I can't help but notice that Red Skull isn't involved at all in this. Guess the others (wisely) decided to leave him out, tell him the meeting is the next day while doing everything without his disruptions.
Under normal circumstances, Magneto should instantly win against Spider-man. Peter might not wear armor like Tony, but his Web-Shooters could become shackles with the Master of Magnetism around, or worse, they could be used to crush his wrists.
Thirty-six hours later, after taking a hidden underground railroad, Castle and Microchip arrive at the Austrian-Latverian border - because apparently the country has wildly changed locations again, somehow moving from east of Hungary to bordering Austria. How does that even happen?
An undercover Loki checks into the room with the villainous round table and sees that there's nobody there. He slams the door and informs Doom of this, who thanks him for his invaluable help over these last few weeks. Doom explains that he has two days left to deal with the Punisher - all his recent wrangling with Avengers has been costly. Why, if he hadn't thought of it himself, he's not sure he'd even bother with these Acts of Vengeance at all! The minion declares his Master's plan is brilliant - even if wiping them out might fail, the Superpowers Registration Act would cripple their ability to harass Doom. With Avengers island destroyed and public outcries rising, clearly Doom is teaching everyone to respect him! Doom agrees, but he's fixated on the Punisher for the moment, and tells his minion to find him, soon. This has all gone on quite long enough!
They then fly away, off to deal with some more Acts of Vengeance - the ones in Fantastic Four, to be specific. So I guess that means this is the Doombot that gets blown up in that series then!
The worse part, of course, is that Typhoid Mary starts using her weird mental abilities on Doom, apparently without him noticing, and causes him to not only relive parts of his childhood and the death of his father, but causes him to go melancholy and regretful about what happened in his life. Hell, she causes Doom to doubt himself. Except how does any of that make sense? Not only does Doom have a famously unbreakable will which can resist the direct influence of the Purple Man at point blank range, and he'd never permit anyone to use the fate of his family against him - or even learn of relevant events without forethought, as demonstrated in Triumph and Torment - but there's no way he'd let this stand. Typhoid Mary laughs at him to his face, claims she's got one over on Doom, and then leaves. Doom doesn't even look after her, much less pursue her or kill her for what she's just done to him. What the hell is this?
Clearly a Doombot. If he didn't bother with the main event planning or the Fantastic Four sideshow there's no way Doom mucked about with Typhoid Mary and whoever. A particularly crappy model, too. Hmm. Maybe another Doombotbot?
The whole event, taking into account the anti-climax that was the Spider-Man saga and the fact that Doom spent most of it being a Doombot, gets a downgrade from there.
Doom saw ahead of time how mediocre this event would be, decided he had better things to do, and let his minions take care of it without him bothering to get involved.
They still had more success than most of the other villains present is the tragic thing.
I can't help but notice that Red Skull isn't involved at all in this. Guess the others (wisely) decided to leave him out, tell him the meeting is the next day while doing everything without his disruptions.
Under normal circumstances, Magneto should instantly win against Spider-man. Peter might not wear armor like Tony, but his Web-Shooters could become shackles with the Master of Magnetism around, or worse, they could be used to crush his wrists.
If you're curious, here's the basics on what happens to Red Skull due to the events of Acts of Vengeance, since I never really elaborated on it beyond a brief note:
First, after meeting Red Skull as part of the prime movers of the conspiracy, Magneto wants to know if he's the same Skull who was with the Nazis in World War Two, which the Skull readily admits when questioned about it in Captain America v1 #367. When asked what he has to say for himself, Skull stalls by giving him a 'We're not really so different' speech, since both of them want to see their respective 'master race' inherit the Earth. Yeeeah. Long story short, it doesn't work, they fight, the Skull tries to get away but fails, and the issue ends with this page:
Yeah, ouch. Magneto pretending like he's better and then starving a man to death...
Anyway, about eight IRL weeks pass before Skull reappears in Captain America v1 #369 in a backup story. It begins with the Skull still sitting in the darkness, eyes closed. According to the captions time no longer has any meaning for him, along with light and sound; the only things real to him are the darkness surrounding him and his hunger. He has given up trying to guess how long he's been locked away. He has given up trying to leap for the trap door, since no matter how hard he tries he cannot reach it. He has given up screaming, pacing, beating his fists on the wall, and by now he isn't even bothering to drink the water left for him by Magneto.
Jesus Christ. Sensory deprivation is beginning to take its toll on the Skull, who first thinks he hears a ringing sound, then scraping noises above him, and finally a voice saying his name. He hallucinates the image of his father, who promptly tells him that there's only one way out of this that he should be considering: suicide. As Skull desperately shouts after his father, he curses himself for falling for tricks of the mind.
Moments later he sees in front of him the toes of a pair of jackboots, and a voice orders him to 'Lick them, lackey!' He looks up into the face of Adolf Hitler, who tells him that Skull twisted the Nazi dream to his own selfish purposes before abandoning it entirely. Hitler says that he's heard the Skull now considers himself the very embodiment of human evil, and contemptuously tells him he's nothing more than a pretender. A pretender who will never be anything more than what Hitler made him! He will never surpass his master, and is nothing more than a lowly bellhop. Hitler then hits Skull in the face with a riding crop, because why not? Adolf then turns his back on the Skull and walks away, remarking that he committed suicide in a bunker very much like this one, and that he thinks the Skull will do the same. Like master, like pupil.
After Hitler leaves, Skull shouts that he flatters himself, that he was a pathetic teacher and a pompous speech-maker. The Skull taught himself everything he needed to know, he cries. He is his own master! But then he hears another voice. A voice telling him he was a bad son, a bad pupil, and also... a bad father. His daughter Sin emerges from the darkness. (Because of course that's her name.) She could have been his greatest achievement and legacy, she says, if not for the Skull resenting her for being born female and all but abandoning her. He had others raise her, with her barely seeing him for five minutes a week. When she wasn't strapped into one of his machines, she was enduring 'every imaginable sort of abuse' from the people he left her with. She figures Skull probably thought that neglect would build character, the same way that neglect had built his. But she still hates him for it. She tells him he will die soon, down here, and then everything he owns will become hers. She puts a shard of glass in his hand, slicing it open, and encourages him to use the "present" she has given him.
After Sin is gone too, Skull wonders how he can feel the shard in his hand when it's just a hallucination. That's when a new voice arrives - that of Arnim Zola, who tells him the other voices had a point. He tells Skull he shouldn't waste any more time - he should go and die, because Zola has another clone body ready for his consciousness to transfer into upon the demise of his current body. And hey, the new one will be better, with a fixed face and everything! Zola admits that there's 'a little loss of fidelity' after every transfer, but the Skull surely won't notice any difference. As Zola says he has to get back to his lab, the Skull cries after him that he doesn't understand what he's asking; as he knows from the last time, dying is agony! Zola responds by saying that death's the only way he's ever going to get out of his prison...
That's when the last voice arrives - belonging to the one who hates Skull most of all. Captain America. He tells Skull he's the most despicable, lowly human being on the planet - but someone has to be. If it wasn't Skull, it'd be someone else. And imaginary Cap tells him that for all his crimes against humanity, he doesn't want Skull dead - no, he wants him alive to face justice after he's finally caught. Death in this hellhole isn't justice - it's vengeance. Cap tells him not to listen to the other voices, not to succumb to despair - sooner or later someone will rescue him. Skull shouts for him to shut up, hateful that even in this moment Cap has to show up and care. Still, Skull lets Cap have the win, and agrees not to kill himself. Who knows, maybe he'll also win that way? It's strange, being on the same side...
The voices fade, and Skull remains in the darkness, his hatred and sheer force of will keeping him going in the desolation.
Skull's allies have no luck tracking him or Magneto down until Crossbones remembers a psychic he met during an earlier story arc, which he does in Captain America v1 #370. They pay him a visit and pay him a bunch of cash to locate the Skull for them. They make it clear that turning down the job is not an option if he wants to remain healthy, though. Sure enough he leads them to the spot where the hidden cellar is, and they discover Skull - insensate and frail. When they ask him what they are to do, Skull just looks at them with broken eyes and tells them to take him home to die which... isn't too encouraging.
They bring him to Skullhouse - because of course that's where he lives. One of his allies, Mother Night, says they need to get him in bed and have him treated for dehydration and who knows what else, but Crossbones insists on giving him a tour of the house first to remind him of all of his accomplishments. It's his spirit that needs restoration before his body. They show him a bunch of random references to old stories, and finally some life returns to Skull's eyes - and he tells his allies he wants to see Captain America one last time before the end. He fades into unconsciousness and his allies wonder if he's gone around the bend - but he's the boss, they have to follow his orders!
They lure Cap to Skullhouse with an anonymous tip to his hotline - how very early 90's! Diamondback insists on going there with him. Shortly after arriving the two of them have to fight to survive against some traps and hostile robots, with cameras catching all of it for the Skull to watch in his bedroom. Eventually Cap gets to the wounded Skull, who was ready to die but is fired up by seeing his hated enemy again in the flesh. He tells Cap he's done all he needs to - they'll battle gain some other day. Cap wonders what the hell happened, and he gets the cliff-notes about Magneto burying him alive, but Skull fades back to sleep before he can finish the explanation.
Cap decides to leave, and while his ally demands to know why they're not busting this big-time villain while he's basically on his deathbed, Captain America muses that those eyes were far too familiar - far too devoid of emotion to be anyone else's but the Red Skull's. He finally, finally admits that he's been kidding himself thinking this was some copycat carrying on from his old nemesis - no, the original Red Skull lives!
Cap decides to leave, and while his ally demands to know why they're not busting this big-time villain while he's basically on his deathbed, Captain America muses that those eyes were far too familiar - far too devoid of emotion to be anyone else's but the Red Skull's. He finally, finally admits that he's been kidding himself thinking this was some copycat carrying on from his old nemesis - no, the original Red Skull lives!
Yes, well, don't ask me what his reasons are - he doesn't elaborate. Although I guess he might've figured out that the people around them are actually Skull's allies undercover and if they got into a fight it'd become a problem of two vs. a bunch of villains.
Ooh, bonus non-Doom story. I knew about Magneto locking Red Skull up to die a slow death, I just didn't realize it had already happened before or during those Doom faffing about with other heroes stories of the event.
Ooh, bonus non-Doom story. I knew about Magneto locking Red Skull up to die a slow death, I just didn't realize it had already happened before or during those Doom faffing about with other heroes stories of the event.
It's variously during or shortly after some of those events, since it was published in February 1990 - but it's hard to tell what the exact sequence of events is chronologically throughout the various comics. Magneto just sort of disappears and shows up in Cap to explain what he was up to in the second half of the event, more as a retcon I think than an actual part of Acts of Vengeance originally. It's a messy story as a whole, so not a big surprise there I think...
It seems our next couple stories are pretty brief ones, by the way - an eight page story with Storm, a fifteen or so one with Volcana, a bizarre Impossible Man thing, and then a Kristoff tale featuring weird Canadian superheroes like a hockey-themed hero named Puck and several different guys and gals in maple leaf costumes. Also Bigfoot.
It seems our next couple stories are pretty brief ones, by the way - an eight page story with Storm, a fifteen or so one with Volcana, a bizarre Impossible Man thing, and then a Kristoff tale featuring weird Canadian superheroes like a hockey-themed hero named Puck and several different guys and gals in maple leaf costumes. Also Bigfoot.
The most important thing about Alpha Flight is probably their links to other Marvel notables, namely Wolverine and Hulk. Wolverine's obvious, but Sasquatch is the one who set the precedent for Gamma bombs tearing open holes to demonic dimensions, which became central to the Hulk as of Immortal Hulk (which is a pretty fun little series as far as I've read in it, as long as you can tolerate a bit of body horror).
I vaguely remember they might be tied to Dani Moonstar, too.
Marvel Comics Presents is, as the name would suggest, something of an anthology book that just has a bunch of different stories featured within it without much of a consistent theme. That goes for this issue, too - the first story is the opening third of a crossover between Wolverine and Spider-Man, which gets top billing on the cover. The second story is the third part of a four-issue Devil Slayer storyline, while the third story is a one-shot about the Wasp. The fourth and final is what we're here for - and it's also the reason for that conspicuous little Doctor Doom brandishing his gauntlet in the top left of the cover. We're actually getting a brief, eight-page story featuring Doctor Doom in this issue… which also stars Storm of the X-Men! Although certain Doombot retcons have made the issue a bit confusing, these two have had some interesting interactions in the past, so it'll be fun to see what we'll encounter here!
Story Overview
When It Rains…
Storm is freely floating through a thunderous sky, enjoying the exhilaration of flying unaided on the winds, unbothered by the tempest that whirls around her. The storm actually reminds her that she really wants to get a shower - and one that isn't marred by 'purifying agents' like chlorine. She briefly muses that only the pure water of a thunderstorm could cleanse her from the taint of something as terrible as Inferno, a semi-recent crossover event which I've briefly touched on before, though the lack of Doom content means I won't be going into it more here. Suffice to say there were a lot of demons involved. In any case, the blissful moment soon turns to ash when Storm gets caught up in a squall that burns - acid rain! She quickly funnels the wind to get her clear from the terrible weather.
Arriving below the clouds, Storm is appalled to learn that the forest below is entirely dead - only industrial waste could so totally strip trees down! She complains that mankind might claim mutants are a menace to the Earth, but then they do this themselves… In any case, Storm is distracted when she hears a bunch of explosions, signs of a nearby battle. She briefly muses that it might be none of her concern who's fighting who around here, but she'll have to get a better look to be certain of that. She's surprised to discover, as she flies closer, that a single man is holding off a whole array of approaching tanks. No, he's no mere man - he's Doctor Doom himself, standing near the very factory that is obviously the source of all the pollution that's rendered this place sterile! That bastard!
Doom is merrily blasting away the war machines with his hand blasters, calling his enemies on their effrontery, conceit, and doltish stupidity - he even mockingly asks them if they really think their pathetic cannons will destroy him, or their pitiful armor shield them from Doom's wrath? Nothing shall stop Doom from ending their perfidy! My, he's really opened up a thesaurus today, hasn't he? In any case, just as Doom blows apart yet another tank, he's suddenly struck from above by a lightning bolt and driven to his knees. In the momentary lull Storm descends from the sky, declaring that while the tanks might be incapable of bringing him down, she certainly can!
Doom is very surprised to learn that Storm is the one who struck a coward's blow, and quickly assures her that his armor protects him even from the force of a lightning bolt. When Storm mutters that she'd hoped the consequence would be more severe, Doom seems a little confused at her attitude, and observes that much about Storm has changed since they last met in the X-Men / Fantastic Four crossover series - she ditched her sweet mohawk, for one. When Storm acknowledges this, she angrily states that Doom himself is clearly as bloodthirsty as ever. Doom demands to know who has poisoned her with lies about him, and Storm replies that she saw what is going on with her own eyes - he's destroying tanks and killing people to protect a factory that's destroying the forest! Doom finally clues in to her confusion, and dryly points out that the tanks are not attacking the factory… they are defending it from Doctor Doom!
Doom helpfully explains that the forest they are currently standing in borders 'Latervia', and while Doom might not have access to the resources of that nation due to Kristoff's usurpation, he refuses to let the natural beauty of the country of his birth be destroyed through inaction! Storm acknowledges the laudable environmental sentiment, but also points out it's still being used to justify reprehensible ends like murder. Doom responds that while he destroyed the tanks, the operators survive - he's being very Terminator 2 about the whole thing. It's right about then that reinforcements arrive for his opponent, and Doom tells Storm to hold their discussion until after he's dispatched them. When he raises his hand to fire a hand-beam, however, it short-circuits - it seems Storm's lightning bolt has had some effect, even if it didn't electrocute Doom outright.
The enemy takes advantage of this moment of weakness, and in a moment of gallantry - or perhaps just sexism - Doom tells Storm to get behind him so his armor can protect her. They're blasted off their feet by a pair of newly arrived tanks before they can act on that, however, and are both briefly rendered unconscious. Doom wakes up in a pile of rubble, with a huge felled tree pinning him and Storm to the ground. The enemy has arrayed half a dozen tanks around them with their cannons aimed, and a smug military man declares that Doom disappointed him in how easily he went down. Doom declares he's not yet defeated, and tells the officer to leave, but the man says he prefers to stay - and he possesses the power to enforce his wishes! When Doom declares he's not as helpless as the enemy believes, the officer scoffs, wondering why he's still alive if that's the case. It's not like Doom is known for being merciful.
Storm, meanwhile, also returns to wakefulness with a hell of a concussion, and just wants to sleep - but she can't afford that right now, not when she's in danger. The military officer decides that unlike Doom, he will be merciful - he will kill the despot so that he does not have to live with the knowledge that his mighty reputation was found out to be a sham! He'll spare Doom the torture and public humiliation which his superiors would have in store for the dictator, and kill him right here and now! Doom prepares to take advantage of the moment, watching the officer approach with a pistol - it seems the man intends to shoot him through the eye openings of his mask. As the barrel approaches his face, Doom boldly states his intent to kill first, and gets ready…
Moments before the man can fire, however, a sharp gust of wind suddenly smacks a broken branch into his arm, wrenching his aim away and disarming him in the same movement. Doom is surprised to recognize it as Storm's doing - a woman who was none too covert about her desire to see Doom ended only a short time before. Though her manipulation of the weather was precise, Storm's concussion is making it difficult for her to put out any real power, so the officer has enough time to pick up his discarded gun and turn towards her - he figures she just volunteered to die first. Storm, in a moment of desperation, calls on the natural forces of the tempest above, and a vicious rain of lightning pours down, electrocuting both the officer and the array of tanks stationed nearby, and detonating their weapons in a series of explosions. The force of the lightning is actually even greater than she'd expected, as if the elements themselves were enraged at the abuse they'd suffered, but until now never had a channel through which to vent their rage. Seems nature is getting a little revenge!
Surprisingly the officer survives the ordeal, but soon finds himself facing the barrel of his own gun. It's now held in the hands of Doom, who used the confusion to free himself from being trapped. The man begs to be spared, and Doom, in a surprisingly magnamious moment, agrees immediately - he drops the gun and tells the man that he's disgusting, and should live in the shame he ascribed to Doom, unworthy of a warrior's death. Storm wonders if it's wise to drop the gun next to the man who just tried to use it to kill him, and the villain quips that the man can do with it what he wants - Doom has the clip! He then moves over to her and frees her from beneath the fallen tree as well.
Moments later, Storm asks Doom what he intends to do next, and he curtly responds that's none of her concern. When Storm angrily wonders if she's really getting a servant's dismissal, Doom disagrees with this characterization of his response, noting that since she aided Latveria, she has his gratitude. When she asks if that is all, he notes that it must be enough for now - he has nothing more to give. Storm relents, figuring they'll meet again at some point - when he is once more a King. Doom crosses his arms and glumly agrees - yes, when he is once again King!
Rating & Comments
This short little jaunt is kind of dumb, even for all that it is doesn't overstay its welcome. Suffice to say it's kind of ridiculous to have 'being trapped under a fallen log' be a viable threat to the life of not one but two fairly strong characters with elaborate power-sets. I'm iffy on the concept of Storm just kind of accidentally wandering off flying over Eastern Europe when she's usually hanging out in America, too - that seems a bit of a stretch! It's neat to see Doom and Storm get along, more or less, but it should be noted that short of the meeting in the X-Men and Fantastic Four crossover, these two haven't ever actually met - the only other time they were quite this willing to acknowledge each other, Doom was actually a Doombot. (This would be the infamous 'strike a match' issue.) Honestly, I think this issue makes a lot of sense as a Doombot one too, if you think about it.
Firstly, this Doom is by his lonesome attacking a random polluting factory on behalf of Latveria without any apparent ulterior motives. His armor is poorly insulated and incapable of dealing with the electrical shocks of Storm's lightning properly, despite easily tanking similar attacks in the past with his built-in force fields. He gets knocked unconscious and even pinned to the ground by a random tree. Worst of all, he mangles the name of his own country! He's quick to forgive not just Storm for her coward's blow to his back, but also the enemy military officer who only an instant before threatened to shoot him in the eye. If this isn't a Doombot, it's Doom being wildly, wildly out of character, or randomly trying to ingratiate himself with Storm for no obvious reason. Like, I guess it could be playing up the attraction thing they had going on, but most of that was - again - Doombot shenanigans. For all that I like the noble incarnations of Doom when they show up in comics, he doesn't generally turn into a dishrag like he does here...
At any rate, this brief little excursion technically takes place before the Acts of Vengeance in the timeline, but since there's really no interaction with any other stories and Doom is probably a robot anyway, I'm not sure there's a reason not to cover it here and now. I guess the timeline placement is because there's references to Inferno, which took place before that particular event, so the specific come from Storm's side of the pie. Whatever... After spending ages trawling through dozens of subpar issues looking for snippets of Doom in the big, bad, Acts of Vengeance crossover, it's good to just get a bite-sized subpar snack instead. I give it three stars, reduced to two for a ridiculous, out of character bit of probable Doombottery. Meh.
Next time we'll be returning to - ugh, Cloak and Dagger? Why do I keep running into these guys on this read-through? I'm still not a fan! Maybe I'll roll the next two issues into a single update, since I'm pretty sure Doom plays a background role in both those issues anyway. Damn it, I expected the good times buzz from Triumph and Torment to last a little longer, but then Acts of Vengeance had to come and piss in the cornflakes. Curse you, Marvel writers! And curse you, Mephisto!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
There's a pretty good Storm flight panel at the start of the issue, so I guess I'll go with that - there's not a lot to pick from, here!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Such effrontery! Such conceit! Such doltish... stupidity! You dare dream that the pathetic power of your cannons can destroy me? Or that your armor can shield you from my wrath??Nothing shall stop von Doom from ending your perfidy!"
