The "Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom" graphic novel by Roger Stern, Mike Mignola and Mark Badger that ends this collection was the reason I bought it, and I was not disappointed. Great characterizations, fun premise, and an execution which does not feel dated in spite of the book being from 1990. Sure, the movement of the plot gets a little bland at times, but overall this was a great read, especially for Doctor Doom fans.

The rest (majority) of the collection is comprised of the first 13 issues of the 1988 relaunch of Strange's solo book. While nowhere near the OGN that ends the collection, I must admit I was quite pleased with this. Sure, it reads somewhat dated, with its overly dramatic final panels and hamfisted recaps of plot points in dialogue, but frequently much less so than I would have expected. The art holds up quite well, and the writing -- well, you can feel its age a bit, sure, but mostly I found this to come across in a charming way. The plotting is decent, too, and I find myself curious as to how the story continued after issue 13 (this being an ongoing book at the time, it of course does not resolve every plot by the end of the collection). The main joy of these issues, though, was the backup feature "The Book of the Vishanti", which recaps/elaborates and fills in blanks on various supernatural Marvel Universe history. All in all a decent little tome, and since the thirteen issues were placed before the collection's main attraction, I even got to finish my read with a satisfactory bump in quality. ( )