Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange made his debut in Strange Tales #110 not long after Vincent Price played the sorcerer Dr. Erasmus Craven in The Raven (1963). Though it was more Price himself than the character he played, the source of inspiration was clear (not that there was ever a difference). The actor Stephen Vincent Strange is honored by the full name of the character, Doctor Strange. Price was aware of the homage because he later voiced a Doctor Strange parody in a Scooby Doo episode.

Though it's likely that Vincent Price wasn't the only source of inspiration for the character. The Sorcerer Supreme's past was revealed in Strange Tales #115. Additionally, it is remarkably similar to that of Lobsang Rampa, a spiritual teacher and best-selling autobiographist who rose to fame in the late 1950s. Both Strange and Rampa were talented surgeons; they both received their medical education in Tibet (Strange under the Ancient One, Rampa under the Dalai Lama); they both acquired astral projection (even describing it in similar ways); and they both learned how to open the third eye. They both had a mystical orb, and they both wore circular amulets.

They were both wholly fictional, though Strange was more forthright about it. Rampa's novels sold millions of copies before he was shown to be a hoax. The author, a clerk from rural England who had never even visited Tibet, went by the name Cyril Hoskins.

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First appearance: Strange Tales #110 (July 1963)
Created by: Steve Ditko