"Though Kristoff may sit, momentarily, on the throne that is rightfully mine - I refuse to let the land of my birth be destroyed!"
"You disgust me! Go - live in the shame you ascribe to me. You are unworthy of a warrior's death."
Damn it, I expected the good times buzz from Triumph and Torment to last a little longer, but then Acts of Vengeance had to come and piss in the cornflakes. Curse you, Marvel writers! And curse you, Mephisto!
For there to be such a thing as Triumph and Torment, there must also be a painful string of probably Doombot-only stories. There must be bad to balance out the good.
This is Marvel's First Law of Equivalent Exchange.
130: Cloak and Dagger v3 #12-13 - Duplicity, Deceptions, and Doctor Doom / The Big Oblivion Scenario
Cloak and Dagger v3 #12-13 (June 1990 - August 1990)
Cover
Although technically we saw a glimpse of Doctor Doom during the recent Cloak and Dagger issue that was a tie-in to Acts of Vengeance, their last real run-in was back in the previous volume, in Cloak and Dagger v2 #10, when the two interfered in Doom's attempt to keep the world hostage with his elaborate atmospheric laser doohickey. We never really got any follow up on what Doom thought about that whole affair after the two vanished from his country, but I'm guessing we'll see now! I've noted before I'm not a big fan of this title, but with several previous appearances in their book, Doom is not really an unusual sight for them, so this doesn't feel that weird.
The first cover is pretty neat, with the titular characters silhouetted by the huge specter of Doom looming over them. They're 'at the mercy of Doctor Doom!' the cover announces, which sounds good. I should point out that silly 'The Mutant Misadventures of' part of the title, which is variously included if you try to look it up online. It's a really unwieldy title and the comic eventually drops it, but it just reminds me that Spider-Man is variously described as the 'non-mutant superhero' in this era - they really hammered at those distinctions, huh? I'm not sure what difference it makes, but the comics clearly imagined it was a vital detail to know!
The second cover is cool - but also a blatant lie, as has become common in recent times. Doom doesn't really participate in the action of this issue, so showing him firing at Dagger - and indeed, advertising this as a fight with Doom and Jip teaming up - is deceitful at best, and plainly lying at worst. At least the first issue was vague enough that you could easily frame it as Doom playing the background threat - in the second issue he's even less relevant, but somehow gets top billing! Maybe that just signals how much of a third-tier threat Mr. Jip is, huh? In retrospect I might have filed this whole affair away as a minor appearance, but I figured combining the two issue into one post would function decently. It just straddles the line of having enough content to discuss, I think...
Story Overview
Duplicity, Deceptions, and Doctor Doom!
We open at a church in a 'wicked city', where a hoodlum with a knife jimmies the lock and gets inside, only to come face to face with the titular Cloak and Dagger. The whole thing is described, at least in the captions, in fantastical terms - the church is a castle, for one, and the mutants are 'strange and fabulous monsters.' In any case, the blind Dagger hears the punk and uses her light projectiles to drive him towards her partner Cloak, who promptly sucks him into his pocket dimension and deposits him outside the church without much fuss. They don't bother closing the door he opened, a mocking invitation to try a second time, and then derisive laughter echoes from inside before the door abruptly slams closed. The criminal nervously flees into the night, cowed.
Back inside, Cloak and Dagger meet up with Father Michael Bowen, the Catholic priest who runs this particular church they've sought shelter in, who happens to be Dagger's uncle. He heard the door slam, and figured he should check in, but thankfully everything seems fine. At any rate, he is there to tell them that his colleague Francis Delgado, another priest, has been discharged from hospital after he got hurt while trying to save Dagger's life a few issues earlier. The truth is a little different, since Delgado's thoughts betray his allegiance to a dark master, Mr. Jip, who seeks to kill the young woman.
The little get-together is interrupted by the arrival of yet more people - Detective Rebecca 'Rusty' Nales, a cop who had regular run-ins with Cloak and Dagger in the past, who has brought her old colleague 'Rigid' Brigid O'Reilly along. She's stumbling and wearing an eyepatch, and Nales calls out that they need help - urgently! She explains that Brigid has something to get off her chest, and it's not long before they get let in on a doozy of a secret. Brigid explains that when she and Nales first met, she was a straight-arrow cop who played things by the book, but it wasn't long before she was murdered and then resurrected as the revenge-driven madwoman Mayhem - basically a zombie. She eventually came back to her senses, but that's when Cloak and Dagger arch-nemesis Mr. Jip showed up to offer her a way to regain a normal life. She took the deal, and regained her humanity in exchange for spying on Cloak and Dagger for him and being his puppet.
Staring blankly ahead, Brigid then explains that she essentially gave up just as much to Mr. Jip as she previously had to Mayhem - she'd lost a part of herself. A voice suddenly protests, commanding her to stop what she's doing, but Brigid reaches up to her eyepatch and removes it, revealing what lies beneath. You see, in order to serve as a better spy for Mr. Jip, he arranged for her eye to be removed and be replaced - by one of his own! The ghastly thing actually reflects the face of the monstrous Mr. Jip, who calls out from the eye and threatens Brigid for her treachery. Nales explains that it took all her strength, and Brigid's, just to get here without falling to the villain's mental influence - they hoped Dagger would be able to purge the control with her light-powers.
Dagger wonders if Brigid is really okay with trying this, while Mr. Jip continues to threaten from the eye. Laying on her hand and pouring light into the alien organ, the procedure appears successful - but it's only a temporary fix. Jip's evil is potent and will eventually recover, influencing her once again. Cloak is quite sick of constantly having to deal with this monster's machinations, and proposes they use Brigid's knowledge of her former master's lair to hunt him down once and for all. Nales reminds him to make sure he fixes Brigid first!
We switch now to a castle in Europe, one of the fortress refuges of Doctor Doom - and a pretty photogenic one, actually. Very Neuschwanstein. At any rate, we find Doom there, bargaining with a familiar figure - Mr. Jip! It seems the villain has come to trade a book of ancient black magic which Doom owns, and the spells necessary to safely handle it, in exchange for giving him Dagger. Doom seems actually interested in the deal, noting that since Dagger is apparently in a highly suggestible state at the moment, he could use her near-infinite powers as an energy source for his machinery to retake Latveria, and taking her into servitude would also hurt Cloak, who still owes him a debt for his role in Cloak and Dagger v2 #10. Mr. Jip is quite happy with Doom's acceptance, noting that revenge is such an agreeable ambition…
Some time later, Cloak and Dagger and their allies are preparing for their raid of Mr. Jip's lair, which is apparently in a really distant, inaccessible, and cold place judging by all the gear they're bringing. Cloak grouches that he should be able to teleport them over, but his powers have been glitchy ever since he briefly lost them. Nales has never actually met Jip, so she asks after his background, and Dagger explains that he was born centuries ago as a knowledge-seeker hunting for the fabled city of Kamar-Taj, where toil and disease are supposed to be unknown, only to discover the city had been destroyed before he got there. A scholar found him there, grief-stricken over the missed opportunity, and mistook his selfishness for genuine compassion for the people who died, and offered to teach him mystical knowledge.
That is how Mr. Jip became the first apprentice of a man who would later become known as the Ancient One, mentor of Doctor Strange. Jip was not content to study only the benevolent magical lore of his teacher and was drawn to the black arts which the Ancient One had hidden away from humanity. After discovering his duplicity, he was banished and began to wander the globe, seeking to gain ultimate mastery of the dark arts in order to subjugate humanity. Realizing there wasn't enough time in one human life to do all this, he found the means to magically absorb the bodies of others, extending his own lifespan by taking those of his victims. Still, due to the dark nature of the ritual he uses, he can only perform this magic on those who lack the light of life energy like Dagger can generate - namely evil people filled with darkness, or people like Cloak who channel dark power directly.
Nales figures it's about time to put an end to this sordid tale of misery in the name of scholarship, while Brigid morosely looks out a window, worrying that while she's free from Jip's influence for a while, she can still feel him rebuilding strength in order to control her again. If Dagger wasn't there, she's not sure she'd be able to push his control away a second time.
Father Bowen asks Cloak for a quick chat in private, and explains that he'd received word of a European eye-specialist who might be able to restore Dagger's lost sight - but he himself is in ailing health, so this might be the last opportunity to do so. Cloak immediately agrees, and Bowen hands him a ready-made flight ticket, but also tells him that Dagger is intent on joining them for this mission. Cloak decides that he'll just have to force her to see reason - if there's even the slightest possibility she'll be able to see again, she should take the opportunity. Shortly after, Bowen meets with Delgado, who was the original source for this 'offer' - it seems Delgado asked Bowen to relay it, since Cloak doesn't trust Delgado at all…
Cloak, meanwhile, is having a shouting match with Dagger, who refuses to get shipped off while her friends go to take on a supervillain in his own lair. Cloak tells her she'd be stupid to give up the ability to see again for any reason, and Dagger explains that she's finally come to terms with her blindness, and doesn't even miss her sight anymore. Thanks to her training she can function normally despite her handicap, both in everyday life and as Cloak's partner, so why mess with it? Her place is at his side! Bowen suggests leaving the choice of where she goes to the one person who may have as much stake in his mission as her - Brigid. Although Brigid is worried she won't be able to hold off Jip's influence without her presence, she nevertheless refuses to be selfish, and tells Dagger to go to the doctor - they'll make do without her, somehow. Delgado gloats in the background, since Jip anticipated she'd make this exactly noble sacrifice.
We switch suddenly to the North Pole of all places, which is apparently where Jip holds court - and he's joined not by his regular cronies Day and Night, but also by Delgado, who has been teleported over with magic. He explains that Cloak, Nales and Bridig are on their way on the wild goose chase Jip planned for them, while Cloak and her uncle are now easy pickings. He asks if he can kill her now like Jip promised him, but the monstrous sorcererer denies his request, as she still has a use. Delgado, however, does not. He grabs him with his mutant body and promptly consumes him, promising he'll have one last opportunity to serve him - in a slightly altered form.
Back at the church, Bowen tells Cloak that her stepfather will be coming by to take her home to pack for the journey to Europe. He asks her if she shouldn't be putting something on over her rather revealing costume, but she admits she's distracted thinking about Cloak and the others, who have already left on their quest. He tells her to trust they'll be fine, but is grateful that for once she's staying out of danger. Which is, of course, when Delgado shows up like the creature from Carpenter's Thing, pretending like everything's fine. Dagger is delighted he'll be going along on her trip, and Delgado agrees that it'll be enlightening - pardon the pun. His shadow, meanwhile, is monstrous and looms over them. He promises he'll be back by the evening, a pledge that rings ominously…
Cloak, Nales, and Brigid have gotten a fair ways north already, hanging out somewhere in Canada on the edge of a blizzard. They've been taking short teleportation hops using Cloak's power, since the longer distance he travels, the weaker it leaves him afterwards. Brigid complains that the rest stops are a bit galling, since she was used to just flying to places when she was Mayhem. Nales tells Cloak not to worry about Brigid's glum mood - she's just worried. Cloak understands - his own mind is with Dagger, after all. Brigid wanders off a bit and rubs her head, which is aching badly, and she's starting to hear the voice of Mr. Jip transmit through the transplanted eye again. She holds him off for the moment, but worries how much longer she'll last, before they gather up their things and teleport away to their next stop…
Back in the church, Delgado explains to Bowen that a taxi drive is coming by to drive them to the airport, and the priest notes that Dagger and her step-father will be arriving at any moment too - there's just enough time to squeeze in one last prayer that the outcome of the journey will be favorable. Delgado vows it will be as he suddenly transforms back into the monstrous Jip, viciously stabbing Father Bowen in the back with a knife, apparently killing him. Yikes!
Telling the dying priest to give his god of love and mercy his regards, Jip then heads off. He meets with Dagger and her step-father and explains that Bowen is off on some last-minute errand, but he'll meet them at the airport. The step-father opines that's just like Bowen - always thinking of others without thinking of his own welfare! Unfortunately work prevents him from coming along to Europe, but at least he feels safe leaving Dagger in his capable hands. And Delgado's, of course. Delgado and Dagger soon head towards the street, with her voicing the hope that Father Bowen won't lose track of time and miss the flight. As Delgado leads Dagger directly past the bloody corpse of his most recent murder victim, he explains that only a matter of life and death would keep him from it! Cheeky.
At that moment, at the North Pole, Cloak materializes into a snowstorm and disgorges his passengers. He tells the others to get out the thermal wear and the tents - they'll have to be prepared and ready if they are to break into Mr. Jip's arctic fortress. According to Brigid's coordinates, they're only a single teleportation jump away from their target, now. Brigid, meanwhile, is only barely hanging on to her sanity. Nales spots her struggling and they bring her inside a hastily constructed tent, so she can get some sleep. Cloaks waits outside - he doesn't need to eat and sleep like normal people so he's the perfect watchman, and he can't feel the blistering cold either. He can hear the wind howling, though, and sometimes he imagines there's lost souls crying in the gale. Sure enough the specter of Dagger forms in front of him, warning him she's in terrible danger and asking for help. Cloak, understandably, is a little freaked out…
At the airport, Delgado and Dagger arrive at their ride - a jumbo jet prominently emblazoned with the letter 'D'. Dagger laments that she can't see the planes arriving and taking off, and Delgado tells her she's not missing anything important. They get on board the plane, where it's revealed that the plane's passengers might all be talking like normal, with children hitting each other, stewardess pointing them to their seats, and people complaining about not getting a raise - but they're all robots. Classic servo-guards actually, who put on a convincing auditory illusion of a normal airplane. Dagger wonders what's keeping her Uncle, and Delgado reassures her he'll surely be here shortly, and she should just take a quick nap while they wait for him to arrive.
One of the servo-guards contacts Doom to tell him the subject is on board, and they're awaiting further instructions. Doom is pleased, and tells the plane to prepare for immediate takeoff - they are to bring the girl to him so she can begin her new life in his service! The robot happily agrees, even as Dagger dreamily stares into nothingness while Mr. Jip releases his Delgado disguise and monstrously grins at her from the next seat over…
The Big Oblivion Scenario
Back at the North Pole, the trio of Cloak, Nales and Brigid are heading over the crest of the last hill before they reach the secret base of Mr. Jip. Brigid muses that the last time she was here, she was Mayhem just before she consented to the villain's deal - to restore her life in exchange for becoming a slave. Thanks for the recap, comic! The arrive, and it's revealed that a bizarre misshapen construction has been built directly on top of the magnetic North Pole, altering the various magnetic fields of flux with its presence. Nales figures the structure won't serve Jip much longer, and asks Cloak if he's regaining enough power to teleport them all down to the building. He agrees, but then says there's no time to do so - he has to return to New York!
Brigid is understandably upset at this sudden turn after she's spent so much time struggling against the villain's influence, and Cloak hastily explains about his vision of the spectral Dagger appearing before him, and the fact that he believes she might be in imminent danger. He intends to return home using the same teleportation hops they used to get here. He offers the others a ride too, but they understandably point out that they didn't come all this way only to chicken out at the last second. Cloak should go do whatever he feels he has to, while they head towards Jip's lair and kick that monster's ass! Brigid figures she wouldn't be able to resist Jip if they had to make this whole trip a second time, so she agrees they'll go on without him. In the blink of an eye Cloak is gone. Afterwards, Nales admits she hasn't dealt with a lot of undead sorcerers in her time on the police force, but she figures hollow-point bullets have as much effect on them as they do on anyone. Brigid, meanwhile, is fighting the pain in her head again, feeling her control slowly slipping away. The pain is blinding. Jip's face gloats from her infected eye, gloating that soon she'll once more be within his grasp. Soon!
Back on the plane, Mr. Jip is keeping a distant eye on the events at the North Pole - he's not actually present, but he did leave his minion Night behind to give Nales and Brigid a lethal welcome. Dagger asks him if he said something, and Jip turns himself back into Delgado to answer that it was just a prayer - that her surgery in Europe goes well, of course! Dagger wonders about Uncle Mike, and Delgado claims he missed the flight and promised to catch a later one to meet them. In his mind, he gloats that he killed the man, and soon he'll deliver her into the waiting hands of Doctor Doom, all so he can get his hands on a book of dark sorcerous lore with which he might further his studies! He actually calls Doom a 'short-sighted despot' for making such a deal, so I'm suspecting there's some double-dealing going on here…
The airplane seals up and taxis to the runway, which is quickly relayed to Doom, who waits impatiently in Europe and tells his servo-guards to warn him when they're finally airborne. Doom quickly recaps his own motives from the previous issue - he needs Dagger to power a machine he intends to use to recover his rightful throne, and later subjugate all of mankind. So, you know, no pressure. He also calls Jip a 'myopic scholar' so it seems these two were made for each other!
Meanwhile, back in New York, Cloak somehow materializes inside the church in a single teleportation hop - way behind his capabilities. How is this possible? He suspects outside intervention, but he has no idea who is responsible, or why. His thoughts are interrupted by a moan - it's Father Bowen, not quite as dead as expected! Severely wounded and with a knife stuck in his back, the priest tells Cloak that Jip has taken Dagger to the airport - he should go after her, and leave him! He passes out, and Cloak decides to teleport him to the hospital first, or he'll surely die! Dagger will just have to buy herself some extra time...
Back on the plane, Delgado decides it's about time to harass the hunting expedition at the North Pole some more, while Cloak doesn't seem too pleased with him - has she figured out the truth? In any case, Nales and Brigid are scaling the final cliffs down towards the valley with Jip's base, since Cloak never did bother to bring them all the way there. As they're descending by a rope, Mr. Jip suddenly attempts to take control of Brigid's body so he can take her knife and cut the line that's holding up her colleague and friend. Screaming 'No!' at the voice commanding her to obey, she tosses the knife over the cliff, and an oblivious Nales wonders if Brigid maybe dropped something. Delgado, meanwhile, wonders where Cloak went - he didn't see a sign of him in Brigid's mind. Weird.
Dagger, incidentally, has figured out something's wrong - the story Delgado tells her about her Uncle keeps changing every time she asks. Still, everything sounds normal enough - except for that faint whine of mechanical servos she keeps hearing ever since they got to the airport. What's with that, anyway? A servo-guard pretending to be a stewardess arrives to ask if everything is 'comfy-cozy' and Dagger explains she's blind, and wonders if someone can check if her seatbelt is properly fastened. When the robot agrees, Dagger takes advantage by releasing a burst of light - harmless to a human being, but to other things… not so much. With a horrible squealing noise the servo-guard explodes from the introduction of such alien energies. Of course, the big metal hand she touched was a bit of a giveaway too! Even as a few of the servo-guards try to keep up the act, the rest get up to take her down, even as Dagger starts shooting her way out with blasts of light.
Before long she's cornered by a servo-guard, and Delgado takes advantage of the moment to knock her over the head with a fire extinguisher, rendering her unconscious. So much for the subtle approach! He tells one of the robots to make the plane take off immediately, and it rushes off to obey. The vehicle soon starts gathering speed, but a dark figure materializes in front of it on the runway - Cloak! He saw the light show earlier and determined Dagger was on board this plane, so he'll take it out in one go - he uses his darkness powers to swallow up the entire vehicle, much to the consternation of the control tower. Flight 411 has vanished!
On board, Mr. Jip has released his disguise again, and demands to know why the pilot suddenly hit the brakes when they were lifting off - and what's that infernal racket outside about? He looks out a window and is shocked to discover they're hovering in the pitch darkness of the Dark Dimension - and there's… things… on the wing! Demonic monsters are nibbling on the vehicle! Langoliers! They're trying to claw their way in, and in them he senses an inexhaustible urge to feast on his life-energy that he's sensed once before, when he faced Cloak back in Strange Tales #11. Which means he is here!
Shocked, he turns to find Cloak standing behind him, demanding the return of Dagger. Jip is baffled that he's here, claiming it's impossible, but gathers his wits quickly and commands the servo-guards to attack. They rush to comply, but are quickly swept up in Cloak's cloak and deposited outside the plane, where they are nommed on by hangry monsters. Whoops. Demanding once more to release Dagger, Cloak finally gets Mr. Jip to capitulate when the inhabitants of the dark realm start to eat through the plane's hull. Jip offers up Dagger as long as they can get the hell out of this place, but even as Cloak takes Dagger from his arms, he refuses to rescue the villain from the monsters outside. Jip quickly offers a bargain, and when Cloak asks what he imagines he has to trade, Jip says it's simple - Dagger's sight!
At the North Pole, Nales and Brigid have walked the perimeter of the base and found no entrance - what they need is a nice labelled… hold on, is that a door labelled 'Entrance'? That wasn't there before! Night opens and impatiently tells him it's about time they got there - she was getting bored! Back at the airport, the control tower is relieved that Flight 411 has been found at the tail end of a runway - although it's been totaled. The owner better hope it was well-insured! Back at the North Pole again, we see that Cloak has teleported Mr. Jip and Dagger to his base so that Jip can restore the sight he stole from Dagger in the first place. Actually, technically he just caused some residual darkness to hang out in her optic nerves, which rendered her blind - details. He removes the darkness and declares 'let there be light!' as Dagger stirs awake and reveals that she's regained the ability to see!
