With each new movie based on a popular comic book property comes a flood of new and enticing merchandise. Hell, it's most of the reason these movies even exist! It's also probably part of the reason Marvel in particular works so hard in the modern age to create universe-spanning continuity in their superhero movies. After all, everyone knows you can't play with the toys (or equally likely nowadays, display them behind glass where children can't touch them) correctly if you don't collect 'em all.

My favorite part of these merchandising bonanzas, though, is that they virtually always seem to include a reissue of some prior—and most often, much less successful—attempt to bring the character to the screen. If you grew up loving comics for their trashy surreality, these cheaply produced, deeply flawed movies are often an even greater treasure than the high-gloss spectacles of today: sure, they couldn't possibly capture the hallucinatory otherworlds of the comics, but their attempts to do so are strangely endearing (this isn't even the first time I've talked about this phenomenon: please see my measured praise for the largely disastrous, but fascinating, 1990 attempt at a Captain America film).

The mystical world of 'Doctor Strange' is a somewhat dubious choice for a modern Marvel movie, but it was in some ways even stranger in the late 1970s.

One such film, due out on DVD for the first time this November from the fine folk at Shout Factory, is the 1978 TV adaptation of Doctor Strange (its release conveniently timed in tandem with Marvel's much-anticipated bid to revive the property, due out this week). The mystical world of Doctor Strange is a somewhat dubious choice for a modern Marvel movie—though who am I to question their judgment, given that they made a wildly successful property out of former also-ran heroes Guardians of the Galaxy?—but it was in some ways even stranger in the late 1970s. The comic's visual world is vast and dreamy, with much of its storyline taking place on the astral plane. That's not an easy thing to conjure even now, but it was basically impossible in 1978. As such, the results of this earlier effort are deliriously campy and, indeed, strange.

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Save for Arrested Development's Jessica Walter as villainous sorceress Morgan Le Fay, this early version of Doctor Strange features no actors that would be considered a name today. Peter Hooten plays the title role as a saucy ladies man, a smooth-talking MD who's sick of the institution keeping him down. Early in the film, a forever-relapsing alcoholic is invited to bed down in the hospital for the night by Strange without any other medical consultation, serving to establish that he's a scamp with heart. The brass may not like it, but it's just what's decent, dammit!

Little does Strange know, he's about to get dragged into something with far heavier implications than ill-considered prescriptions, like the eternal battle between good and evil. On one side, there's Morgan Le Fay, the ageless sorceress sent from Hell; on the other, the ailing Sorcerer Supreme Lindmer (John Mills), who must recruit and train Strange to take his place in three days before Le Fay can get to either of them. After an aborted attempt by Le Fay to take care of business in the civilian realm via possessing a young co-ed (who becomes Strange's love interest, natch), the action inevitably spills over into a gauzy astral plane that looks like something Kubrick may've made had he ever had a budget in the $700 range.

Basically, the whole thing reeks of hot, greasy cheese, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I know I'll get some feisty dweebs in the comments wanting to pillory me for having an opinion, but I maintain that this is how comic movies should be: cheap, silly, dreamy, and disposable, just like the comics themselves. It's the kind of thing a kid would love but only half-understand, something to watch before naptime. It won't matter if you fall asleep, because you'll watch it again and again, regardless of the fact that it's maybe not that awesome (how worn out was my VHS copy of the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends pilot, I wonder?). It ain't art, but it doesn't pretend to be, and if you accept it for what it is, you're in for a fine piece of cinematic trash.

Hey, and speaking of trash: as I was writing this piece, a pal of mine who rolls even deeper into the nerd world than myself let me know that 1970s toy giant Mego had planned a Doctor Strange doll to tie in with this film, but were forced to scrap plans after the movie utterly tanked. Since they had already started manufacturing sculpted heads of the character, though, they ended up having to recycle those Strange heads for a Jordache jeans fashion doll a few years later. Makes sense, really: you'd have to be a Sorcerer Supreme to make some of those mid-1980s denim cuts flattering. Now, who says there's no magic left in this world?

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