good day, admin! i recently snooped around to look for stephen's backstory in the comics and people seem to dislike his father, eugene strange. is there any reason why?
I believe they dislike Eugene because of a flashback seen in Uncanny Origins #12 (1997). Eugene was portrayed as a very abusive father.
But I REALLY need to explain a few things: in the 90′s, Marvel was a mess. Writers and editors were trying literally anything to save the house of ideas from bankrupt. They tried to retcon Stephen a couple of times and they were quite terrible: first as a modern look who didn’t look like him at all, and the second version as seen in Sorcerer Supreme/Uncanny Origins.
It turns out that J.M. DeMatteis sought to explore Stephen’s past in a similar light to Tony Stark’s and his issue with alcohol, except that in Stephen’s case, he was undermined by Mordo. Basically, out of jealousy once the Ancient One told him that Stephen was the chosen one, Mordo’s astral form sought Stephen when he was just eight and used a psychic construct so Stephen would be able to see terrifying monsters. In order to prevent him from talking about it, Mordo also implanted psychic monoliths on Stephen’s mind, blocking the event but leaving hints that would haunt him forever.
This trauma and the constant fear led him to drink tons and tons of alcohol, to the point of Stephen unconsciously hitting his car into a tree (instead of the usual accident, turrning him into a suicidal).
And I don’t like this retcon at all.
First, because I can’t accept that Stephen’s entire life - and consequent alcoholism - was Mordo’s doing. Second, Lee and Ditko never said he purposefully hit the tree/ fell off a cliff.
Thank the Vishanti they totally forgot about this. It’s true that some writers followed this issue with the alcohol, but nowadays, no one touches the subject because, honestly, it doesn’t make sense to the character. It does for Tony and maybe Carol. Stephen is entirely built on different kinds of vices, such as arrogance, money, sex and luxury.
In fact, he sought alcohol AFTER the accident, because he was out of money and hope to heal his damaged hands.
So, you see, canon is contradictory around the 90′s. I had to explain this issue because, again, in Sorcerer Supreme #86, Stephen tries to apologize to his family for shutting them down when they needed the most.
And we can see Eugene as someone who was loved by Stephen. To be honest, none of the main titles has ever portrayed Eugene was an abusive father, except that very specific one-shot I mentioned.
Is it canon? I don’t know.
Personally, I strongly ignore this retcon from the 90′s. I don’t want Stephen to suffer so I don’t want him to have a terrible family. Don’t get me started with Victor Strange ugh.
I guess that’s all. I apologize if this is confusing, but I really tend to ignore canon when they treat Stephen poorly like that haha. Thank you for passing by!