The happiness Cloak and Dagger share over this is brief, since Mr. Jip immediately uses his control over his base to lock down Cloak's ability to teleport or becoming intangible without tearing himself apart. He then tells Cloak she'll have to place herself into Doctor Doom's servitude to insure her partner's continued existence - her life for his! That will be their new bargain. Or it would be, if not for the gun that's suddenly shoved into Jip's face by Brigid. Jip calls her his last 'satisfied customer' and tells Night, who enters behind her, to kill the intruder. Unfortunately for him, Night decided that the impromptu murder of Delgado the previous issue was too much, and she can no longer justify working for him. She double-crossed him before Jip had the chance to do it to her! She uses her power to mold solid objects to take the darkness Jip just removed from Dagger's eyes and turns it into a bullet - one that should kill even a creature like Jip!
Mr. Jip gloats that they will never know if that's true, because Night was stupid enough to give that bullet to the one person in the room that's under his complete control! He then tells Brigid to aim her weapon at her friend's head, and with great reluctance her hands are forced to comply, even as she verbally apologizes.
Jip commands her to empty the clip into her friend's skull, and she immediately complies - and a series of empty clicks resound. It was a trick! Nales tells her she wasn't quite as stupid as he thought, and removes a gun from her vest, which she promptly fires into Jip's forehead. The decoy gun was Brigid's idea. Even as he lays dying, Jip can't help but think his own magnificent intellect must have rubbed off on her, until he finally dissolves into a pile of ashes, quite dead.
Night declares that she helped end Jip for the sake of Day - the only person she ever loved, and someone Jip had promised to heal, but ultimately allowed to die. Cloak connects the dots and realizes that it was Night who arranged for that nightly visitation by the ghostly Dagger, and later used her magic to allow him to teleport all the way to New York when he normally wouldn't be able to. She agrees, noting she changed her mind when Delgado was killed so Jip could steal his identity - he'd been a faithful servant, so clearly nobody was safe. Brigid muses that it's the same for her - Jip said one thing, then did another. Dagger thanks Night, but she waves off the hero, noting they're still enemies - and she'd best remember that the next time they meet! (Yeah, about that...)
The place around them suddenly starts rumbling - it seems Mr. Jip was a load-bearing boss, and his home base can't exist without him. Cloak is too weak to teleport again, and wonders how they'll get out. A big door labelled 'Exit' gives them a clue - this place sure is helpful, isn't it? As the heroes rush outside, they ask if Night isn't coming with them, but the villain tells them not to worry about her, she'll be fine! Which would be more comforting if the last word didn't trail off into nothing as the base collapses on top of her. For context, you may want to know that this is the final appearance of the character in Marvel Comics - she dies here. Ouch. The entire arctic base soon collapses under its own weight in a blazing explosion, leaving nothing bus ashes behind. R.J. MacReady would approve!
The heroes soon come tumbling out of a doorway, and realize they've been teleported halfway across the continent to the hallway across from Dagger's stepfather's place, having arrived through the door of the 'mystery apartment' that nobody knew the occupant off. Turns out the place is vacant, but evidently it was connected to Jip's hideout with sorcery. Dagger quickly meets up with her dad who is understandably surprised to see her, and tells her about Father Bowen getting attacked - but don't worry, he survived due to emergency surgery! Dagger comments that his tie clashes with his shirt, and he realizes that she got her sight back, and hugs her joyfully. Nearby, Nales muses that for all that the scene is a touching family reunion, it's just making Cloak feel more alone than ever…
In an epilogue, a robot informs Doom that no bodies were found in the wreckage of his plane, and wonders if there are any further orders. Doom does not answer, but places the priceless treasure which Jip ultimately paid for with his life back on the shelf among hundreds of others in his vast collection of magical knowledge…
Rating & Comments
Well, hey, this wasn't as bad as I was expecting, at least! Although I'm still no great fan of these characters, this is the most interesting set of comics of theirs I've read in recent memory. Which is damning with faint praise, fair enough. The big bad here, Mr. Jip, is a ghoulish creature who mostly spent his time being a baddie in Doctor Strange (as his backstory would suggest) but it seems before this appearance he'd been reduced to an occasional foe of Cloak and Dagger, who ultimately do him in here. Sort of - it's actually their supporting cast dealing the fatal blow. I was impressed that the comic was willing to go the whole way with depicting a vicious stabbing of a parental figure (complete with pool of blood) and also the melting deaths of Delgado and Jip, and the crushing demise of Night. As comics go, that's surprisingly violent! Foreshadowing of the decade to come, I imagine...
Cloak and Dagger themselves spend most of these two comics apart, with Dagger just sort of blankly staring ahead hoping for better days through much of it. Although it's interesting that she claims to have gotten used to her blindness, she ultimately decided to get treatment for her condition - and given that it's Doctor Doom who's offering said cure, I imagine she would have been able to see again soon at the cost of her eternal servitude. Both Storm and Kitty Pryde can confirm how effective he is at weird medicine! Cloak, meanwhile, is a bit more pragmatic, but only up to a point. His decision to retreat from Jip's lair at the last possible moment proves to be important for Dagger's safety, but it is kind of a dick move to the two regular humans he brought along, who probably weren't feeling that great after multiple relatively unprotected hops through a hell-void into a snowstorm.
One issue I haven't mentioned here is that this comic has no real idea of distances and times - due to constant teleportation people just sort of move from location to location without any rhyme or reason, and the writers get themselves into trouble a few times by forgetting that Cloak is supposed to have limits to his powers and can't just wildly move around the globe at will. So what do they do? They give him magical super-empowered teleportation - twice - to get around it, from two different sources no less! Between that and the eternity it takes for the plane to finally, finally get off the ground, I really think someone should have reminded the writers that there is such a thing as editing or planning ahead.
Anyway, Nales and Brigid are arguably the most interesting characters here, as the two regular people who have to deal with all this weird crap that's going on around them, though arguably only the former is truly normal. Nales is incredibly cliché as the literal 'tough as nails' cop who breaks all the rules, but I honestly don't mind the presence of a badass normal now and again. Brigid, meanwhile, is a traitor to the villain's cause - a former villain herself, actually, who spends the entirety of the two-parter fighting against the mind-control influence of the bad guy, and ultimately manipulates him by making him feel overconfident. It's a nice little interplay these two have going on, and the demise of a centuries-old Orochimaru-analogue to a pair of regular, unpowered women with a grudge is neat. Jip was a pretty shit character to begin with, almost literally, so I don't really mind seeing the back of him - this would, as far as I'm aware, prove to be his final outing.
My favorite scene of these comics is the final one featuring the plane. Not only is the concept of a plane full of servo-guards pretending to be normal people a pretty funny image, but then the whole thing gets weirder when the vehicle is dumped straight into the Langoliers dimension and the local voracious void-monsters start consuming the thing. Jip is understandably freaked out by this, and I was surprised to see such recognizable imagery in a comic book that, as far as I can tell, actually came out months before the Stephen King novella was even published! Common inspiration, maybe? Planes falling through rits into dimensions full of ravenous critters must have been on people's minds. Go figure. Either way, I was also amused that the control tower was so blasé about the whole affair, hoping Doom had good insurance. Hah!
Speaking of - I honestly thought there was more Doctor Doom material in these comics before I finished writing them up - he has a bunch of (brief) scenes throughout, and I figured that justified the inclusion here, especially since both issues prominently feature him on the cover as well, promising a team-up. The reality is… rather different. Doom, for all his prominence in the advertising, is a bit of a background non-factor who waits around and provides Mr. Jip with support in the form of robots. Now, granted, Jip attempts to make a deal for a valuable tome of magical lore which is revealed to be one of many in Doom's vast collection - but that by itself isn't really much of a reveal. Triumph and Torment established his sorcery legitimacy just a short while ago, so all this really does is inform us he's got a good library too. Woo!
These issues probably have some significance to Cloak and Dagger fans, what with the death of several villains, the loss of Delgado as a supporting cast member and the wounding of Father Dawson, and the return of Dagger's eyesight. For Doom, however, this issue makes absolutely no difference at all - he loses access to Dagger, I guess, but that was only ever a passing interest of his as far as I can tell, as he makes no move to follow up on Jip's plans with some of his own. Quality-wise this isn't much to write home about, but I guess I liked enough elements that I'll give it a middling score. Three stars, we'll say? Sure.
Next up we'll be looking at another brief story featuring a returning character from Secret Wars - we've already seen Titania, so it's about time for Volcana to make another appearance too!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I quite liked the North Pole segments for their effective use of desaturated art and whitespace like this - lots of black and white and striking images against the white of a snowstorm. It's pretty good! It helps that Cloak's voluminous... cloak... is already a good image to start with.
Doom's Bad Hair Day
I have no idea what the artists were thinking with Brigid's shirt in the early scenes. Not only does the shirt randomly change color a few pages in from green to yellow, but the pattern is lazily drawn in without any care for whether or not it makes any sort of real life sense - it just sort of gets pasted on top regardless of which way the clothes are actually worn. Why even give her this ridiculous getup? Just give her a bland single color if you aren't going to bother putting the effort in...
Ahah, that's some awkward villain sendoff after a redemption. Stan Lee you joker.
Considering her character design though i understand that maybe editorial was eager to close that chapter of their character design sins.
Possibly it was only so 'sexy' because Dagger already has a boob window so they had to push it even more the villain henchwoman.
Also believe it or not, at one time or the other people thought the square pattern 'illusion' (laziness) was kind of neat. There are even some games that painstakingly replicated the effect for their comic characters, referencing something i don't know (notably Monkey Island 1 and 2 and 4, honest Stan character, which is a funny name coincidence). It looks even more unnatural in motion.
It's a very late 80, early 90's comic thing.
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131: Fantastic Four v1 Annual #23 - Cast in Fire, Carved in Stone
We're once again dealing with a story from an Annual here that otherwise has less than nothing to do with Doctor Doom - it's a familiar refrain by now, I think. The first story, this time around, deals with Franklin Richards and a future version of himself confronting yet another dude from the future called Ahab, who is hunting him like his personal white whale - it's part of a larger story called Days of Future Present which continues in a bunch of other Annuals. Anyway, the second is the story featuring Doom, which leaves the third and final as yet another unrelated mess featuring a bunch of familiar faces - though not the Fantastic Four. No, it's another one of those groan-worthy exposition-fests featuring Kosmos (in her first appearance), Kubik, the Phoenix Force, and a whole slew of other miscellaneous cosmic beings. Thank God we don't have to cover that. Cosmic Cube shenanigans are a pain. I think I actually mentioned this stuff in an aside when we covered Secret Wars 3, so let's just leave it where it is and move on...
The cover of this issue doesn't actually show anything relevant to the story at all - it's all about the Ahab. Doom doesn't even get a mention, or a blurb, or a little sneaky picture of himself sneering in a corner this time - he's just entirely absent. Lame! At least Ahab looks cool? Like a grizzled, weirdly feral Cable or something, what with the future time traveler thing he's got going on...
Story Overview
Cast in Fire, Carved in Stone
Somewhere in New York City, Doctor Doom accesses his computers and pulls up the files he maintains on Marsha Rosenberg, also known as Volcana. It seems the code-word to access his files is the word 'Doom', which seems a bit easy to guess - but I suppose it's at least easy to recall! He pulls up her history, and recalls how during the Secret Wars he endowed both Marsha and Skeeter McPharren with super-powers to bolster his burgeoning super-villain army, thus turning them into Volcana and Titania respectively. We're getting a lot of references to Secret Wars recently, aren't we? Anyway, he also recalls that Volcana soon became enamored with Owen Reece, the Molecule Man, whose energies later turned out to come from the same source as the being that started the Secret Wars - the Beyonder!
Turning to more recent events, Doom recalls how during a confrontation with the Shaper of Worlds and Kubik, the Molecule Man and the Beyonder were merged together into a Cosmic Cube. That turd of a story, imaginatively titled Secret Wars 3, was recounted in Fantastic Four v1 #319 and I spent some time complaining about it. Anyway, Volcana was grief-stricken in its wake, naturally, and Doom realized later that Reece must have anticipated this reaction, and probably left her something to remember him by. He hypothesizes that he left her a portion of his powers, and figures close observation would confirm that suspicion. That's why he's gone to investigate her, since he received recent reports of a fight with the Wizard, and he got some weird readings on the implants he gave her to monitor her powers back when he first empowered her on Battleworld - for an instant, he detected Reece's power. Although he didn't notice any of Reece's power in use afterwards, the day is still young…
We find Marsha - Volcana - partially submerged in the molten remnants of the street, recovering from her bout with the Wizard, not quite used to how this whole 'superhero' thing works now that she's provisionally signed up with the good guys. If you're wondering whether or not we skipped out on some previous story - not really. The prequel to this story would eventually be published in Marvel Comics Presents #88.
Anyway, the police soon arrive and Marsha figures she'll just relay what happens and scoot, since she wants to find her friend Annie who she left behind when she rushed into battle. Reluctantly she tells the police that a nearby building was burned down not due to the Wizard, but due to her own fiery powers - she was a bit overzealous. She apologizes, and the cop says it's a miracle no one was hurt - well, he shouldn't say that. Someone was hurt. A woman was trampled by a fleeing mob of people, you see. That woman, naturally, was Annie. Figures.
Marsha immediately heads off towards the hospital, but the cop stops her and asks her what she thinks she's doing - she just burned down a shop by accident, she can't just leave! She quickly explains she wants to visit the injured woman, and the cop decides to offer her a ride there. Marsha points out she'd have to turn off her fire powers to get in the car, and he'd be able to see her face and recognize her.
The officer sees her point and gives her a gas mask to conceal her identity, after which Marsha is driven to the local hospital to check on her friend. While Doom continues searching for energy readings, Marsha regrets ever letting her friend come to harm, and since she's embarrassed by the weird mask, she asks the cop if he can check up on the woman on her behalf. Surprisingly he agrees, and Marsha muses to herself that Annie wouldn't recognize her anyway if she went in - what a mess she made! It's her fault Annie got hurt - she'll never forgive herself for this!
Nearby, Doom suddenly registers Owen Reece's power in use with his technology, and it seems Marsha's friend in the hospital is the focus. Marsha is entirely unaware that through sheer force of will she is causing all those injured at the hospital to suddenly be healed of their various ailments - the whole waiting room spontaneously finds themselves repaired. What's a little strange is that one healed woman calls herself 'Rox' but based on the art it's clearly supposed to be Annie from the first part of this story. Still, the guy checking out her hurt foot is not a doctor, just some guy in the ER who was hitting on her, so maybe she didn't want to give her real name... Maybe Roxanne is her middle name? Details.
One of the other healed patients, however, is the quadriplegic Moonstone, who has been in a coma for some months after a fight with Captain Marvel. While the cop returns to his car and offers to get Marsha a cup of coffee to soothe her nerves, Moonstone revitalizes and uses her powers to go on a rampage around the hospital ground, firing beams at the guards who were meant to watch over her and knocking out a nearby wall so she can make a dramatic introduction.
When the officer with Marsha stops to shoot at Moonstone, the villain swiftly retaliates. Diving at the officer to push him out of the way, Marsha is surprised when she suddenly turns into hard volcanic rock instead of the magma form she is more commonly used to - what's going on here? It seems Reece's power is responding to her desires, and since she feared harming the cop with her fiery form, but also getting hurt from Moonstone's blast in her human form, she was granted a third, sturdier and rocky alternative. Doom looks on in disbelief, astonished at the simplicity of the mechanism by which her new powers work.
After she is incapacitated by another blast from Moonstone, Marsha is unable to stop the villain from grabbing the officer and breaking his wrist. Marsha revives and frees the officer, grabbing the villain by the ankle and pretending like she was faking her brief knockout all along. Moonstone somehow phases through several ambulances, revealing that she couldn't manage it in her last fight with Captain Marvel because of damage to her spinal cord, but that's all repaired now. When Marsha admits she's not sure what to do, the cop deduces she's new to this superhero gig, and explains that they should split up and lure her away - odds are Moonstone will chase Marsha. She should be led away from where people are, and then… well, hopefully they win!
Marsha tries to follow these instructions, getting blasted all the while as she makes her way to a nearby construction site for one of Donald Trump's new buildings - and no, that really is where they go, I'm not even joking.
Moonstone has figured out that Marsha is luring her to an out-of-the-way spot like any altruistic do-gooder might, but is fine with that - might as well allow her to be happy in the last moments of her life, right? She starts blasting Marsha and tosses her down into the construction pit, who muses that she needs some way to surprise Moonstone - which is tough when she's on the ground and Moonstone is flying around overhead. Moonstone declares that she likes Marsha can take a lot of punishment, and Marsha responds with a 'I bet you do' before chiding herself for bad comebacks. She suddenly slams her fists down on some nearby metal and blasts a host of construction equipment into the air, pelting her superpowered enemy with bricks, pipes, and cinder blocks. Moonstone goes down, but an inexperienced Marsha lowers her guard when her enemy seems out of it, and approaches guilelessly to ask Moonstone if she's had enough.
Moonstone, naturally, immediately takes advantage and blasts Marsha in the eyes with a flash of light that temporarily blinds her. The villain isn't feeling too hot at the moment, but she couldn't leave such an obvious opening unexploited. It would go against her nature! She knocks Marsha aside while blinded, then flies up into the sky with a large metal girder, ready to squash the hero. Marsha, however, recovers and reveals that despite being healed, the villain had still spent weeks being tube-fed, so her powers were not up to full intensity and didn't have long-lasting effects. Ripping the bucket off a nearby loader with her enhanced strength, Marsha guards herself from an attacking Moonstone, who knocks herself unconscious when she can't stop herself from colliding with the huge slab of metal.
Deactivating her powers, Marsha quickly grabs a work suit and some boots from the construction site so she doesn't have to wander around in a swimsuit - the only clothes that survive her transformation, ever since Secret Wars - and decides this wasn't a completely wasted day. She chased off the Wizard, cleaned the clock of Moonstone, met a nice policeman, and even discovered a new power! Come to think of it, she never did think to switch to her flame-form during the fight - but eh, she's still learning. She hears sirens coming and quickly ties Moonstone up in some chains, before heading home. She figures she can call the hospital from there to hear how Annie is doing.
Having seen enough, Doctor Doom returns to his hideout to go over his data, and is convinced that Owen Reece must have given a portion of his power to Marsha. He soon begins plotting how to claim it for himself - indeed, he knows just how to get at the fragment of cosmic cube that Reece left behind in his old girlfriend! His instruments tell him that Marsha was depressed before the first time Reece's power activated - so it may have induced her to fight the Wizard to cure whatever weighed on her mind. The second and third time the powers activated were in response to her concern for others, namely Annie and the policeman respectively - which fits with Owen Reece's personality in Doom's estimation. These are the sort of parameters he would come up with. Doom figures he can use this to claim the power for himself - but he must plan carefully for that to happen.
Still, Doom admits that the Shaper and Kubik subverted his designs before when dealing with the Beyonder's powers, so he must take heed. He decides he'll eventually make contact with Marsha and gain her unwitting assistance in gaining the piece of Reece's power she possesses. Even with a fragment of a fragment, there is no limit to what a man of Doom's means could accomplish. No limit! He then commands his computers to engage security again - codeword Doom! Again, maybe invest in some firewalls? Sheesh.
Rating & Comments
This issue is a bit of a weird one, since there's not a lot of Volcana solo-stories - she isn't a terribly common sight outside Molecule Man's immediate radius, and she's basically done nothing much outside her appearances in the original Secret Wars and Secret Wars II. Seeing her here, then, is surprising - especially when she's apparently decided to try superheroism on for a spell! Not that she's any good at it, and her rather scatterbrained personality doesn't help matters, as she keeps unwittingly making things worse for herself without really meaning to. The story isn't helped along by being part two of a three-parter without either its prequel or sequel in print for a year or more afterwards. Who thought that was a good idea?
Reading this story straight through, it doesn't make a lot of sense - the cop that initially approaches Marsha is extremely, implausibly accommodating, forgiving her for her accidental mass property damage and nearly killing a bunch of civilians before becoming not just her driver, but looking in on a hurt woman inside the hospital for her, and then returning to her once more to give life advice. Between that and the new powers and spontaneous acts of healing, I think it's safe to assume most of this issue is induced by Owen Reece's powers manipulating everyone into accommodating Marsha - even Moonstone just serves as a target for a spirited Volcana to beat up with her new abilities. In that context, it serves as decent buildup for the sequel, which would involve the return of Molecule Man after Secret Wars III, and the end of his relationship with Marsha (who would essentially disappear from comics afterwards.)
Doom's involvement is relatively minor, basically just hanging out in the background observing everything, keeping notes on his one-time investment from way back and planning for one of his patented 'absorb cosmic powers for myself' plans that have become a staple of his by now. Although this comic would suggest Doom has plans for Marsha Rosenberg and eventually would swing by to manipulate her, I don't think he ever actually does - the part of Reece's powers that she has is reabsorbed by its original owner, and though Marsha gets to keep her upgraded power, Doom's interest is never really brought up again. I guess he missed his shot, huh? Regardless, it feels like a lazy, phoned-in appearance that doesn't really go anywhere, which is unfortunately a common refrain of late.
Although the story itself is moderately alright, with Volcana's somewhat incompetent heroics being fairly amusing and in keeping with her established personality from Secret Wars, the fact that it relies on people acting weird and out of character is annoying, and Doom's part in things is ultimately another red herring that leads nowhere. As such I'm gonna have to ding a star off that. I've been giving a lot of these scores lately - lots of lame appearances, unfortunately, probably in payment for Triumph and Torment. We suffer for the greater good, I suppose...
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I quite appreciate the design of Volcana's alternate stone look here - it's quite distinct from the Thing's, for example, in more than just color - she's made to resemble volcanic rock, and later she would gain a third form that resembles ashes, keeping with the theme. As a sidenote, I'm pretty sure this is the first issue where Volcana regularly looks a little more plus-sized than the average person, though it varies wildly from panel to panel. The descriptions will consistently remind people she's supposed to be large, however - or a 'fatso' as the case may be.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Even with a fragment of a fragment [of power], there is no limit to what one of my means can accomplish! No limit."
