Doctor Strange is no one without the Ancient One.
The character is now known for Tilda Swinton's gender-swapped portrayal in the MCU, but he
has decades of comic-book history that predate her offbeat incarnation.
A lot of classic comic book heroes aren't as old as we think they are.
Storm, for example, is a huge part of the X-Men, but she was first introduced over a
decade after the first X-Men comics hit the stands.
It's actually pretty rare that the most iconic parts of a superhero's world are present at
the start.
The Ancient One, on the other hand, has been a part of Doctor Strange's story from the
very beginning.
"Thank you, Ancient One, for seeing me."
"You're very welcome."
The Ancient One made his debut in the same story that introduced the Sorcerer Supreme,
in 1963's Strange Tales #110, when Strange visits "the Master," who sits alone in a hidden
temple somewhere in "the remote vastness of Asia."
Later, he lends Strange some of his power, and with that, their relationship is established:
old man and young, teacher and pupil, a sorcerer and his successor.
For a very long time, that first appearance gave us virtually all we knew about the Ancient
One, but in 1966, Denny O'Neil and Bill Everettl plumbed the depths of his fathomless soul
in Strange Tales #148's "The Origin of The Ancient One!"
It turned out that the Ancient One wasn't born magical.
Five hundred years in the past, he was a simple farmer in the Himalayas, living a peaceful,
idyllic life, but that wasn't enough for the unnamed youth who would become the Ancient
One, or his friend Kaluu.
Together, they would delve into the supernatural, one towards enlightenment, the other to domination
and conquest.
The resulting conflict would destroy their homeland, and five centuries later, they would
meet again to settle their ancient scores.
Fortunately for the world, only one of them had Doctor Strange on his side.
Can the Ancient One die?
It's a tough question, but we've seen it happen in the MCU, so what about the comics?
Is this Master of the Mystic Arts truly immortal?
In 1973, we found out once and for all, and the answer is…sort of?
Death is already a pretty weird concept in comics, and it only gets weirder if you're
an immortal being whose powers spread beyond the mortal plane.
The closest the Ancient One has come was a storyline in the pages of Marvel Premiere
that saw the eldritch being known as Shuma-Gorath invading the Ancient One's mind.
The Ancient One commands Doctor Strange to destroy his mentor's mortal form, condemning
him to death while trapping Shuma-Gorath and saving the world.
Strange does, but then a spectral version of the Ancient One informs his grieving student
that he is "more than alive" now that he has become "one with the universe."
In true comic book fashion, death wasn't the end for the Ancient One, but his return to
the mortal world was a little rougher than most.
In a 1977 storyline called "The Return of the Ancient One," Doctor Strange's all-powerful
mentor does indeed come back to life as a side-effect of one of Strange's many battles
against unknowable cosmic horrors.
He's not the regular Ancient One, though.
This time, he's back as a down-on-his-luck alcoholic, using his magic to ensure an ever-flowing
supply of alcohol.
Strange eventually discovered the Ancient One in an alley, casting petty spells on those
who intrude upon his drunken stupor, yanked from his eternal rest in a "soul shattering"
transformation.
Disoriented, he took refuge in a mortal shell and drank to dull the shock of his rude awakening
and maintain his powers.
Naturally, Doctor Strange saves the day and the Ancient One is able to shuffle off the
mortal coil once more, "to be one with the universe."
But for a moment, he had to be mortal again, a despairing, all-too-human mortal without
the power of the cosmos at his fingers.
It's a lesson he and Strange never forget.
Despite the fact that the character has almost 50 years of comics behind him, most people
will know the Ancient One as an ageless Celtic woman played by Tilda Swinton.
This is not, however, the only time the Ancient One has made the leap from the page to the
screen.
The first came in 1978, as part of the failed pilot turned TV movie version of Dr. Strange.
Here, the Ancient One was a bodiless entity voiced by actor Michael Ansara.
The Ancient One next appeared in the 1990s Spider-Man: The Animated Series, where he
featured briefly in an episode titled, you guessed it, "Doctor Strange."
Most recently in animation, he was part of the 2007 Marvel animated feature Doctor Strange:
Sorcerer Supreme.
Perhaps his most notable recent adaptation, however, comes from his place in the Marvel
video games, particularly 2006's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.
He only appears as a fogged image in a mirror in Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, but he actually
speaks with multiple characters.
Too bad for him that one of them is Deadpool.
"Who dares disturb my meditation?"
"Grampy!
Is that you?"
So, we've learned that the Ancient One is boundlessly powerful, to the point that not
even death has a hold on him.
We've learned that he's such a huge part of Stephen Strange's story that when the good
doctor appears in movies, cartoons, or video games, the Ancient One usually shows up too.
We've learned that his expertise came at a terrible price he can never truly repay.
"Yes, but you're leaving out the most important part."
What haven't we learned?
His name.
Despite the many aspects of the Ancient One that have changed with the times, he's never
been given a name beyond his title.
The official Marvel website and the comics refer to him only as "a youth" in the past
and "the Ancient One" in the present.
Whoever he was, he isn't any longer.
And he's pretty okay with that.
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