films. It was during this period, in "Wonder Woman" #179, November 1968 , that the super villain Doctor Cyber was introduced.
Art by Mike Sekowsky
Created by Sekowsky with writer Dennis O'Neil, Doctor Cyber is the head of a SPECTER-like international crime cartel. Amongst their crimes was an attack on I Ching's monastery. During a plot involving an earth-quake making device as a means to blackmail the world, Doctor Cyber was severely disfigured by an urn of hot coals, which she naturally blamed on Wonder Woman. In a later storyline Wonder Woman and detective Jonny Double investigated an organization called The Tribunal, which was revealed as a cover for a scheme by Cyber to find a suitable woman into whom she could have her brain transplanted. In the course of this story she attempted to have the procedure performed on Wonder Woman with the assistance of the Batman criminal brain surgeon Doctor Moon (created by O'Neal and artist Irv Novick and first appearing in "Batman" #240, March 1972). I find the alchemical/astronomical connotations underlying this plot line, including the use of Jonny Double and Doctor Moon, to be quite obvious. As a super scientific international crime cartel ring leader Doctor Cyber has access to all the typical paraphernalia, from rocket sleds to mind control serum.
Art by Harry G. Peter
Another female comic book Doctor is the Wonder Woman villain Doctor Poison. First appearing in February 1942's "Sensation Comics" #2, Doctor Poison was the product of Wonder Woman creator Doctor William Moulton Marston (who was as strange as any of his characters) and illustrator Harry G. Peter. The alchemical connotations of evil chemist Doctor Poison are apparent on a surface level. She was introduced as an Axis spy in charge of the "Nazi Poison Division" with a plot to contaminate the U.S. Army's water supply with the chemical Reverso, which would cause the soldiers to do the opposite of what they were ordered. In 1943 she reemerged as the "Chemical Research Chief" of Japan. Dr. Poison's hood and mask hides not just her identity but her gender as well. It was eventually revealed that she was the beautiful Japanese Princess Maru. At one point Dr. Poison was sent to the Amazon penal colony Transformation Island, but it didn't take. She escaped and in 1948 teamed with seven other female villains to form Villainy Inc. in "Wonder Woman" #28.
Art by Harry G. Peter
What a wonderful team, a former gorilla turned giantess, an Atlantean Queen, a Snow Man, Dr. Poison, a hypnotic magician of the "Blue Ray", a Priestess of the "Crimson Flame" and the Dionysian split-personality sufferer Cheetah. The leader, unidentified in this panel, is Eviless, a slaver from (naturally) the planet Saturn. Including Dr. Poison, three members of the team were women disguised as men.
Art by Harry G. Peter
Sticking with Golden Age Wonder Woman, Marston and Peter, we have the telepathic dwarf Doctor Psycho who first appeared in "Wonder Woman" #5, July 1943. Psycho was presented as a sociopathic, misogynistic con-artist occultist. He is originally employed by The Duke of Deception.
Art by Harry G. Peter
The Duke was a minion of the war god Mars. Mars blamed women for preventing the world from completely engulfing in endless warfare (this was during World War II). Doctor Psycho was wrongly convicted of a robbery due to the testimony of his former fiancee, Marva Jane Gray. This led to him developing a psychopathic hatred of all women. After his release Psycho tortured and brainwashed Marva and utilized her as his guinea pig for occult experiments. He discovered he could use Marva to produce "ectoplasm" which Psycho could mentally shape. In a plot to remove women from the war effort Psycho generated a false spirit of George Washington as part of a highly bizarre smear campaign.
In Part One of this series I discussed Doctor Who's connection to the Marvel Universe and the company's propensity at one time to include licensed properties they published titles about within the confines of their super hero reality. This was the case with Marvel's late seventies series "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" which ran for 24 issues. During this run Godzilla encountered the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Spider-Man. There was even a branch of SHIELD developed specifically to deal with Godzilla. Apparently a "mutated" version (due to the licensing agreement long expiring) of the monster appeared in a Marvel publication as recently as last year. As with Doctor Who, characters that started in the Godzilla series had further lives beyond the parent title including the manga-inspired giant robot Red Ronin and the super villain Doctor Demonicus.
Art by Tom Christopher
Obviously influenced by Doctor Doom, Doctor Demonicus, with his Toho monster movie trappings, is also very similar to Doctor Cyber. He was introduced in "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" #4, November 1977 as a doctor specializing in genetic engineering, Douglas Birley purposefully exposed himself to radiation in an attempt to induce mutation and generate super powers. It didn't work, instead giving him severe skin cancer, a condition he controled with his costume, naturally. He later acquired a radioactive meteor called "the Lifestone" that he utilized to transform animals into giant monsters. He crafted the Lifestone into a transport as a mobile power source for his creations. While Godzilla fought the monsters SHIELD agent Gabriel Jones subdued Doctor Demonicus.
Later Demonicus worked with the alien sorceror Maur-Kan against another Marvel licensed property, the Shogun Warriors. Years later he showed up in "West Coast Avengers" where he created his own volcanic island which he named Demonica and won UN membership. During this time he was under the control of a demon called Raksasa, named for demons from Hindu mythology.
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