"Initiate securities. Safeguard code-word: DOOM."
Doom's Bad Hair Day
Another case of severe laziness this time, as we get four panels of Doom's eyes scattered across this issue - all of which are just reprints of the exact same panel with slightly different text boxes. Given that Doom doesn't get a ton of page-time to begin with here, it really feels like he's a last-minute addition to pad out some running time, which is supported by the fact that he doesn't show up for either the prequel or sequel to this story. It's just weird.
Welcome back to yet another minor appearances chronicle! With yet another decade behind us, roughly speaking, it's time to have a look through all the various tiny pop-ins that Doom has done across the Marvel Universe, once more divided into the same categories I used before.
Flashbacks
Plenty of flashbacks this time, as one might expect. Some of the more notable, naturally, include references to Secret Wars, but there's also some less expected ones like Doom's first run-in with the Avengers way back when, as well as a Silver Surfer encounter, some featuring Darkoth, and even some to Terror in a Tiny Town! At some point there's even a direct reference to Emperor Doom - not something you see a lot, since it's a 'Graphic Novel' and treated almost like pseudo-canon in how it happened but nobody really ever mentions it, despite being a pretty huge world even if it did. I guess people move on quickly...
Dazzler v1 #5
Dazzler v1 #10
Marvel Two-in-One #87
Silver Surfer v2 #1
Micronauts #43
Thor v1 #325
Avengers v1 #234
The Thing #6
Incredible Hulk v1 #295
Secret Wars II #1
Secret Wars II #3
Secret Wars II #6
Spectacular Spider-Man #111
Avengers v1 #269
We didn't have any of these last time around, but here we have a few classic 'foreshadowing' issue in which we get a hint of what's to come. One or two comics just barely escaped being filed here because they had several panels instead of just one, so they're included as little prologue segments for their bigger brother comic's coverage instead. Gotta love the variety of art styles on display here too, by the way. Is that Abed playing Doctor Doom in the bottom right one?
Cloak and Dagger v2 #9
Fantastic Four v1 Annual #21
Marvel Age Annual #2
Incredible Hulk v1 #349
Cameos
The most extensive list, Doom made brief cameos in a lot of comics, and it spans from direct references to pin-up pages of art to elaborate jokes. Many of them are hallucinations, images on television screens, or brief scenes recounting what a badass Doom is without really involving him in the story. There's some overlap with flashbacks, since some images are direct references to previous scenes - but without any in-story reason to pick that scene in particular, I figure it's just artists being frugal and skipping the step of making up a whole new image. I also included a bunch of Vernard cameos because at this time he imagined himself as Doom, so it counts!
X-Men #141
Fantastic Four v1 #231
Fantastic Four v1 #237
Doctor Strange v1 #57
The Thing #1
Amazing Spider-Man v1 #246
Marvel Fanfare #11
Marvel Fanfare #15
Marvel Fanfare #18
Secret Wars II #7
Fantastic Four v1 #293(Vernard) Marvel Age Annual #3 (Doom & Vernard) Fantastic Four v1 #304 (Vernard) Marvel Fanfare #33
West Coast Avengers v2 #23
Iron Man v1 #225
Marvel Fanfare #39
Marvel Comics Presents #3
Silver Surfer v3 #16
Marvel Fanfare #41
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #2
Iron Man v1 #244
Marvel Fanfare v1 #45
Silver Surfer Annual #2
Amazing Spider-Man v1 Annual 23
X-Factor #49
Silver Surfer v3 #32
Marvel Graphic Novel #58
The 'Nam #41
Avengers v1 Annual #19
Silver Surfer v3 #44
Notable
Fantastic Four Roast
The 'Fantastic Four' roast is a comic by Fred Hembeck and Jim Shooter which is basically just an extended set of jokes surrounding the titular team and a host of other random characters that show up to make yet more jokes. Being one of the Fantastic Four's big bads, of course, Doom has to make an appearance somewhere - and he does partway through the issue. After the Thing has a fight with a dessert (don't ask) he decides that besides Reed, there's only one guy with enough ball to sabotage supper - Doctor Doom!
Doom strides into the room denying the accusation, complaining that everyone always defaults to blaming him for all the ills of the world - Doctor Doom, Doctor Doom, Doctor Doom! Some people will never change! 'What did you do with Jimmy Hoffa, Doom?' he asks mockingly. 'Why'd you set off Mount St. Helens, Doom?' People blame him for everything! And whose fault is that? Doom will tell them all - Reed Richards! Little did he suspect during his college days that his roommate would be responsible for ruining his life! He remembers that fateful night as if it was yesterday… Richards and his pals went off on a panty raid in the Kappa-Alpha sorority house, and didn't invite him! Imagine that, the nerve of them!
Instead, Doom went off to work on a dangerous and very complicated experiment in his laboratory, but Richards' callous actions upset him more than he realized, and so when he made a small mistake… Boom! If he had only been on that panty raid, the Doctor Doom people see before them today would not exist! He could have been a fun guy! As it is, everyone seems to think he's a drag!
Sure enough, a figure in shadows pulls a switch to cut power, figuring Doom is too much of a drag. Reed actually spots the figure and announces there's a problem, while behind him Doom shouts out triumphantly that he had nothing to do with it! Reed asks anyone who can to help out, and Doom just yells after him: 'I hope you lose!' That's the last we see of him...
Fantastic Four v1 #238
As a really obvious joke, this cover contains a full depiction of Doctor Doom holding a sign which proclaims that he is 'Sir not appearing in this comic', or the closest equivalent. Sure enough, he does not appear in that comic. Image of dead dove here.
Marvel No-Prize Book
In late 1982, Marvel published a humorous one-shot comic featuring some of their most notorious goofs. Subtitled 'Mighty Marvel's Most Massive Mistakes', the book was organized and spearheaded by Jim Owsley and had a cover which was deliberately printed upside-down, and resembled Stan Lee in the Doctor Doom outfit. In the comic's story Lee, with artists Bob Camp and Vince Colletta, exposes and pokes fun at typos, misspellings and other miscellaneous errors.
Marvel Two-in-One #96
This comic contains a brief cutaway scene to Doctor Doom, in which it's revealed that Doom read about the Thing being sick in the hospital, and thus vulnerable to attack. He briefly considers taking advantage, but then tosses the pape aside and decides that this is not the way of Doctor Doom - he does not wage war on helpless invalids! Such petty triumphs are for lesser men, he decides, and there are already plenty of jackals who will jump at this opportunity...
Marvel Team-Up #133
Although the comic appears to depict Doctor Doom on its cover, the truth is that he is actually a hallucinatory image created by Doctor Faustus. In the hallucination, Doom arrives with Franklin in his arms, and mocks Reed, telling him that he is nothing. In a rage, Reed lunges at his old foe but strikes an electrified barrier that protects him. As the room begins to swirl with hypnotic lights, Doom then vows to destroy the Fantastic Four and Franklin. He removes his mask, revealing the face of Doctor Doom to be that of Reed Richards himself! In the ensuing fight the rest of the Fantastic Four appear to die, but it's all just a dream...
Thing #12-13
As part of the post-Secret Wars landscape, the Thing was left behind in Battleworld for a while, since there he could turn back and forth between his human and rocky self at will. When the alien landscape becomes similar to Earth, he's rather surprised. He soon comes across some barbarians who swing a sword at him, and after Ben transforms into the Ting they tell him that they need his help against an evil wizard. It's soon revealed that this wizard is nobody less but Doctor Doom himself! Or, well, a Doombot, or a simulacrum of some sort. Ben fights off this version of Doom, who is several stories tall.
He soon splits himself into smaller variants and they begin pummeling the hero together. Eventually the Thing drives the false Dooms away, and the barbarians lead him towards the wizard's castle. Ben wants to know how Doom's likeness can exist in this world, and as they emerge from the trees he discovers the reason - Doomstadt is here! The castle even looks the same as it does back on Earth!
Ben and his companions enter the quaint village that surrounds the lair of Doctor Doom, and they head to their tribe leader, where the barbarians tell him that 'Bengrimm' is the mightiest warrior they've ever seen, and he has fought and survived a battle with the wizard. The elders invite him to feast with them and tell him the history of their village, after which Ben takes a walk. He's convinced something fishy is going on with the planet, and the cause seems to be Doomstadt, so he intends to head over there and check out what's going. How could it even be here? The barbarians who joined him earlier try to dissuade him from his rash decision, but Ben won't hear of it, and heads for Doom's castle, and the barbarians follow him.
As Ben searches the various caverns and tunnels, he is forced to fight back a swarm of ghosts and angry spirits. Eventually he finds Doom again. Turning into the Thing, Ben puts his fist through his body, and Doom disappears in a wave of smoke. He was never truly there at all! In his place is a projection device left behind by the real Doctor Doom during the Secret Wars. Ben destroys that device and everything around him disappears, including the castle, the village, and even the barbarians! Well, one of them. It was all fake. The other barbarian still exists, but Ben believes this is because there is a portion of his own mind that won't allow her to fade - the world is bending to his will, still working off that residual wish energy from the end of the Secret Wars...
Fantastic Four v1 #268 - The Masque of Doom (Mask)
Gotta love that cover! Coolest aspect of the issue, really...
This issue takes in shortly after Sue's miscarriage of her second child. As Reed and Sue come to terms with the loss, the rest of the team also reflect on recent events. Sue's Doctor thanks various doctors for doing the best they could, but Banner can't help but mention that Doctor Octopus' insanity delayed Reed for too long, resulting in the loss of the child. Doc Ock lashes out, causing Banner to transform into the Hulk. The whole situation is about to blow up when Reed arrives and talks Octavius down, telling him he'll voluntarily go back into custody, or Reed won't rest until he's brought to justice. The villain, cowed by the look in Reed's eyes, agrees. Johnny, meanwhile, agrees to guide She-Hulk around the Baxter Building since she recently joined the team and isn't familiar with everything yet.
Going to the roof, Johnny summons a Fantasti-Car and they head off to their base. Along the way they discuss She-Hulk's past, and she's candid about her true identity and origins, including being a cousin to Bruce Banner and getting a blood transfusion from him which turned her into the green badass she is today. She also remarks that unlike her cousin, she can control her transformations and maintains her original personality and intellect when she becomes the She-Hulk, so there's much less reason to prefer one form over the other. She finishes by recounting joining the Avengers, before they land on the Baxter Building. Johnny shows her around, including showing off a series of buttons used in emergencies which can jam any signal from outside the building - also known as Chekhov's armory - and private elevators controlled via their belt buckles.
Finally he shows Jen a secret room where the Fantastic Four keep their trophies - powerful weapons and inventions confiscated during their adventures in order to ensure their safekeeping. Among them is the mask that was worn by Doctor Doom when he seemingly died during the Fantastic Four's battle against him and Tyros the Tamer. As the pair leave the room, they are unaware that the eyes on the Doom mask have begun to glow. At that moment at the home of 'Reed and Sue Benjamin' in Belle Porte, Connecticut, local gossip Alma Chalmers is trying to peek into the window of the new family that has moved into the neighborhood. She is caught red-handed and scolded for being a snoop. Remember that being a plot point?
Back at the Baxter Building, Johnny and Jen are having coffee when an alarm goes off. Rushing up to the trophy room, they discover that something's blasted the door off its hinges. inside, they discover that Doom's mask appears to have been taken. While looking for clues, they are caught off guard when they are attacked by the mask itself, which has appeared to take on a life of its own and is flying around the room. The pair dodge the eye beams of the mask and its various other defenses, but fail in trying to destroy it. When they try to exit the trophy room they are forced back by a powerful wind, and when She-Hulk tries to rush it as hard as she can, the powerful force suddenly stops and sends her charging right out of the window and plummeting to the ground below. At that moment Reed returns to the headquarters and arrives just as Johnny is being attacked anew by the mask. Trying to fight the mask himself, Reed discovers that it is more than a match for any of them...
Realizing that it must be controlled by a remote, he then stretches over to one of the emergency buttons and quickly presses it. With all outside signals cut off, the Doom mask suddenly falls to the ground, totally inert. In the aftermath of the battle, Reed explains that the mask came to life due to a signal being sent to it, and not from some sort of pre-programmed attack. With the Latverian embassy denying the apparent death of Doctor Doom, Reed is left to wonder who exactly it was that initiated this attack and if, in fact, Doctor Doom is still alive.(The likely culprit here was Kristoff - Doom was alive, sure, but he didn't have the means to pull off an attack like this.
Uncanny X-Men #197
Colossus is plagued by nightmares and wakes up with a scream. He soon realizes he's not in his room at the X-Mansion, and that Kitty is with him, just waking up as well. They've been captured by an old foe - Arcade! He has Shadowcat and Colossus sit down for a meal when suddenly they are attacked by a hunter-seeker missile. The two mutants disarm the thing, but Colossus's costume gets torn to tatters. Arcade then brings them to a room where he keeps his robot duplicates of all the X-Men. He explains to them that someone has put a contract out on his head, and he captured both of them to protect him. Colossus and Shadowcat next enter a part of the amusement park of death modeled after New York City circa World War II. There they are attacked by a subway train that transforms into a suspiciously Doom-like robot.
Arcade lends the two mutants a hand by sending in an army of his X-Men robots to help destroy the vehicle. They are strafed by a craft seemingly carrying Doctor Doom, the apparent assassin after Arcade's head. Colossus incapacitates the ship and then tosses Kitty at it so that she can phase inside as it crashes. It unfortunately goes straight through Arcade's control room, disabling the robots. When Colossus runs over there, it appears as though Doom has killed Kitty - however it turns out to be only a robot duplicate of her, since the real Shadowcat shorts out 'Doom's' armor from behind.
With their foe defeated, it turns out Doom was Arcade's assistant Miss Locke all along in an elaborate robot costume. Arcade explains that every year on his birthday he allows Miss Locke the opportunity to try and kill him over the course of 24 hours, and he must do whatever he can to prevent it. Having cheated death for another year, Arcade allows the two confused X-Men to leave. As they walk home, Kitty and Colossus realize that even though their relationship ended months ago they are at the beginning of a brand new friendship...
Marvel Age Annual #2
Doom makes a single-page cameo here, recounting the various members of the Fantastic Four at the time of his writing, which includes She-Hulk, and he also mentions the recent mutation of the Thing into his pineapple form. He then warns Baron Zemo that the team's recent misfortunes does not make them ready targets - that privilege, after all, is Doom's alone!
Fantastic Four v1 #300
This issue chronicles the marriage of Johnny Storm to Alicia Masters, and contains two scenes featuring Doom, spread quite far apart. In the first, we see a messenger rush up to Doom, declaring that he has news from America. Before he can get a word in edgewise, however, Doom tells 'Bachman' to lower his voice, since the rare night-blooming orchids he's watering are quite sensitive to sound. Sure enough, Doom is working on his garden! Bachman apologizes, but he thought Doom would want to know about - 'the impending marriage of the Human Torch?' he finishes.
Bachman is shocked Doom is already aware, since word has only just arrived via diplomatic pouch. Doom wonders if Bachman still hasn't realized the vastness of his resources. Let a word be uttered, a rumor confirmed, anywhere in the world - and Doctor Doom hears! He instructs Bachman to leave, as he must decide how best to make his presence felt at the happy nuptials. The man hesitantly wonders if he plans to attend, and Doom says he does - if only in spirit.
Much later, a policeman arrives at the secluded church where the wedding is being held, to warn Reed that a crate has been delivered from the Latverian embassy. As far as they can determine there's no electronics, explosives, or toxic substances of any kind. Still, Sue muses that it's still from the Latverian embassy, which means Doom is behind it. How did he even know where the wedding was going to be? They were so careful in hiding it! Ben figures Doom could probably figure out what they were going to have for breakfast the next morning, and breaks open the crate to look inside. Inside he discovers only a bunch of flowers - he'd expected at least some poison from that creep!
Reed notices there's a note attached, and recognizes Doom's own handwriting. On it he extends his best wishes to Alicia, and pledges - oh good heavens - a truce between them for as long as these flowers bloom. Ben doesn't buy it, but Reed figures Doom is a lover of the arts, and Alicia has gained some renown for her work - it's probably Doom's way of showing his generosity. It should be noted that she once sculpted his face, too, though that was a bit out of character. Ben thinks it's a bit out of character, since he usually expects threats form Doom, not gifts. Reed then guesses it's both - after all, how long do cut flowers stay in bloom…?
Marvel Comics Presents #18
On Christmas Eve, in her apartment, Jennifer Walters is bored. She has to admit that after becoming She-Hulk, and having twenty-five issues of her own comic plus other appearances, normal life would always be boring. Suddenly, an idea comes to her about how to lighten things up. She hunts through her phone book and finds a number she hasn't used in a long time, even in Marvel time. But the phone connects, and the Thing picks up. She begins to complain how bored she is to Ben.
Suddenly, the wall is blown apart by Doctor Doom! He reminds her that he once swore to destroy her, and that he is a man of his word. As he fires an energy beam at her, she ducks under it, asking if they could fight elsewhere, as she's house-sitting. He tells her that he only cares about killing her. In response, she tells him that there are only four pages of the issue left, and so she punches him in the face.
As the mask crumples easily, she realizes that this Doctor Doom is just a Doombot - but it continues to move, to her surprise. Magneto appears, telling her that he is behind this mystery. She grabs hold of the Doombot, and Magneto orders her to release it. But she holds firm, and Magneto gradually increases his power until She-Hulk releases it suddenly, and it shoots over towards Magneto, knocking him outside. She rushes out, seeing Galactus land in the city.
Anyway, that was all just Jen fantasizing, spinning a yarn to Ben about what sort of thing would have to happen to cheer her up, and he admits it would be impressive. As they both realize it's now past midnight, they wish each other Merry Christmas and hang up. Jen then opens one of her presents, and finds a box of her upcoming comics from Marvel, and after apologizes for the advertising, she wishes the readers a Merry Christmas too!
New Mutants Annual #5
In a back-up story in this Annual, one story is a story in the vein of the 'Duck Amuck' Daffy Duck cartoon, in which Boom Boom has a conversation with her penciler, although it's confusing since it's written by the writer. Anyway, it starts off as a conversation between her and Ship about the lack of cute boys in the New Mutants. She then goes to sleep and stepping out of the panels of her own comic, presumably implies to be her dream. Then the penciler tries to hook her up with a cute guy, and proves he's a bit of a creep - not only does he comment that 'drawing you is one of my more pleasant tasks, hmmm' to the teenager, but he also keeps trying to hook her up with older men, a couple of which are married. These include Spider-Man, Mister Fantastic, Captain America, Daredevil, and even Namor!
Then, naturally, we move on to the other side of things - the villains! Doom is first, greeting Boom Boom and welcoming her to join him in austere loneliness - she will grace his castle with simple elegance, and the peasants will learn to worship her! Indeed, he shall place her on a pedestal, secure from all contact with the tawdry world whence she came. She will have to do no more complicated work than delicate embroidery, blah, blah, etc. Boom Boom responds by declaring that's all real cute - but there's no way on Earth she's becoming Baroness Boom Boom von Doom - that's just silly! She asks him how long she can stay fresh in that tin can of his, anyway, before she's suddenly dragged off-panel by the tentacled limb of Doc Ock. 'Zounds!' exclaims Doom as she vanishes. Zounds!
Fantastic Four v1 Annual #22
In this comic, an irate Doom responds to a newspaper report he read. It mentioned that he was 'one of the many scientific geniuses who had battled the Fantastic Four' and he wishes to set the record straight. This is the sort of errant nonsense he expects from the press - Doom has no peers! Take the Mole Man, for example - he made inventive use of the Deviant technology he found in his subterranean realms, but without it he would be nothing, since he has no creative genius of his own. Kang of the distant future can rely on centuries of scientific advancement, true, but he has yet to prove any technology superior to Doom's own - he is man of his time, while Doom is far in advance of his own!
Next there is the Mad Thinker, who had to steal his basic knowledge of androids from the accursed Reed Richards. He does admit he admires the Thinker's ability with computers - he is able to tap into almost every network of earth, even the most secret. Except, of course, Doom's. He knows that, you see, because he has gained access to the Thinker's networks for himself. He takes excessive pride in inventing anti-gravity drives - a development Doom accomplished while he was a youth! Besides, how could he ever take someone seriously when they take the Trapster as a partner voluntarily? Oof, that one stings!
At times, Doom admits, he wishes he did not stand so far above the rest, so he could feel the challenge of overcoming worthy opponents. But in the end he dismisses the thought, as it is unworthy of the unequaled greatness that is Doom!
The Impossible Man Summer Vacation Spectacular #1
In this insufferable comic, which somehow isn't a one-off, the Impossible Man and his wife return to earth with their thousands of kids in tow, who promptly go on a rampage around the globe bothering everyone with their nearly limitless transformation powers and complete lack of sense. One of the locations they visit is Castle Doom, which they believe looks like a pretty cool clubhouse from above as they flit around as a swarm of butterflies. Or, actually, that's not quite what they're aiming for… Doom is standing on the balcony below them, musing that it's a beautiful summer day, and the world moves closer to peace as tensions are eased, and people are beginning to smile again. And he will put an end to all of that! He is Doom, master of his destiny, and his destiny is to rule the world with an iron fist! He is DOOM! Let the Earth quake where he walks! Let the skies tremble when he speaks! ...What is that infernal buzzing?
The hordes of Impossible Kids suddenly fall on Doom like an actual waterfall, and he reason that it's a simple matter to dry himself - but there was not a cloud in the sky which might release such a sudden downpour! There can be only one answer: a jet must have discharged its tanks over his summer castle! Against international treaty! Very well; they know the penalty for such an affront. Doom paces away, only to realize that he's hearing voices coming from inside his armor. He's been invaded! He takes a nearby fibre-optic camera to take a closer look at what's going on with the circuitry in his equipment - because everyone has those handy, of course - and the video feed resolves into dozens of different images, all of them references to TV shows depicted in green-and-purple alien-vision. Several of the Impossible Kids pretend to be tourists and visit Doom's eyeball, treating the outline of the mask's eye-holes like giant windows until they scare themselves silly.
Doom loudly declares he's had enough, and dozens of alien heads suddenly grow giant and declare they have had enough! What on Earth is he doing in their clubhouse? It seems the aliens have claimed his armor for their own… Doom is about to proclaim his name again, when he gets a devious idea, complete with vicious grin that's somehow visible on his mask. He declares himself the keeper of the clubhouse. Indeed, they have arrived at the finest clubhouse on earth - a place of tradition and higher values, of discipline, integrity, self-reliance, and hard work! Yes, this new clubhouse will surely enrich their lives in ways that these newfangled so-called 'modern' clubhouses would never even attempt! With that he points to a nearby screen showing footage of Iron Man.
The Impossible Kids are instantly beguiled, declaring as one that they think his place is great - magnificent even… but he's just so boring! With that they promptly leave, and moments later Iron Man gains a new purple-and-green rocket booster live on the television and goes careening into the scenery. Doom can't believe the aliens have gotten there that fast, but then bursts into unrestrained laughter, walking back onto his balcony with his arms thrown wide - Doom always laughs last! On the final panel, however, his green cloak has an alien face which winks at the reader...
After a string of less than interesting cover appearances, it's nice to have another Giant Doom to look at - though I'm not sure what on Earth is going on with his mouth here, which appears to be a gaping mechanical maw which is rather deeper than should be possible if there's an actual chin in there. Maybe this is a depiction of a Doombot? Regardless, he's holding a cup with a bunch of Canadian superheroes drowning in it, in a symbolic bit that's not terribly subtle - between that, the title referencing 'thirst' and the caption containing 'swallowing', I have a feeling this is playing on a common theme. Apparently Canadians need remedial doggy paddle lessons - who knew? In any case, the cover is neat, but a bit deceptive, since we're not actually dealing with Doctor Doom this time - nor even a Doombot pretending to be Doom as has become habit recently. Nope, this is a Kristoff Vernard story! Not a lot of those left though, don't worry...
Story Overview
Before we get into the issue proper, the story starts one issue earlier in an epilogue scene tacked onto Alpha Flight v1 #90. There we see Latveria, which has apparently suffered political and social turmoil for months, and the time has come for its leader to ask the international community for help to resolve these problems! A man announces to a figure cloaked in shadow that a flight to Canada has been arranged, and trade talks are set to start in three days. When asked how the winds of public opinion blow, the man admits that there are rumors of planned terrorist activities. Kristoff reveals himself, declaring to let them try - he needs what Canada has to give, and will provide for the needs of his people! For so it shall ever be: what Doom wants, he gets!
A Thirst for Power
The next issue opens by helpfully mentioning the current roster of Alpha Flight, the top-tier Canadian superhero team, and it seems like a pretty lengthy list to me. We've got Guardian, Vindicator, Sasquatch and Aurora getting top billing, but apparently there's also Northstar, Puck, Diamond Lil, Windshear, Box, Shaman, Talisman and Persuasion. Really? There's someone who uses Box as their super-code-name? And half these are entirely unfamiliar characters to me, but perhaps that's just because I don't read a lot of Alpha Flight. Or any, really. At any rate, the team is soon called in by Interpol to inspect a shipment of high-tech weaponry that's getting smuggled into the country via a Newfoundland port. While investigating there they discover some odd people hanging around late at night, and get curious - and curiosity apparently means rushing in while screaming at the top of your lungs, at least according to Diamond Lil.
The heroes who actually show up here are her, Northstar, and Puck. A scantily clad Diamond Lil smacks down to the floor and starts taking down bad guys, declaring that she tried to be sneaky like she was told - how did she do? Northstar dryly points out it's best he does not say. Puck nervously tells her it's a start. As the various workers go down easily, the heroes look around for these weapons that are allegedly getting smuggled in, and that's when a door opens to reveal a collection of funny-looking people in vaguely insectile armor, like really bloated Blue Beetle cosplayers. They announce themselves as the Latverian Liberation Front, and demand that their mission be allowed to continue in the name of freedom for their country! Before this can continue, however, air support arrives - Box and Vindicator have arrived to back up their allies. It seems the heroes used the first squad to lure out these 'freedom fighters' - and now they'll get some answers by overwhelming them.
Using super-sonic blasts to knock out some of the Latverians, Box gets to work in a hurry. Vindicator warns them not to 'unduly' harm the bad guys, and Norstar jokingly wonders what that even means. When Diamond Lil makes a quip about Vindicator using big words to confuse them, Puck says that he can see how it might confuse her, and she warns him that it's a pretty gutsy move to make fun of someone who's in such proximity to his family jewels. Puck then uses his powers to knock down one of the rebels - and I only now realize that his powers aren't related to some Shakespeare reference, but to a hockey puck. Because Canada! Should have realized, not sure what I was thinking there. Vindicator uses his recently enhanced electromagnetic powers to take down another armored rebel while Lil finishes off the second to last with diamond-hard kicks and punches.
The last member of the LLF then declares that while one of them still draws breath, they will fight to the bitter end! Northstar rushes in and completely disintegrates his armor with a series of attacks, telling him that the slogan-spouting he's doing reminds him too much of himself - and he doesn't really like himself very much. Vindicator complains that he'd hoped to keep at least one of them awake to interrogate them, since if Interpol's information was correct he would have expected far more weapons and resistance than this. Before he can finish the thought, however, the downed rebels suddenly burst into flames, reduced to ashes within moments by suicide triggers. Apparently someone would rather these people die than reveal any information to Canadian authorities - madmen and their causes, right? Or perhaps a well-planned deception... In any case, it's high time to contact the team leader, Guardian, who's in Ottawa at the moment.
In Ottawa, under the Parliament Building which is the center of Canada's government, lies a long-abandoned complex which one served as the original home of Department H, the country's superhuman training program - which was none too kind and all kinds of problematic, because Marvel's Canada tends to be a bit of a nightmare country. The place now serves as the temporary headquarters for Alpha Flight, because that's not weird at all! Guardian, the leader of Alpha Flight, has many memories of this place - some keep staring her in the face. Like Vindicator, who is reporting on the events with the LLF. He tells her they're shipping the bodies back for autopsy, then hangs up. Vindicator is her former husband, but he has been entirely cold and hands-off towards her since his apparent resurrection a few weeks earlier. Is he more machine than man, now? She can't really tell. How will this situation affect her status as team leader?
Guardian informs General Clarke of the situation with the LLF, and both of them agree that 'he' was correct about the threat they pose. When asked for the status of the terrorists, Guardian relays that they died to some sort of suicide mechanism, which Clarke notes is a sign that these people really mean business.
She agrees, and notes that from Vindicator's report, it seems the one shipment they stopped is only a drop in the bucket. Clarke decides that means they can only do what 'he' suggested. In a flashback we see Kristoff request, in the guise of Doctor Doom, that since he wishes trade talks between Latveria and Canada to happen smoothly, he demands a security escort. And since he's treading on Canadian soil, he wants Alpha Flight to be that escort! He wants their undivided attention and protection!
The next morning, at Ottawa General Hospital, Guardian and Shaman discuss what's going on while they check on Talisman's recovery after she got hurt saving the team in the previous issue. Guardian notes that Kristoff is only requesting water of all things in exchange for technological secrets - it seems a pretty safe deal. Shaman opines that opening the barn to the fox is a great way to get hens stolen, and if there ever was a fox it's Doom. The reason Kristoff needs water is that Latveria's only fresh water source, it appears, has been tainted by a nasty bacterial infection, and neither of his country's neighbors - Symkaria or the Soviet Union - are willing to deal with him. Seems like the country's moved again! Anyway, Kristoff came to the country with the world's largest freshwater reserves to get some more, which makes sense - but why would Canada's parliament work with him? Guardian figures it's the usual reasons - money and technology. Both are worth a lot, after all, but she worries about the unseen costs of this deal.
She and Aurora wander over to another sick person who got hurt in a recent issue, ten-year old Laura Dean. She's in a coma, and Persuasion is looking after her like 'a benevolent vulture.' Aurora wonders what kind of life this is, unconscious in a bed - what do all their fancy names matter when in the end they're all still raw meat, ready to be cut up and cooked like anyone else? Guardian tells her they might be flesh and blood, but she has to remember they're heart and soul too - she has to keep faith for Laura's sake. Laura's parents catch wind of this and apologize for abandoning their daughter after learning she was a mutant, and promise they've now bettered their ways. Guardian declares that Laura's situation is by no means finished, either physically or legally - whenever she wakes up Alpha Flight intends to file for legal guardianship.
Later that afternoon in Toronto, we catch up with Sasquatch, Witchfire (who didn't even get a mention in the intro!), Windshear, and the civilian Kerry Patrick, governmental liaison to Alpha Flight. It seems Windshear and Witchfire are not officially Alphans yet, but I note that one of them is already included in the title crawl! Bit of favoritism, huh? Anyway, they are checking out the location for a new permanent base in Toronto, and the two newbies wonder what they're even doing there, since they're not really members. Sasquatch explains that she and Guardian just figured they should each get to know the new people, in order to get some idea of their personalities, and this seemed like the best way to do it.
Suddenly a construction accident above them sends a bunch of metal careening down, and Windshear quickly uses a shield of hard air to block the debris while Sasquatch and Witchfire use sheer strength and magic to deflect the rest. Windshear flies up to check on the workers while the other two agree that was a rather questionable incident - and they had best get some more supervision around here!
Three hours later, back in Ottawa, 'Victor von Doom' has arrived, and announces that he's not here to beg or borrow - but his people beg for assistance, raising their hands to borrow the taste of life. His land is desperately in need of fresh water, he explains, and while his people thirst for life, those who thirst for power deny them their rightful due. He's come to make a deal under direct threat by forces who oppose him - tomorrow morning, when talks officially begin, he hopes Canada will grant him his needs. He then tells Vindicator and Guardian to accompany him to his quarters, and while the two obey, Vindicator muses to himself that while this man might be representing Latveria, he very much doubts it is the true Victor von Doom…
Morning comes and a bunch of protesters have arrived on both sides of the so-called 'water for the devil' talks - en evocative name if you ask me. The media reports on the question of whether or not to trade with Latveria, while the Prime Minister of Canada arrives to open the discussion. Kristoff actually brought a throne along to sit in, and slouches as he declares he's here for only one reason - and it's not to cause trouble. He wishes to find succor for his people. He then thanks the PM for the respect shown to his delegation, as well as the competent security provided by Alpha Flight. Sasquatch mutters that he'd feel more secure if he could knock Doom upside the head, but Guardian hushes him. Vindicator suddenly sees something weird and asks Box to scan the room with his tech-powers, since he's picking up on broadcasts on the same frequency as those used by the Newfoundland terrorists. Box confirms that - and the signals are coming from a lot of people!
As soon as he says this, the Latverian Liberation Front reveals itself from among the crowd - they're all in their insectoid armor and were either under some kind of holographic disguise as the art suggests, or maybe they teleported in out of nowhere as a later panel would posit. As soon as they appear, one of them announces that for Latveria to be free, Doom must die! Kristoff cries out that the fools of Alpha Flight allowed these rebels to enter this very chamber, while Northstar quickly punches one out while telling Kristoff that maybe he shouldn't be insulting those protecting his questionable armored hide.
Puck, Aurora and Vindicator pitch in as well and start taking down bad guys while Guardian asks for a little less banter and a little more ass-kicking. While the rest of the team starts fighting as well, one of the rebels manages to slip through and fires at Kristoff directly, but his personal force field harmlessly disperses the blast. Puck wonders why on Earth Doom would even need them around if he can no-sell these rebels, and Northstar figures it's for show - it's just so he can look sympathetic for the cameras! Guardian tells them that no matter the reason, right now is a time for action, not words!
As Aurora takes out the last rebel she feels something odd about him, and Vindicator warns everyone to back off, as he realizes the rebels are about to explode! Much like their colleagues before them, each of the attacking rebels dies when their suicide trigger is activated, and they all crumple to the floor as burnt corpses. Guardian asks if they really just did that to themselves, and Vindicator says they didn't - he registered a signal which set off the suicide devices back in Newfoundland, and he just spotted it again. Indeed, he even traced the location of the signal's source, and both it and the signal which teleported the terrorists into the room came from the same place - from Doctor Doom himself! Vindicator approaches him and says that Kristoff might have his force field raised, but that won't help now - it won't protect him from Vindicator, nor from his guilt. Vindicator then grabs the Monarch straight through his protection, revealing that with his powers he can override any frequency he's absorbed, and that now includes Kristoff's personal force field!
As he holds Kristoff by the throat, Vindicator announces that rumors have been going around that he is just a pretender to the throne - that behind the armored shell he is not the true Victor von Doom. If so, what better way to allay such suspicions and place himself in a sympathetic light among the international community than playacting an assassination attempt in a public forum? Kristoff demands to be unhanded, and claims diplomatic immunity as sovereign ruler of Latveria.
Vindicator releases him, but Guardian announces they're not going to let him get away with this trickery that easily. Before they can act on that promise, however, Kristoff suddenly teleports away. Vindicator quickly identifies the technology used as some sort of derivative of Doom's time machine, though I'm not sure how he might've figured that out. The PM asks if it's over, and Guardian agrees that it seems to be, now that all of Kristoff's plans have backfired completely. Even if the talk about Latveria's water problems were true, he didn't get the water in the end, and he'll only face more international isolation than before after this debacle. The only unanswered question is… how could Doom, even a fake one, allow himself to get into that sort of predicament to begin with?
We now zoom over to a charming chalet in Switzerland, where news reports of the ruckus in the Canadian parliament filter through, and are quickly switched between as channel after channel elaborates on the details. Questions as to the leadership of Latveria grow, even as the tainted water supplies remain an issue. A well-dressed man enters the room, Ambassador Fyotr of Symkaria, who asks an off-panel figure if 'this is all that's needed' as he's handed a vial with a mysterious liquid. It's a cure, it turns out, and the means to turn the water supply of Latveria back to normal. Finally the true Victor von Doom reveals himself, and tells the Ambassador to offer that solution to Latveria on behalf of his own nation of Symkaria, as a gift to the Latverian people. The ambassador agrees, and thanks Doom for use of his chalet - and for his benevolence. Doom muses that everything has worked out as planned - Kristoff was proven impotent in the face of his nations' greatest challenge, and would have to rely on outside help to fix it. Very soon Doom will reclaim his land and serve Kristoff's head on a platter - very soon indeed!
The epilogue of the story is a brief scene between Kerry Patrick and General Clarke, the military people who represent Alpha Flight and the government respectively. Patrick is upset that Clarke won't listen to him at all, and Clarke responds that he doesn't remotely care what the man thinks, which Patrick thinks is a poor way to start a relationship, if they're supposed to be working together. Clarke tells him that he's a paper pusher, not a soldier - he'll do what he's told! And right now, in the General's opinion, Guardian shouldn't be leading Alpha Flight anymore - instead, it should be her husband Vindicator! Indeed, he intends to see this thought acted upon immediately...
Rating & Comments
Alpha Flight is an interesting team, and though its roster seems a bit bloated and unfamiliar, what I saw in this comic worked well enough. I'm clearly missing context though, like an explanation for what happened to Vindicator to apparently kill and resurrect him, why he's being so distant to his ex-wife, but I imagine all those things are covered in comics I haven't read. For this comic alone, they come off as generally competent and heroic, though with a couple of wild cards - Diamond Lil seems a bit special, but that may have just been playing things up to lure out the bad guys. Regardless, none of them came off as terribly offensive (beyond the fact that Canada got a hockey puck-inspired superhero.)
The story itself is passable, though a bit uninspired - Kristoff sets up a rather transparent trick that I figured out well before the comic bothered to introduce all the clues. Even the heroes see it coming quite early, even if they don't actually act on that suspicion - I suppose this can be attributed to the tendency for superheroes to react instead, waiting until the bad guys make their move instead of preventing it altogether. I was surprised that Kristoff would be ruthless enough to commit mass-murder on his own people - he might be willing to throw their lives away, but I didn't perceive Doom to be the type to pointlessly waste resources, and Kristoff is pretty close in most regards. In any case, the plan ultimately backfires because Kristoff, for whatever reason, decided to remote control the supposed terrorists from inside the same room. While in the presence of a technopathic superhero that he knew would be there ahead of time. This seems… poorly planned. Incidentally, the clues that this is Kristoff rather than the true Doom go beyond just reading the previous issue - despite wearing the full cowl here to make him look closer to the real Doom, he is consistently shown with the chain-mail upper arm coverings that only Kristoff has ever worn.
The revelation, then, that all this is part of a larger plan by the 'real' Doctor Doom - probably - is welcome. It also makes things a bit clearer. The infected water situation is real, so Kristoff does genuinely require the deal he's after - even if trying to get water from the other side of the world seems a bit questionable. It's just that he's trying one of Doom's old staples, namely achieving more than one goal at the same time, and fails to pull it off as well as the original might have. By screwing up on faking an assassination attempt, Kristoff also prevented himself from acquiring the water he needed - which makes him look terrible in the public eye, to say the least. That, I suspect, is implied to be related to how Doom wants to reclaim his nation, though as far as I'm aware nobody bothers revisiting that plot point after this. That happens a lot, actually, in recent comics - lots of setup with no resolution. The eventual resolution of this entire exile arc will come soon, and will have no relation to any of this.
This issue is inoffensive and bland, though I think the art gets distractingly bad in places. There's a lot of stiff poses, really awkward choices for composition, and a metric ton of speed lines everywhere. Seriously, it's like there can't be an action shot without dumping people into another dimension of streaking colors. It should also be noted that the final page featuring the 'real' Doom is probably not originally intended to be one, since it's kind of weird for Doom's robots to be guarding a chalet belonging to another government in Switzerland of all places. It's likely the epilogue actually featured Kristoff revealing he had the cure for the plague all along and was using it to try and pressure the international community, or the story was intended as all about Doctor Doom, right after he regained his position in Latveria. With the Kristoff situation unresolved, however, this is what we ended up with. At least it makes Doom look good, and he misses out on an embarrassing loss, so I'm not complaining! Bland but inoffensive stories get middling grades, even ugly ones - so here's three stars.
Next up, it's time for another one of those short stories from an anthology comic. There's been a bunch of those lately, huh?
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I appreciate the dramatic shot of Kristoff being as stately as he can manage, complete with dramatic cloak-twirl. Note the presence of a ton of pointless speed-lines all over the place, as well as the detail of subtle chain-mail on both his upper arms and legs, which are not found on regular Doctor Doom.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
Kristoff: "My people thirst for life, and those who thirst for power deny them their rightful due."
Kristoff: "Disengage your hand from my person, or I will snap it in half! As official sovereign ruler of Latveria, I claim diplomatic immunity from your hostilities!"
Kristoff: "One does not 'allow' Doom anything!"
"So it has all worked as planned... Kristoff, impotent in the face of his greatest challenge as monarch...! And very soon, Victor von Doom will reclaim his land - and Kristoff's head will be served to me on a silver platter! Very, very soon indeed..."
Doom's Bad Hair Day
Not only is Guardian stepping on top of a speech balloon while she's speaking it here, but her physique is off in general - she appears to have a huge leg that's weirdly connected to her torso somehow, or maybe a coloring mistake between her body and arm just makes it seems like she's fatter than she's supposed to be. Either way, weird.
Doom-Tech of the Week
I'm not entirely sure if an antibiotic can really be considered for this category, but I presume if it was a commonplace solution, Kristoff wouldn't have needed to wander so far afield for new water. So let's include the Infected Water Cure.
Marvel Comics Presents is an anthology title we've visited before, and like the last time we visited we're dealing with an eight-page backup story at the tail end of the collection. As such, the cover doesn't have anything to do with the story we're here for - it's actually illustrating the third chapter in the 'Weapon X' storyline, the origin of Wolverine. Elsewhere in the book there's also part eight of a ten-part Shanna story called The Bush of Ghosts - which I can't comment on, since I'm not even sure I know who Shanna is. Female Tarzan or something judging by a cursory look? Meh. The third story is one featuring Meggan and Shadowcat, who we'll become acquainted with soon, as they are both in Excalibur. This leaves Doctor Doom to headline the final story by himself. Sort of. You'll see what I mean.
Story Overview
Triumph
We open this issue with Doctor Doom, naturally, sitting on his throne with one hand under his cheek, admitting that he's utterly bored.
He's so bored, actually, that he's started chanting 'bored, bored bored…' to himself, something which he immediately recognizes as sniveling self-pity and ruthlessly stamps out. He stands up, deciding it's high time to get to work - there are mighty deeds to be done! Filled with terrible resolve Doom treads deeper into his castle, declaring that his ever-questioning mind has discovered a new development: he has found a way to capture cosmic energies and stare them inside his own body in usable form! Throwing himself into his work, Doom quickly starts building machines to achieve his end, the keen song of free-flowing energy accompanying his hour upon hour as he tears savagely at the secrets of the universe.
At last, hours later, he has it - the genius of Doom has triumphed again! Now, it is time for the final preparations. Relays click and circuits hum as he checks and rechecks his final calculations, then taps a big red button - the fateful final step! Spears of agony rip through his body, and when he tries to stand, the cosmic forces bludgeon him to his knees. Doom screams and crumples, but he survives. Though his legs will not yet support him, he feels power surging through his body, enough power to rule the Earth! Power enough to shake the very stars! Power enough to settle old scores. Let those who have denied his destiny beware the power that Doom now possesses!
The good Doctor soon gathers himself and rises from the ground atop a flying machine, his arms crossed as he soars into the sky. Already he can visualize his foes falling before him - let the world beware! He flies over towards New York, which lies helpless in the afternoon sun, and he strikes! Blasting down at the city with streaks of fire, Doom engulfs half the city in flames within moments, and mighty towers topple into the streets below due to his onslaught. Doom is flushed with a heady sense of power as the civilians run like ants from his might, scurrying away from the lethal beams he sends out with barely a thought. Doom is supreme! Who dares challenge him? 'I dunno, Doomsie, I'll give it a try!' says someone from off-panel just as a web surrounds him…
Sure enough, Spider-Man has arrived, swinging in to save the day. Doom shrugs away the arachnid's cursed webs, and when the hero leaps Doom catches him and tosses him aside. The Human Torch flies by to catch his friend, and Spidey helpfully explains that Doom is dangerous, as if this is some great revelation. Johnny replies that so are they - the Fantastic Four!
The current roster soon arrives - they include Sharon, Crystal, and a big spiky version of the Thing. Was that really the lineup at the time this was released? Huh. Anyway, the Thing announces that he's going to smash Doom's ugly face in, and Doom snidely responds that he should look at his own face first, monster, if he were not about to die! Doom then blasts the Fantastic Four, puzzled why the final member - Reed Richards - wasn't with them. He hasn't defeated the Four, after all, without defeating him!
Reed jumps into the fight from elsewhere, entangling Doom with his stretchy body even as he declares Doom will pay for the crimes he's committed. Doom has waited years for this moment - he has his nemesis at his mercy at last! With a single blast of cosmic power he incinerates Reed, and he gloats that he's finally defeated his greatest foe, who now lies dead at Doom's feet!
The Invisible Woman soon arrives to swear revenge, and when Doom wonders if she's going to try and take him on by herself, Captain America also arrives to pitch in, and he announces there's plenty more with him - more than enough superheroes to cut even Doom down to size! He throws his mighty shield, but Doom effortlessly catches it from the air, then crumples the unbreakable shield like tissue paper between his cosmically-empowered hands. As Cap screams in denial, Doom throws the bent remnants back at him at speed and knocks him out.
Doom turns to Susan, announcing they've got unfinished business - but he's interrupted by the arrival of basically everyone else, including most of the Avengers. Doom decides to be generous to his enemies, and allows them to approach - and for a moment he even allows them to believe they have a chance. Then, at the last moment, he unleashes a cosmic explosion from his person which vaporizes and obliterates the lot all at once, as he declares at the top of his lungs that Doom is power incarnate!
Where now is the foe who would stand against him? 'Here, Doom!' someone says as they swing in from off-panel - and this time the new arrival isn't Spidey, but the Silver Surfer! The Surfer declares this latest bout of destruction is the most despicable act he's ever seen. Doom wonders if he's ever seen his old master Galactus eat lunch. Hah!
The Surfer says he's not here to bandy words - this monstrous assault on the people of Earth and its defenders must be brought to a halt, and if nobody else can stop Doom, he will. Doom responds that even the mighty Surfer does not have the power to defeat him - much less when he's reverted back to the form of… Norrin Radd! Pointing his finger, Doom effortlessly de-powers his foe and notes that the mighty have fallen - literally. The now powerless Surfer then promptly drops from the sky, since he can no longer keep himself aloft! Doom is the victor, he declares, he has the power. Where now is the one who would match him!? Increasing his size enormously, Doom then strides through the city like a Colossus, declaring nothing can stand before him. Even as missiles prove harmless, Doom continues to grow until he looms over the Earth itself, its curvature visible beneath his feet as he walks. He demands to see Galactus - to bring on that galactic buffoon so he too can fall at Doom's might. Not even the bonds of Earth shall hold him!
'Franklin?' a voice suddenly intrudes. 'What's wrong, honey?' The voice is Susan Richards', who's found her son Franklin tossing and turning in bed, in the throes of a scary nightmare. Franklin explains that in his dream Doom had taken over the world, and Sue comforts him by saying it was just a silly dream. Franklin agrees, deciding it really was just a dream - or at least he thinks it was. And that uncertainty… that's the scariest part of all.
Rating & Comments
Well, it's good that this story was brief, because it's the exact kind of consequenceless nonsense I can't stand. Indeed, it's very much an echo of Fantastic Four v1 #330 in which a fairly similar dream is depicted, featuring Doctor Doom gaining ultimate power and basically destroying the world. This issue is slightly less apocalyptic in what it shows, but it does include the same shots of Doom blowing up a whole bunch of superheroes without the slightest effort, as well as him getting attacked by progressively bigger threats. Maybe if the art was particularly good, I could forgive it for giving me some neat new shots of Doom kicking ass, but it feels like half this stuff is copied from previous issues and the rest is too mediocre to really bother with.
The only small credit I'll give this is that the childish nature of the dream filters through fairly quickly, with 'Doctor Doom is bad' treated as a revelation, several nearly identical reveals of a newly arrived challenger, and a very childish interpretation of what getting stronger is like - in this case it just means blowing up more stuff and getting physically larger. The childish puns Doom makes also fit in well enough, though I'm not entirely sure Franklin would be aware of the Silver Surfer's original identity. It's also odd that the earliest parts of the comic seem more maturely written, with more flowery descriptions of Doom's actions there than at later points. Perhaps it's implied that some elements of this dream are one of Franklin's prophetic visions, and it's a warning of a future Doctor Doom attack? Not much of a surprise, I'd think.
Look, this issue is just incredibly pointless and lame, with out of character randomness happening because it's a dream. Not even, like, one that's likely to get any follow-up - so in the end it's a handwavy excuse to write bad fanfiction. One star for being worse than bad.
Most Gloriously Imaginary Doom Quotes
"I'm bored! Bored! Bored! Bored! ENOUGH! Doom is no sniveling peasant to wallow in self-pity! It's time I got to work! There are mighty deeds to be done!"
"Let those who have denied me my destiny now beware the power of Doom!"
"Doom is power incarnate! Where is there a foe to stand against me?! ...I shall stride the Earth like a colossus! Nothing shall stand before me! Even the bonds of Earth shall not hold me!"
His involvement isn't public. Even providing the cure was done through a proxy. If he poisoned it, he kept it well under wraps. It's also possible he didn't poison it at all and just took advantage of an external situation to advance personal gains as he often does. The goal of course was to undermine Kristoff's legitimacy so that when Doom retakes the throne there'll be less grumbling over the new management, which is actually of course the old management.
Another giant Doom looming over everyone? Oh, cover artists, you shouldn't have! Seriously though, I'm pretty sure if Doom has one consistent motif going on, it's that he's routinely bigger than he's supposed to be on nearly every one of his covers! Here he's looking over what appears to be an Avengers party - most of them are in costume, while Namor has shown up in a suit because presumably showing up in a speedo for a formal meeting is a bit odd even for this lot. I also note that the Thing appears to be wearing a proper Fantastic Four suit here, contrary to his usual preferences, and indeed the previous issue I covered where he appeared. SImilar reasons, perhaps?
Story Overview
The Many Faces of Doom
The Fantastic Four arrive at the entrance to the brand new Avengers Headquarters in New York City, offering their invitation for its grand reopening party to Jarvis, the trusty butler who inspired the AI in the movies. While Johnny muses that it's too bad supervillains will trash this place sooner or later, Jarvis asks if they'd object to being electronically scanned to verify their identities, which they happily agree to. When the scan only takes an instant, Jarvis explains that all data was recorded in a micro-burst, and it's being checked as they speak. As they head in, apparently before the results of the scan are in, Reed greets and congratulates Captain America while Ben greets Nick Fury, who asks if he's been lifting weights, which Wolverine scoffs at. He's shown up in a tuxedo, by the way, very suave.
We get a double-page spread showcasing dozens of superheroes, including basically the entire roster of the Avengers, including a lot of big names. Just from a glance, I recognize the Black Knight, the Falcon, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau edition), Spider-Man, Daredevil, Vision, Namor, She-Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Black Widow, Tigra, Wolverine, Doctor Strange, Hercules, Sandman (while a hero), Rage, Hawkeye, and Quicksilver. Probably a few more I'm overlooking, but yea - there's a bunch. Sandman is trying to convince Rage that showing up in his costume is alright, he doesn't need a tuxedo, and offers instead to fetch him a clip-on bow-tie like his own. The soiree is also attended by dignitaries and other various civilians who mingle with the super-powered crowd. And not just small names, either, or only nonspecific people in suits - we've got appearances from George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara, Ronald Reagan, Prince Charles and Lady Diana, Paul Ryan and his wife - not that one, but the penciler of this comic - and finally, most importantly, Stan the Man himself. (Not all of them are in this first shot, though, I think.)
Below this star-studded mess, the security personnel of the Avengers are busy at work, confirming the voice-print graphs and checking up on the retinal readings for the Fantastic Four. Peggy Carter is in charge, naturally, and is told that the retinal scans match up to record too - these are the Fantastic Four alright. Their physical dimensions also match - though the Thing's a little over his average. Has he been pumping iron? Carter admits it feels a little uncomfortable running such exhaustive checks on all these heroes and luminaries, but her colleague John Jameson (yes, son of that Jameson) mentions that they can't be too careful these days, what with supervillains, alien menaces, and terrorists possibly infiltrating their new headquarters by pretending to be an invited guest.
The silence is suddenly interrupted by an intruder alert, and all the people present turn as one to the screen that declares that there is a security breach in the lower-level, in a sub-sub-basement! While they are turned away, naturally, Doctor Doom appears on the screen behind them, but only Jameson glances back soon enough to catch a glimpse - the edge of a green cloak.
He's not sure exactly what he saw, deciding it could be anybody wearing a green cape, and Carter agrees that with the crowd currently in the house, that's obviously true. Still, he decides to activate all the security cameras in the sub-sub-basement, as he wants a good look at every square inch of the place. Nothing in the East River shuttle area, he declares, nor the weapons testing chamber, nor anywhere else on the entire floor. There's nobody down there!
Still, something clearly tripped the security system, since it's still going crazy. Maybe there's just a glitch in the system? Whatever the case, they still have to alert the Avengers of what's going on, and use the discreet emergency code-word of the day - Opportunity! Interesting, this member of the support crew is actually Fabian Stankiewicz, though his name is spelled differently here, a former supervillain known as the Mechano-Marauder who technically showed up during Acts of Vengeance when Hydrobase sunk, piloting that one mech suit. Anyway, Jarvis receives the call and decides he'll double-check the systems immediately, passing by a conspicuous 'Kirby Room' on his way - I see that reference! Jarvis is rather surprised when Doctor Doom blatantly passes him in the hall without even attempting to cover up his presence. When Doom turns around a corner, however, Jarvis is shocked to discover he's suddenly disappeared. How is that even possible? He decided this situation needs a modicum of discretion.
Jarvis moves over to the main hall and tells Cap that if he has the 'opportunity' he should contact the support team, and the hero thanks him. When Namorita asks him if something's wrong, Cap reassures her that it's probably nothing more pressing than a leaking coffee pot, but the support crew has been working so hard he doesn't want to upset them by making them wait. As Cap leaves, Rage wonders if midget hot dogs and crackers are really all the snacks there are going to be at this party, holding up one of the pathetic things in front of him. Jarvis says they're cocktail franks and canapés - finger food. Rage is reminded that when his grandmother heard about this party, she baked a big batch of cupcakes, and he brought them.
Jarvis checks one out - they have an 'A' on them and everything, it's adorable. He decides that all their true friends would probably prefer one of those to a canapé.
Nearby, Stan Lee is busy chatting up a few civilians, stating: "'Nuff said, true believer!" as if to confirm that this is most definitely a cameo, yes.
Behind him, a woman asks Vision what it feels like to pass through a person, if he likes it, and the confused, pale version of Vision just tells her it's an interesting sensation. He gets a sudden buzz from his pocket, and when asked if he carries a pager, reveals that the Avengers ID card has a few extra functions. A little screen pops up with Cap's face, who declares there's an 'opportunity' for Vision he can't miss in the command center. Subtle. Vision apologizes to the ladies for having to leave so soon, and a nearby Sandman wonders what they see in a cold fish like Vision just as he gets an Avengers alert of his own.
Vision enters the command center and confirms the use of the discreet emergency code-word, and Cap quickly explains that there was a security alert in the sub-sub-basement, and they're going to check it out in person as soon as Sandman arrives. Pouring in from a ventilation duct, Sandman explains that he's heard what Cap said while he was getting here, and they should get going quickly. Cap tells him to hold his horses, as the support crew is pretty sure it's a technical glitch, with some wires getting crossed in the security circuit - but it never hurts to be sure. Someone has to make sure they really did turn off that stove! Vision muses that the cameras should be able to confirm a presence, so there must be another reason they're going, and Cap confirms that Jarvis saw what appeared to be Doctor Doom roaming the halls - if anybody could circumvent the security protocols, it would be him! Cap decides to check out the weapons testing room, while the other two check out the East River tunnel.
Back upstairs, She-Hulk and Black Widow have been informed of the discreet emergency and are present at the check-in point where Iron Man has just arrived. The security personnel have him down as someone who sent their regrets and that he could not attend, but Iron Man declares he was able to resolve the situation on the West Coast sooner than he expected, and was hoping to catch the party anyway. The guard notes he will have to scan Iron Man before he can enter, as it's a formality nobody is exempt from. Iron Man readily agrees, saying he wouldn't have it any other way. Suddenly the nearby security console goes wild, declaring another security alert in the sub-sub-basement before going down entirely. Egads! Iron Man quickly runs over to the computer, declaring that this particular system can't go down for any length of time - it was designed with too many bypasses and backups!
Plugging the computer into his own suit with a cable, he runs a quick diagnostic on the computer and bypasses the broken circuit without much trouble. Instantly the screen clears up and Peggy appears, stating that the code-word is still 'opportunity' and that the situation in the basement is now being investigated. Iron Man says everything is now under control, thankfully, and if things go down again he'll be inside making polite conversation. The security guard thanks him for the quick save and goes back to work. Ben comments that Iron Man even got polished and undercoated for this little party, while Black Widow and She-Hulk muse that it's kind of silly they keep pretending they don't know it's Tony Stark in that suit. He slips up so often! Only Stark could have fixed that system so quickly - he was the one who designed it! She-Hulk figures as quirks go, this isn't that bad.
Down in the sub-sub-basement, Sandman and Vision head down a corridor while the former says he heard a funny story about how Vision actually propels himself through the air, but he's interrupted when they suddenly spot Doctor Doom. Jarvis was right! Doom quips that as anxious as he was to hear the rest of Sandman's little anecdote, he fears he'll have to terminate these proceedings and move on to more pressing matters!
He blasts them with a wrist-mounted missile launcher, but the projectile passes harmlessly through Vision, and then does much the same through Sandman, who opens a neat hole in his torso to allow it. The old donut trick! Unfortunately neither thought about where the explosive would go afterwards, and they're bowled off their feet by the backblast. Geniuses.
Since Vision's density was so low, he's thrown far further than Sandman, and straight at Doom, who narrowly ducks aside. Passing on and straight through a nearby wall, Vision reasons that if he ups his mass he'll just smash apart the foundations of the new base, so it's best to bleed off some velocity at low density. Sandman, meanwhile, regathers himself after being scattered by the blast, and can't find his buddy Vision anywhere. And Doctor Doom is around the corner, stomping his way over! He decides he'd better report to Captain America about the situation, and grabs his ID card. Cap explains he's already up to date, since Peggy gave him access to the surveillance cameras on his card's screen - that seems a bit cramped, but whatever. He says he hasn't finished checking out the weapons testing room, but he'll be right over.
Vision suddenly phases into the room through the ceiling and tells Cap that he's ready to resume his duties alongside Sandman, so there's no need for him to rush in. Cap points out that clearly Doom is in the corridor, so there's no need to check out the weapons testing room, but Vision reminds him of Doom's tendency to use Doombots, and Cap agrees that it's probably best to do a complete sweep of the room after all. Meanwhile, Stankiewicz comments he's getting the same readings as in the corridor from somewhere else, while Peggy comments that the new base is built to last - the explosion downstairs didn't even ripple the punch bowls upstairs - it was totally dissipated by shock absorbers! Vision has made his way back to Sandman's side, meanwhile, and says they have to turn this around - attack Doom! When asked if he has a plan, Vision says that of course he does…
Doom, meanwhile, paces down the corridor - apparently he's just been chilling there for a while - and declares that even if these two Avengers are capable of eluding his infrared scanners with their powers, his parabolic ear-amplifiers can pick up their faintest whisper! We get an interesting shot from inside Doom's mask, which even has a little screen that says 'Scan: Infrared' to the side to clarify which setting his mask is on.
Hearing about the sound-amplification, Vision decides that instead of sharing a plan that'll just get overheard, they should improvise. Sandman agrees, and he soon starts to turn into sand. Meanwhile, Captain America is still looking through the weapons testing room when he spots something moving back among the armor plate targets - something with a green cloak, naturally.
In the corridor, Doom asks the two 'gentlmen' why they are prolonging the inevitable. The moment he sets a step forward, however, Sandman surges up from a fissure in the floor and traps his boot. 'You stepped on a crack, and now you broke your mother's back!' he proclaims like a total dweeb. Doom thinks the jest is in poor taste, since his mother is - 'Who cares!' Sandman declares as he grapples Doom while Vision descends from above. Vision warns him he should go for the gauntlets before Doom gets a chance to use them. Doom then promptly blasts Vision out of the air with said blasters. That warning came way too late! Sandman apologizes and then wraps Doom up entirely, but Vision quickly warns him that covering him up completely will just turn the concentrated blasts from his gauntlet into - explosive dispersal. Too late with the warning, again. They really need to work on their reaction times!
Doom declares that someone who is composed of granules really should be more particular, then wonders if Vision desires a similar fate - to be reduced to dust in the wind. Vision says that's a threat beyond Doom's means, and then severely increases his mass. This means he can't fly towards Doom at speed, but he can walk slowly while easily tanking Doom's weapons fire. He damages the concrete floor as he goes, but he doubts Doom has anything in his portable arsenal which can counteract the forward motion of a mass with ten times the density of depleted uranium! Nearby, Sandman reforms from loose sand, and says that getting punched by Vision right now would be like getting hit by a truckload of anvils.
Back in the Command Center, Peggy and the others try to figure out where the penetration of the security systems took place - how did Doom bypass the security system? How did he get inside a sealed building? Stankiewicz thinks he's found a weak point down at the East River tunnel. While the tunnel itself has three sets of pressure seals and anti-tamper locks, there's an exhaust vent there which is an unobstructed vent to the surface. Still - it's barely nine inches wide. Doctor Doom can do amazing things, but Peggy doubts he can shrink himself! (...Fantastic Four v1 #16, anyone?) Meanwhile Captain America suddenly hears a door slam closed behind him, and turns to find Doctor Doom in the room with him, sealing that door. Cap asks him if he's really Doom or just one of his robotic replicas, and Doom says that's for him to know, and for Cap to find out!
In the lobby, the security guy mentions that the tally of people actually inside the building does not match up with the number of people who went through the security scanner - there's one extra person on this floor! She-Hulk figures that must be Iron Man, since he never did go through it. He fixed the computer, but did not get scanned! Black Widow figures they'd best ask him to go through the verification just for the record, and heads over to him. Down in the control center, the system is suddenly going on overload… but they're not even running at full capacity! It's impossible! All the circuit breakers trip simultaneously and the system goes down! Good thing everything's equipped with surge protectors!
'Correction!' a voice states as the screens turn back on. The system has not been taken down - it's just been taken over. The one speaking is Iron Man, who suddenly looms large on the screens - but it's not really Iron Man at all, is it? No, indeed! While the security forces panic that the monitors, security screens, and computers aren't responding, all the doors suddenly lock themselves and blast shields lock in place. Then, in a transformation sequence that's one part Magical Girl and one part Power Rangers, Iron Man's armor shifts and twists aside until it reveals the medieval gray armor beneath, releasing a green cape and classic mask in quick succession - it's magical. While they are both adept at mechanical sciences, and both clad themselves in power-assisted articulated plate armor, Iron Man is but a soldier in the titanic battle against forces beyond his comprehension - while he is a king, an arbiter of national destinies, and much more! He is Doctor Doom! And he now has complete control of Avengers Headquarters!
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
It's been a good while since we last visited an Avengers comic - not counting Doombot nonsense in Acts of Vengeance - so it's nice to get back while they're all busy schmoozing at a party, having a good time. Although there is a vast cast present in this comic, this and the next issue will use a number of methods to pare down the actively participating heroes to a handful, with special attention given to Captain America, Vision, Sandman, and relative unknown Rage, with lesser parts for Jarvis, Peggy Carter, She-Hulk, and Black Widow. Most of the rest of the Avengers play window dressing, as do the high profile cameos - but at least the comic goes out of its way to justify their irrelevance, to some extent.
Unlike what you'd expect from a story which involves Doctor Doom taking over the Avengers Headquarters, this plays out much less like a siege and more like a locked room murder mystery, with a fair bit of sneaking around and sleuthing before anything big happens. It's understandable that Doom would have a Doombot set off an alarm to lure some superheroes down to the basement, since that was clearly part of his little plan to hold the place ransom, but I'm not sure why another Doombot wandered up to scare Jarvis before vanishing around the corner - since we only ever saw the two in the basement and the one who snuck in through the front door later, I don't think we ever see what became of that fourth Doom. Set-up for a future story, perhaps, or for the next issue? It would be some neat continuity…
There is some buildup of the Avengers' new security measures, even if it's strange that they would allow the Fantastic Four to wander into the place without first confirming their identities. Seems like a design flaw. The Thing registers as a bit heavy and people muse it's because he's been working out, but since this story has to take place before Fantastic Four v1 #350 due to some lines in the next issue, the Thing here doesn't actually have his powers, so he must be wearing his elaborate robot costume. That may account for the weight difference, but it also seems like the kind of thing the security people should pick up on - they're taking biometric readings and retina scans, after all! It's not the only odd discrepancy which suggests the writers of this issue ignored some continuity here - this technically came out three months after the aforementioned issue, but I don't see how it could fit anywhere else, continuity-wise. Laziness, maybe?
The security system proves pretty fallible, but there are some cute touches like the code-word 'opportunity' which Jarvis uses with tact, while Cap himself just blurts it like he's forgotten what subtlety is. Choosing to take only a few superheroes down to the basement makes sense based only on the knowledge that there was some disturbance there that was probably nothing, but Cap's awareness that Jarvis spotted Doctor Doom in the halls makes it a bit more questionable. Now, if they'd spotted the Trapster, sure, but Doom is a major bad guy they wouldn't conventionally take on with only three people - what are they doing splitting up and risking an even more one-sided fight? This, naturally, immediately comes to pass. My, how could anyone have ever seen this coming…?
Rage, Vision and Sandman all get some good moments in this issue, both in combat but also when it comes to camaraderie, and it's amusing that Sandman starts telling a fart joke that even Doom is sort of looking forward to hearing. Actually, Doom later makes incredibly lame sand puns, so I guess he got in on the act? Eh, it's just a Doombot anyway. It's pretty nice seeing a Spider-Man villain on the side of the good guys like this, and despite this being the pale white 'robotic' Vision, the android actually comes off as relatively relatable here. If my presumption is correct, by the way, a Doombot basically wipes the floor with two Avengers for some time here, and the only reason he doesn't win outright is that he basically just stood around for a while waiting around for Vision to come back. Not sure why, but maybe it was just to give his enemies a sportsmanlike chance? In-universe, I imagine the real Doom just told his Doombots to stall and draw attention rather than win.
The entire sequence with the fake Iron Man was pretty nice, even if I guessed something hinky was going on long before it was revealed. I think the inclusion of a little issue note which references ongoing events in the Iron Man comics helps maintain the illusion that we're dealing with Stark here, as do comments by She-Hulk and Black Widow about his secret identity. The focus quickly shifts from the weird computer glitch that just happened to their awareness of his identity and how he's still keeping it a secret, which is pretty clever. I should note here also that in a sly bit of writing, Doom may have just been given hacking powers equivalent to those of Tony Stark himself! Although one could easily justify this as Doom having set up a problem he'd then have to fix, which would make it rather more pedestrian, it's inarguable that he still hacked into Stark's systems in the first place within days of them going online. We just don't know how much of it he did on the fly…
Since Doom apparently infiltrated the basement of the new Avengers base before he arrived in the guise of Iron Man, I'm not sure why he felt the need to do both - maybe he's just there to show off that he had multiple independent ways to get in, or perhaps he used one infiltration method to set up the other. In either case, Doom effortlessly defeats the entirety of the assembled Avengers and all their defenses by taking them all hostage inside their own base with a bunch of civilian celebs as collateral - and all without doing much more than exploiting the idiocy of his enemies. I'm serious, there - not only is the security system at the door clearly crap, if 'Iron Man' could just sort of wander in without getting the green light, but the basement is not shrink-proof despite the fact that one of the founding Avengers has that as their superpower. Doctor Doom has personally also shown the ability to shrink people in his fourth-ever appearance, and a few more times after that! Why would they think he couldn't do it, here? Why? Reed Richards is there with them in the building! Idiots!
The ending of this comic is pretty great, however, for including a full-on reveal shot of Doom in transforming armor - although personally I don't think there's anywhere near enough room inside that fake Iron Man suit to fit a full-sized Victor von Doom. Either there's some 'bigger on the inside' shenanigans going on there, or something's off. I'm putting big monopoly money on Sailor Doom being yet another Doombot, if only to make sense of where the hell he was keeping all that bulk of his - he has to be hollow! Now I'm wondering if the real Doom is even around, or if this is all just one big Doombot plot. Now, I act like I have no idea, but since I already read this once upon a time, I have a vague recollection of what's going on here. Doombots are involved, yes, but beyond that… we'll see!
This issue was pretty entertaining, and the little mystery that's set up is both engaging and justifies the relatively small cast well enough to make it work for this one issue. Not sure how this isn't going to turn into a massive brawl in the next issue, though, but I'm guessing Doom has a few more aces up his sleeve, especially if there really are a bunch more Doombots wandering around the building. An average story gets a bump here for the fun parts, Doom running roughshod over everyone, and that transformation sequence. I'm withholding any more than that, though, for the huge cast that's just there to look pretty and not much more, the random Death Star weakness that was built into the new Avengers HQ for no discernible reason, though I guess we'll read more about that next time. Oh, and the security measures of the new base suuuck!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
Gotta give this to the glorious Sailor Moon-esque transformation sequence, complete with reveal of the big poofy cloak, medieval belt buckle, and silly little gun holster! I'm not sure why there's a bit of hair visible for like half a panel there when clearly Doom is wearing a full head-concealing mask in the next panel after that - maybe it was part of the Iron Man disguise...?
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"One who is composed of granules, should be more particular! I've reduced your companion to dust in the wind - do you desire a similar fate?"
"Although Iron Man and I are both adepts in the mechanical sciences, and we both clad ourselves in power-assisted articulated plate armor,he is but a soldier in the titanic battle against forces beyond his comprehension - whereas I am a king, an arbiter of national destinies, and much, much more! I am... DOCTOR DOOM!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
Proofreading, did you do it?
Doom-Tech of the Week
The Wrist-Mounted Micro-Missiles were a new addition, and they doubled as regular blasters - Doom basically refrained from using his more traditional palm blasters in this issue, and I'm not sure I mind much. The wrist-mounted gadget looks pretty dangerous in my opinion, and that's not a problem!
Doombot Count: ?
Well, this is a bit unfair, isn't it? Pretty sure there's at least two Doombots in this issue, on account of three Dooms and Captain America's speculation… but no confirmation. I'm guessing we'll be seeing that next time, so I'll just add them to the count then in retrospect.
For once Doom is large because he's closer to the reader, rather than because he's just randomly massive. Refreshing! Although I'm not sure I like this take on Doom's mask design, he manages to come off as only mildly annoyed while being charged by a bunch of superheroes at once, so that's fun. I presume the captions indicate that the gesture Doom is doing here is some sort of threat (to blow everyone up) and for whatever reason big burly Rage over there didn't notice. Or didn't care? Regardless, he's apparently pretty dumb. I'm not sure if Cap is supposed to be throwing his shield here or has it attached to his arm, but the shadows make it slightly confusing at first glance.
Story Overview
Life of the Party!
Judging by the issue's opening scene, the image depicted on the cover may have already happened - Rage rushes up to Doctor Doom and grabs him by the arm, only to discover to his shock (hah) that the villain's armor is electrified as a protective measure. While Rage yells in pain, Doom declares that such a current is small penance for daring to lay hands upon the King of Latveria! Nearby, Namor helpfully establishes continuity by pointing out that Doom's throne was usurped, which confirms that we're still in the Kristoff era here. Doom declares that he was a king, and he'll be one again soon - make no mistake of that! (He's not wrong.)
While some people in the background declare they should get the 'quarterback' out of there, presumably the President through an allusion to the so-called nuclear football, the heroes confront Doom, with Hercules wondering if Doom is mad to think he can best them all at once, while a strangely verbose Cap notes they can't start a brawl in the middle of all these civilian dignitaries and put their lives at risk. She-Hulk, meanwhile, wonders why they're all being so blasé when one of their own is injured, and goes over to the knocked out Rage to see if she can help him. Thankfully the hero seems generally fine, having only signed his hand and his pride in the encounter.
'Quarterback' safely makes it outside the base, and his bodyguards are puzzled how they were able to get through the blast doors without issue when they were sealed before. It turns out Doom isn't entirely a bastard, and allowed all the dignitaries and their retinues to leave before resealing the building, since he didn't have any quarrel with those ambassadors or heads of state. And while he does have some reason to tussle with one or two of the costumed troublemakers around him, that's not why he's here either - instead, he has a proposition. Some heroes just want to take the fight to Doom, but Quasar suggest not breaking the new base immediately, and Doom agrees that's a wise decision - he is shielded from attack by a potent force field, after all, and should he defend himself with his gauntlet blasters there would be an egregious amount of collateral damage...
Black Widow uses her Avengers ID card to try and contact the Command Center, and more specifically Peggy Carter. She requests a secure communications link with the NSA, but is shocked to see Doom's masked face appear on the little screen on her card. He announces that external communication has been suspended, and all building systems are under his command. He'll allow internal communications - but they must understand he is in complete control. Indeed, he is willing to graphically illustrate that fact! Doom raises a small metal box and announces it is a Kinetic Holographic Projection, which takes the shape of a spherical screen that depicts a video feed from somewhere else. Interestingly, I'm pretty sure this is a reference to Fantastic Four v1 #5 and Fantastic Four v1 #259 where the same technology is used but not named.
The screens, naturally, showcase the fights that Vision, Sandman, and Captain America got into down below - in retrospect, the verbose Cap I mentioned before must have been 'US Agent' instead, which explains a few things there. Doom notes that it appears these heroes are fighting Doctor Doom while he, a third Doom, stands before them - and the explanation is quite simple. Two of the Dooms present in the building are merely Doombots, robotic doppelgangers of the real king of Latveria. It doesn't matter which. What does matter is that the security system of the Avengers Headquarters has been compromised in a way only Doom knows, and he's willing to trade that information for a small favor from the Avengers. He quickly adds that the same speech is also being broadcast to the heroes fighting the other Dooms, just to be clear.
Rage picks himself up from the floor and says he regrets trying to grab Doom - caving his face in sounds much more appealing now! Ben warns him that this is no time for clobbering. It took a lot of guts to go toe-to-toe with the Doomster, he says, but Doom once took on the entire Fantastic Four and Daredevil and walked away from it. That was way back in Fantastic Four #39-40, though Ben does not mention the Four were powerless at the time, which seems relevant. In any case, Ben suggests they wait it out until they know what's going on. Rage thanks him for the assistance, then wonders if he should be calling the hero 'Thing'. His friends, he says, just call him 'Ben.'
Nearby, Reed muses that Doom's Doombots are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, and it's obvious that his old rival has really been keeping up to date with technological advances. These robots are almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing, now! Sersi tells Doom that no single Avenger can make a deal like he suggests, and there has to be a vote among all the primary members - including Sandman, Vision, and Captain America. So why doesn't he call off those Doombots? Doom denies this request instantly, noting the contests will continue, and those three Avengers can just contribute through the public address system. Well, that works!
In the weapons testing room, Cap wonders what there is to negotiate, and his Doom declares that there are a number of matters to haggle over, like the exact terms of the deal. A second Doom takes over from the one he's facing mid-sentence, so Cap wonders if this bit with finishing each other's sentences is supposed to cause confusion - which proves effective when he is briefly distracted and his Doom sneaks in a vicious punch that knocks him off his feet. Doom declares he's not supposed to be confused, but compliant, right as he knocks Cap into a random pool of water, while his shield goes careening off to the side.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the sub-sub-basement, which is just the sub-basement in this issue, Sandman and Vision are still taking on their own Doom. Despite the way the last issue ended, Sandman is now taking the brunt of the damage, whining to Vision that he randomly decided to start inspecting that architectural details of the base that was mentioned last time while leaving Sandman to play bodyguard. Wasn't he going to deliver a wallop with his increased mass? Sandman wonders what happened to that, and Vision answers that this is a relevant architectural detail he's inspecting, and also… he changed his mind!
Doom suddenly proclaims that it's now common knowledge, as per news reporting, that the Avengers defeated the 'Tetrarchs of Entropy' by hurling them into an alternate reality in Avengers v1 #331. From this, Doom surmises that the Avengers possess some form of inter-dimensional travel that he is interested in. As they may know, Doom elaborates, his own dear mother is trapped in another dimension - imprisoned, he'd previously assumed, beyond all help. There were an infinite number of alternate realities, and he has access to none! But given the means to traverse the veil that separates realities, he would have a chance! That is what he wants from the Avengers. That is what he will trade for - for the means to free his mother from her terrible fate!
While Cap and his Doom fight in the pool they ended up in, with Cap struggling to breathe while Doom simply relies on his personal air supply, Vision is still interesting in that random pertinent detail of the new Avengers base, hovering up to inspect the same exhaust vent that was mentioned in the previous issue. He contacts Peggy Carter and confirms that the base was sealed before - that the vent was the only opening that could have been used by anything to get into the new base. Peggy agrees, but notes that Doctor Doom would barely have been able to fit his head through there, much less the rest of him!
Back with the heroes, Doom concludes his explanation of the bargain he proposes. In exchange for the secret of interdimensional travel, he will reveal the flaws and gaps in the Avengers security systems he exploited. When an off-screen hero wonders if they can start stomping Doom yet, the villain dryly says he'd expected some unruliness, so he came prepared. The real Doctor Doom has a miniature neutron bomb wired in his armor, he explains, which is potent enough to kill everyone within six square blocks of the detonation. And it will detonate if the structural integrity of his armor is violated - in other words, if they attempt to destroy him. It's therefore a wise idea, he explains, that they are absolutely certain they are facing a Doombot before giving sway to unbridled violence!
The heroes discuss among each other. Hercules suggests there must be at least one among them who can neutralize Doom, but Black Panther notes it's a lot of people to risk just to prevent Doom from rescuing his mother, while Quicksilver says that's not really an immoral or illegal thing to want, even if Doom's approach to getting it is both. Reed Richards, meanwhile, tries to sneak out of the room, stretching his head to a nearby computer terminal. Reed is quickly hampered by Doom's mask appearing on the screen - his takeover is quite complete! Nearby, some heroes muse that the Doom in front of them must be the real one. After all, why would he be downstairs, fighting? Of course, maybe that's just what Doom wants them to think! Elsewhere, Rage offers Ben one of his grandma's cupcakes, and the rocky hero is relieved that at least there's something to eat besides midget hot dogs and crackers with brown mushy stuff on top. 'Cocktail franks and canapés' Rage responds, echoing the waiter from last issue. 'Yeah, those things.'
Downstairs, Cap and his Doom are still fighting, but the hero finally somehow gets leverage - the art is a bit vague on that - and kicks his foe out of the water.
Climbing out as well, he declares that he knows he's fighting a Doombot, and that means it's open season! Picking up his shield again, he goes in for the kill. Nearby, Vision declares that he's figured things out - Sandman can finish up his fight, now. Sandman isn't amused, wondering if Vision has come up with some new tactic to win, since wearing down Doom's fists with his face isn't working very well. Vision responds that Sandman hasn't been particular about his attack plan. He's been going against the grain, when really he should go with the flow and get inside the problem. Subtle. Sandman gets it and quickly turns his body into sand and rushes into cracks in Doom's armor, filling it up until the villain can no longer move.
Cap's Doombot wonders how the hero is so certain he's not fighting the real thing. If he's wrong, the consequence is the neutron bomb detonating and taking out everyone around! Is he simply guessing? Cap says he knows it for a fact, and even as the assembled Avengers watch from upstairs, he takes his shield to his enemy's face and viciously beheads him - revealing it to be a Doombot! He was right!
In the other corridor, Vision tells Sandman to hold Doom absolutely still while he revs up another infinite mass punch (or his equivalent.) Sandman points out that just because Cap ran into a Doombot doesn't mean their version isn't the real thing - the chances are 50/50 now, aren't they? Shouldn't they think about that before he cuts loose? Vision says nothing, simply lashing out and beheading the second Doom as well, revealing it to be another Doombot as its head careens to the floor.
Upstairs, the heroes conclude that with the two Doombots identified, that means the one in front of them is the real deal - with the bomb wired into his armor! Ben Grimm muses that he hopes none of the heroes are feeling too heroic that day, since this is a time for cool heads to prevail. Rage, however, thinks there's something about all this that doesn't ring true. It's something that's right on the edge of his mind, and for whatever reason his grandma's cupcakes have something to do with it. The one remaining Doom deactivates the holograms of the heroes downstairs, and says that the offer still stands. Why shouldn't the Avengers comply? Nothing criminal would result, and they would gain information which would make their base more impregnable! Cap arrives back from downstairs with a Doombot head in his arms, and declares they won't deal with Doom on principle (I'm sorry 'principal' - the editor was sleeping on the job.) Basically, they don't negotiate with terrorists. Vision and Sandman also arrive, and say that Doom's bargaining chip is also gone - they now know how he infiltrated the Doombots into the building!
Johnny pipes up to say that before Vision gets into his whole Columbo speech, maybe Cap should clarify how he could have possibly been so certain his Doombot wasn't the real deal before beheading it. 'Simple,' Cap announces, as he dumps the Doombot head he was carrying into a nearby bowl of punch. There were no bubbles coming from the robot's helmets while they were underwater - even if Doom has a built-in self-contained breathing system, it would still exhaust carbon dioxide. I think Cap is unfamiliar with rebreathers, or doesn't realize Doom can breathe in space, so he's probably not using SCUBA gear. Anyway, Cap was right (by accident.)
With that issue settled, Vision takes the floor. He asks Peggy to put the schematic of the East River tunnel's air vent on the screen. This shows the thin pipe leading up to the surface, opening beneath a sidewalk grating on Fifth Avenue. Quasar notes it's not wide enough - it's less than ten inches wide! Sandman explains it doesn't have to be any wider - if the Doombots are modular! They can be disassembled by twisting at the major joints, separating into smaller chunks. The torso divides into quarters, each with its own power unit - and they were all thrown down the vent one at a time. Sersi wonders who reassembled them, and Vision explains that the head was the first part dropped in. He shows that its cranial plate separates easily, revealing a whole array of mechanical arms and assembly tools hidden inside. Indeed, the head can even be self-propelled by tiny treads! Adorable! It seems the Doombots could reassemble themselves!
Cap announces that they might have helped Doom, if he had simply asked them. If they had thought that just maybe he'd come over and use his genius for the benefit of mankind. But to be perfectly honest, the only Avenger who has the power to travel to other dimensions is Thor - and they haven't been able to contact him in days. Doom declares these lies - this fable about Thor is preposterous! Doom, on the other hand, swears he is true to his word - the neutron bomb is real, and so is his threat! He rips open his vest to reveal a device hidden beneath the green, an ominous patch of circuitry. He declares that they will turn over the secret to dimensional travel, or the death of thousands will be on their conscience! Cap muses that he didn't think Doom was suicidal - if that bomb goes off, he'll take a trip to oblivion with the rest of them!
Rage decides that's it - he knows what's wrong with this whole scenario! He pitches his cupcake straight into Doom's face, and despite all the drama that's going on, Quasar can't help but burst into giggles at the sight of Doom getting food smeared into his mask.
Rage declares it was just the warm-up, and next he's really going to knock his block off! He's warned that Doom still has the bomb, but Rage ignores that advice, declaring he hasn't got squat before beheading the third - and final - Doombot in one punch. All three of them were fake! Scarlet Witch asks how he figured it out - what was the logic? Rage says it wasn't logic, but cupcakes. He knew that if his beloved grandmother was trapped somewhere, he wouldn't go through with any suicidal plans, because then there would be nobody left to save her. If Doom really loves his mother enough to go through all this mess to find a way to save her, he couldn't imagine him giving up his life and leaving her trapped. Even Doom has a heart!
When someone points out that Doom claimed there were two Doombots, Rage quickly corrects them - Doom said that two of the Dooms present in the building were Doombots, but he never said anything about the third being real. Black Widow wonders if this means he was lying about the presence of a neutron bomb, but Cap muses that such blatant falsehoods are not really Doom's style. Sure enough, a screen blinks on to reveal the looming face of Doom once more. He declares that he is the real Doctor Doom, and he does have a neutron bomb wired into his armor - but obviously he's not present in the Avengers Headquarters.
Still, he's well in range - he's actually just outside, in a stretched Cadillac parked among a dozen others in the parking lot. He admits he believes Captain America's statement about Thor, and since pressuring the Avengers to deliver something they no longer have access to is a fool's errand, he is deactivating his bomb and leaving them to their pathetic little party. As he instructs his driver to take him home, Doom gets a last comment in, noting that Rage had the right of it - he would do all this again, and more, for the chance to save his mother!
Rating & Comments
After last issue spent its entire runtime setting up a locked room mystery, a hostage situation, and a bunch of fights, it's pretty satisfying that this issue finds time to get into all of those to some extent, and even ties in a couple minor elements from the first issue that appeared at the time to be entirely whimsical background flavor to brighten up the mood. First, the issue wastes little time in confirming that Doom still has his nobility - he immediately lets all the civilians go, including the President of the United States, because his motive here wasn't really to kidnap people. Oh, no, it turns out his ultimate motive is basically identical to the one in Triumph and Torment, and presumably a direct reference to it (and the comics that inspired it) - Doom is after a way to free his mother from Mephisto's clutches!
Doom adds a new wrinkle to the riddle of the multiple Dooms here by claiming that two of them are robots - but the last is carrying a neutron bomb which would basically eradicate whoever took it out and the surrounding city blocks as well. This is seen as a serious enough threat that people take it seriously, even until the end - for all that Doom might bluster and brag, clearly he's well-known to keep his word and follow through on his claims. This explains why relatively few heroes actually intervene in the face-off with Doom - he isn't really actively harming anyone beyond punching a few heroes around who can handle themselves, so they're just waiting for an opportunity to be useful. Between that and Doom's relatively benign motives - if not methods - it seems like they're fine with sitting this one out.
It's cute to have Doom broadcast the events in the basement for the sake of the crowd - I'm not sure if he really thinks he'll be showing the defeat of the heroes there, but I suspect it's more a case of providing some entertainment while he buys some time to get the information he wants. Of course, since even that Doom turns out to be a Doombot in the end, it could be argued he's just distracting the heroes from getting clever and trying to take him out - as long as they have something shiny to watch, they might not bother! The fight between Cap and the Doombot is relatively mundane, though the fact that a random Doombot can physically keep up with one of the more badass super-soldiers around is fairly impressive. The fight between Sandman and the other Doombot is decent too, but it seems really random to disrupt continuity between issues for no real reason. As lampshaded in the story itself, Vision was revving up for an alpha strike last issue but in this one he's completely given up on that and wandered off, while Sandman was backing off but has suddenly been thrust into combat here.
The debate among the heroes about what to do is fun, and I especially appreciate Ben and Rage discussing Doom's rep and how real his threat actually is. It's clear that for all his bravado, the Thing knows that when it comes to their team's nemesis, you can't take chances. Which is why it's so baffling that Reed apparently thinks he can fool Doom by stretching his head out the door and hacking a random nearby computer which is wired into the security system. What was he even thinking he'd be able to do? In any case, the whole affair becomes moot when both Cap and the team of Vision and Sandman win their respective fights with their Doombots after identifying them as facsimiles, and the entire cast congregates in the main hall for the finale of the issue and two-parter.
I gotta say, tossing that Doombot head into a bowl of punch was dramatic, but I'm not sure it was terribly hygienic. In any case, the justification Cap uses for identifying whether the Doombot is the real deal is nonsensical, since it's no secret at all that Doom has a built-in air supply in his mask which he's used before in space, much less under water. Just because he's not exhaling clouds of carbon dioxide doesn't mean anything, especially since Doom would surely use some high-tech rebreather before he'd ever strap on SCUBA tanks! I don't think we even get clarification on how Vision identifies his own Doombot, though honestly it should be obvious between his own density-shifting having effects on electronics and Sandman sneaking into the armor. The latter should be able to identify whether or not there's any flesh in there at least, right? Cap figuring it out is honestly the tougher sell there.
The reveal of Doom's strategy of piecemeal Doombots is honestly pretty interesting, though I'm not sure that really explains why they are apparently able to vanish, since both the ones in the basement and the one Jarvis ran into in the halls just sort of disappeared from one moment to the next from surveillance cameras and mark 1 eyeballs. Maybe they disassembled into small parts at super-speed and rushed off to reassemble elsewhere? That'd be neat. In any case, it's a bit of a roundabout way to use that exhaust vent for a guy who definitely has shrinking technology, but it does establish Doom's technical expertise once again. Doom can just sort of handwave a line of self-assembling human replicants and nobody bats an eye these days, it's great!
The issue completes with some rather more emotional beats than one might expect from such a Sherlockian affair. Firstly, Captain America suggest that if Doom had simply asked for assistance in saving his mother he might've received it, in the hope that he might turn away from his villainous ways and help humanity - an allusion to Triumph and Torment I'm sure, since we know exactly why this doesn't fly with Doom. After that we get the long-foreshadowed cupcake moment, in which actually smearing one in the face of a Doombot isn't as relevant as the fact that Rage observes that if he takes Doom at his word about his motivations, his actions don't really make sense. He's willing to buy that a villain may set up a dead man's trigger, but realizes Doom would never risk actually dying when he's the only one who might actually save his mother from her fate. Thus all the Dooms must be fake! It's slightly corny, but it makes sense and actually uses a less familiar character effectively. It's also a surprisingly low-key resolution to a story that was seemingly set-up to end in a huge hero brawl.
The end of the story, then, comes when Doom decides to cut his losses - since he's learned that his original goal of finding a way to travel to other universes is a dead end with Thor being the one who actually has that ability, there is no longer any benefit to this hostage situation. Note that Doom doesn't take a shot at Reed and such while he has them here - he's entirely focused on this one goal, and all the rest of everything is irrelevant. It's one reason I suspect that even that last Doom in the limousine is another Doombot - sent by the real Doom, or just autonomously doing things Doom might have done. Given that I read some of these issues out of order due to timeline shenanigans, I can already tell you that the Doombot explanation makes a lot of sense here, and makes the placement a bit vague - but I'll stick with Namor's proclamation that Doom still hasn't regained his kingdom here. We'll get there soon. The reason I slot this issue in as a Doombot one should become clear when I cover Fantastic Four v1 #350.
So where does that leave this two-parter? It's not perfect, but it's pretty great. Doom showcases his absolute dominance over the preeminent superhero team of the Marvel world, effortlessly disabling their base with a handful of Doombots he tossed through a ventilation shaft. He strong-armed a bunch of heroes into giving him the information he wanted, infiltrated their base in a second manner just for the hell of it, and finally ended up getting away completely scot-free. And it's pretty likely he wasn't even there for any of it. You gotta love this kind of story, right? It's surprisingly understated for a full cast affair, but it manages to give Doom enough menace that you can buy why the Avengers are wary. And with all the references getting dropped to Triumph and Torment here, it's clear its inclusion as actual canon (rather than as just this one-off premium book that hasn't really happened) is nigh at hand. I think I'll give this one the same score as last issue, it's pretty similar in quality.
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
The opening spread is pretty nice, with a good variety of heroes spectating, including one of the earlier times when Wolverine hung out with the Avengers without the rest of the X-Men cast being within spitting distance. Given his later penchant for being on every team, that's no shocker! You can see US Agent's dark-cowled head popping up from behind him, so maybe that'll illustrate my momentary confusion. Clone superheroes are the worst!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"King I was, and King I'll be again! ... Make no mistake of that!"
"I knew there would be unruly one among you, which is why the real Doctor Doom has a miniature neutron bomb wired into his armor... It is small, but quite potent enough to kill everyone within six square blocks. It will detonate if the structural integrity of the armor is violated. It might therefore behoove all of you to be absolutely certain you are dealing with a Doombot before you give sway to unbridled violence."
"...That is not my style at all!"
"I believe Captain America. I see no point in pressing the Avengers to deliver something they no longer have... therefore I am deactivating the neutron bomb, and I am leaving you to your pathetic celebration. ...By the way, your friend Rage was right - and I would do all this again, and more, to save my mother."
Doom's Bad Hair Day
Doom gets some pretty bad coloring here - not only is his mask green, but so are his big shiny lapel buttons and his silly little gun holster that for whatever reason is a perpetual part of his attire despite having numerous built-in weapons within this very story-arc. Including in this very panel, actually!
Doom-Tech of the Week
Well, firstly the Modular Self-Assembling Doombot is significant here, as it's key to infiltrating the new Avengers headquarters. There's also the Kinetic Hologram Projector which technically may have been used before, but it got a name and general description of its function here.
Doombot Count:32
Three new additions this time, all of which are promptly disposed off via decapitation by Captain America, Vision, and Rage respectively. These are the modular type, as can be seen especially in that last one, which falls into chunks mid-fall. I'm guessing this means they're rather less sturdy than the ones the Thing usually takes on, since they've certainly stood up to more than a strong uppercut before!
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136: Excalibur v1 #37-39 - House Call / Out on a Limbo / Heart of the Matter
I'll be covering three issues at once this time, for a couple different reasons. Firstly, the first and third issues have meaningful roles for Doctor Doom to play, but the second barely does - covering them separately would entail shoving that second one in somewhere as a filler, which seemed kind of janky. Also I have a rather visceral dislike of a lot of the art in this trilogy, so I'd rather get past a lot of that as soon as possible. But most relevantly, I think, is that the three covers form a neat little tableau that's most visible like this, all gathered in a single image! Okay, maybe my main motivation was my lack of interest in Excalibur or much of the filler content in these issues, but the cover thing is a nice excuse, right?
The three covers flow into each other in an interesting way, with the backgrounds seemingly overlapping (even if the colors are different) while even some elements like the giant demonic creature in the second and third issue continue on. Hell, you can even see a snippet of Doom's cloak from the third issue on the second! Speaking of Doom, he is only character who appears on all three issues, presumably through Doombots, getting progressively more in trouble as things move on. In the first he's about to get clobbered, in the second he's getting swung around half-dead by a demon, and in the third he's begging the reader for help. We'll see how relevant all this is in the actual issues!
Story Overview
House Call
The opening page of this issue helpfully recounts the membership of the Excalibur team, since it's yet another group I'm not terribly familiar with, and which we haven't visited before in this readthrough. Said membership includes overseas Cap-analogue Captain Britain, the shape-changing Meggan, Shadowcat (also known as Kitty Pryde), Nightcrawler, Phoenix (the Rachel Summers edition), Widget, and Lockheed the Dragon. So… a random bunch of mutants, mostly. Gotcha. In the kitchen of their base, a lighthouse, Kitty is practising maintaining her solid form - if you recall, we last met her in this readthrough in the X-Men & Fantastic Four crossover four-parter where she had trouble saying solid. Anyway, she's distracted by her pet Lockheed, accidentally phases herself, and promptly showers her entire team with all the fine china that she was carrying as part of her training. The members of Excalibur quickly rush around grabbing everything before it can hit the ground, and Meggan soon serves everyone her first attempt at pancakes, which are the slightest bit on fire. Eh, progress, it's not ash!
Nightcrawler commends Meggan for taking a phone message for Kitty the previous day, but gets teased for her incredibly terrible spelling, as well as actually believing a prank caller was Doctor Doom telling them he was swinging by in the morning. Meggan insists it was really him, noting that she's actually pretty excited about meeting the King of Latveria himself - he's very famous you know, she saw a special on television! The doorbell is pressed and while Meggan goes to answer, the others complain that their colleague is just so terribly gullible - she's so innocent and trusting that it's kind of ridiculous. Nightcrawler points out that it's cruel to keep teasing her like this, and the others begrudgingly agree to stop. Meggan returns, smug, and tells the others they must feel very stupid now. Mortified, they agree, - they're aghast, totally dissed. Uh… why? Well, isn't it obvious? Doctor Doom is here… in their living room!
Sure enough, Doom has really appeared, greeting the teaml with a small 'hello,' and offering them his name, which they all shout in unison before he can give it - and with a cool font too! He's Doctor Doom!
As Phoenix telekinetically summons everyone's uniforms, Kitty slams the door closed, and after thinking for a moment she decides to meet Doctor Doom alone, since the call that Meggan took did state he was looking for her specifically. They have a history, after all! Phoenix wants to take a crack at Doom for things he did in a possible future timeline - the Days of Future Past one, specifically. While he never shows up in that on account of being dead, there is some hint Doom was involved considering the United States was going by the 'United Doomstates' in that one. Subtle. Anyway, the other members of Excalibur wonder what Doom thinks he's doing invading their place - doesn't he realize one's home is one's castle? Probably, Meggan points out, since his home really is a castle! Kitty thinks they're all overreacting, since Doom didn't actually ambush them; he did call ahead, after all. Let's just hear him out...
Kitty goes over to Doom, and asks if this is some sort of two thousand mile checkup - she's still under warranty, right? Doom admits he is curious as to her condition after he saved her life back in that crossover I mentioned before, but right now it's he who requires her help. You see, there's a mystical metal called Promethium which can serve as an inexhaustible and waste-free energy source, which could mean an end to the Earth's energy crisis. He conjures up an image of the stuff, and Kitty thinks it's pretty rad - but what's that got to do with her? Doom explains that the stuff is hidden away in a dimension known as Limbo, and Kitty is his sole way of entering that particular domain. Doom needs her to draw… the Soulsword! Magik's Soulsword is still embedded in front of the lighthouse, and since only Kitty can draw that blade, he needs her help. Kitty believes him pretty readily, but the rest of the team are dubious, dragging her away for a private discussion.
For context, the Soulsword was created at some point by Illyana Rasputina (Magik) during the period in which she was trapped in a Limbo dimension ruled by the demoni Belasco. She magically caused her life force energy to manifest before her, and drew from it the Soulsword. Although usable as a physical weapon, its main use is actually to disrupt magical spells and beings, usually permanently. It was also accompanied by armor covering Magik's left shoulder, chest, and arm, but it seems to be able to make just an entire suit if necessary. Control of the Soulsword, as implied here, guarantees one mastery over the dimension of Limbo. When comic book nonsense caused Magik to deage into a six-year old, Shadowcat became the guardian of the blade, which she still is at the time of this book.
As the members of Excalibur argue over Doom's true intentions, disbelieving of his supposed lofty ideals, said supervillain spends a little time wandering around in their base, naturally gravitating towards local artwork and recognizing one painting as an original Van Der Woulde - and here he thought he owned all the originals. Hmpf! The heroes bicker a bit, with everyone reaffirming that there's probably something hinky going on here. Kitty argues Doom saved her life, and when the others say that doesn't mean he's a good guy, she gets a bit offended. Doom interrupts the discussion by offering to have Phoenix read his mind, who is eager to comply.
She dives in and sees images from his youth as a Latverian gypsy on the run, the accident which scarred him, the creation of his armor, and his ascension to the throne. She even visits his more recent attempts at world domination based on his deep-rooted need to serve the people of Earth as their natural leader! She senses plenty of arrogance in him, and the forced solitude of leadership - but no real evil, per se. The others are stunned by this revelation, but Phoenix replies that she's the avatar of the Phoenix Force - she knows evil. Surprisingly, he's clean. Reluctantly, Excalibur allows Kitty to draw the sword.
Outside the lighthouse, Doom starts to weaken the walls between reality and Limbo with a mixture of technology and magical spells. Kitty is impressed at said combination, and wonders if there's anything Doom can't do. Doom immediately admits that he can't knit - he finds it too repetitious. Kitty isn't entirely sure if that was a joke, but either way it's hilarious! Kitty asks Doom to elaborate on what she has to do, and he explains that after weakening the walls between dimensions Kitty can use the Soulsword to open a passage and allow them to enter Limbo without alerting its demonic inhabitants. The others aren't too confident still, but figure Doom is going to find his way in there somehow, and this way they can at least keep an eye on things. Kitty grabs the sword and finds herself swaddled in weird armor - no offense to Doom, she says.
Supporting cast member Alistaire Stuart arrives just in time for Excalibur to use Widget to allow them to follow Doom and Kitty into Limbo. Kitty slashes down with the sword and tears open a dimensional passage, belatedly wondering where Doom picked up all this information about the Soulsword, and Promethium, and Limbo. Doom explains that he learned it all in but one chapter of the arcane book of the Darkhold. Oh dear. I won't go into the whole history of that book here, but suffice to say it was written by an Elder God and was responsible for stuff like the origin of vampires, werewolves, and all manner of nasty stuff in Marvel. And Doom has access to it…? Anyway, the two, accompanied by Lockheed, quickly vanish into another dimension, while the rest of Excalibur soon follow through their own means, leaving Alistaire to look after the lighthouse. Out in the bay, the Lady of the Lake watches on, sighing before disappearing under the waves. With defenders of the throne like these, who even needs enemies?
Over in a small pocket dimension that connects to Limbo, Kitty wonders what the rationale was for using this shortcut, and Doom explains that the so-called Inferno events some month before had shown that the demon hordes of Limbo don't always listen to the wishes of their ruler, so even if technically Kitty is the ruler of that dimension by virtue of being its Sorceress Supreme, it may not matter. Kitty admits the idea spooks her, and worries that technically she's not even Sorceress Supreme yet until they arrive in actual Limbo. Doom acts like that idea slipped his mind, which she doesn't buy. Kitty is soon attacked by a group of Demons, but proves unable to phase away due to the armour that the sword grants her. She tells Doom that if anything happens to her he'll be stuck here - so help! 'If I may be so bold,' Doom announces before grasping the Soulsword from Kitty's hand and hacking away at the demons with skill. Kitty tells him it's dangerous, and Doom replies that so is he. So is he.
As Doom hacks away at the demons, Kitty admits he uses the sword like he was born with it, and Doom declares he dabbles in the mystic arts. Kitty muses that she wishes she could dabble that well, but when she goes to curse him out, he tells her to hold her tongue while he's saving her life, thanks. After combat is done Kitty tells him to fork over the sword again, but Doom keeps a hold of it, venturing deeper into the pocket dimension. Soon the two arrive in Limbo proper, and Kitty wonders what gives - didn't he need her to use the sword here? Doom denies this - he only ever said he needed her to draw the Soulsword for him, there's a significant difference there. Kitty is surprised to see that her weird armor is gone now, and wonders if that means she's no longer Sorceress Supreme of Limbo…
That's when Doom drops the bomb on her. She never was the ruler of any real Limbo. While others might have called this particular place Limbo for their own reasons, it's really not - true Limbo is timeless, but in this place time passes. There exist natural predators here, while in true Limbo there exist only transient and displaced souls. There is no sovereign of true Limbo - but while Doom bears the Soulsword, he is master of this particular mystical domain! Kitty decides she'll try to stop him, but Doom easily shields himself from Lockheed's fire blasts with his force fields. Afterwards Kitty accuses Doom of setting her up - he never does intend to share the Promethium with the world, does he? Doom contends that he will share the boons of its power freely - right up until the world becomes dependent on it, after which only those nations which swear allegiance to Doom shall continue to function. Kitty decides she should have listened to the others, as now she's stuck together with someone who probably knows more about her powers than she does. Which is, of course, when the rest of Excalibur comes rushing in to back her up…
Back in America, meanwhile, the West Coast Avengers are relaxing by their pool. In an echo of the opening scene of the comic, Wonder Man trips and sends snacks flying, and Quicksilver uses his superspeed to quickly grab them out of mid-air. Nearby, Tigra and the Scarlet Witch are sunbathing, while an inexplicably armored up Iron Man uses his finger beams as the world's most technologically advanced and pointlessly roundabout barbecue.
Tigra invokes Murphy by relishing in the utter lack of world-ending threats and doomsday devices, and Scarlet Witch tells her off for ruining things - now something bad is going to happen! Tigra calls her superstitious, and Wanda replies that she's a witch - she's entitled to be superstitious! Sure enough, the pool suddenly turns green and the Lady of the Lake rises from the water. She actually addresses Iron Man directly, reminding him that he's helped England out before - most recently in a future timeline in Iron Man v1 #250, which he doesn't actually remember - and she's in need of him again. You see, his old adversary Doctor Doom is once again threatening the realm, and despite their best intentions, the heroes of Excalibur are his unwitting pawns. Doom cannot afford to succeed in his plans!
Back in Limbo, Phoenix tries to destroy Doctor Doom, and we actually see her succeeding in melting and otherwise destroying Doom in a number of ways, drawing tortured cries of mercy from him. Unfortunately for her, it's all an illusion - Doom used brain scans he got when she read his mind earlier in the issue to trap her in a mental loop, where she constantly thinks she's destroying him when he's actually nowhere nearby. Nightcrawler tries to teleport over to Doom, but gets stuck in the villain's force field, and painfully teleports out before his power has recharged. He expects to be exhausted afterwards, but he's fine - it seems his natural ability to teleport has been reset by the interaction with that force field, restoring his usual status quo after it was altered during the Mutant Massacre we've discussed before. How convenient! In joy he teleports all around Limbo, but as Captain Britain realises, with his control of the dimension Doom can actually affect where Nightcrawler lands, and he does so to make him collide with Meggan, knocking her out.
The leader of the team goes after Doom next, and the villain looks on smugly as Captain Britain winds up a punch, stating that his forcefield is impenetrable. It turns out the good Captain was aiming for that very field all along, sending Doom high above Limbo before he smashes back down to the ground. 'I almost felt that,' Doom quips. As Brit-Cap prepares to hit him again, figuring it'll work better the second time around, Doom uses his position as ruler of this Limbo dimension to summon a host of superhero-themed demons to fight for him, lead by a monstrous version of his old rival Reed Richards, who look on with slavering dislocated jaws…
Out on a Limbo
Over in England, Alistaire Stuart waits for Excalibur to return from Limbo, since the team's been gone for more than ten minutes now. As he looks across the bay, however, the ground suddenly begins to tremble beneath him. He moves in the nick of time as chunks of ground begin to fly into the air towards some sort of crazy tear in the sky. He knows what this is - some sort of interdimensional portal is opening up!
Back in Limbo, the demon hordes that look like superheroes mop up the last of Excalibur, Captain Britain - they made short work of everyone, apparently.
One of the demons looks like a big dragon-demon straddling the body of Sauron - not sure who he's supposed to be - and heads over to Doom's side. He asks the arch-villain if he's pleased with their work. Doom hems and haws on being 'pleased' but admits he's curious why they all look the way they do. The demon explains that the locals adapt themselves to the needs and thoughts of their master, which in this case would be Doom himself. It asks if the captives should be tortured in his honor, and Doom denies there's any honor in torture - the members of Excalibur were noble, if brief, adversaries. No, the demons should kill them quickly instead! Doom heads out to get his hands on the Promethium he's after, which he will use to rule the Earth as easily as he rules this ghetto of a Limbo dimension! If anyone needs him, he'll be in his castle, which promptly appears from out of nowhere at his whim...
The Lady of the Lake shows up at the lighthouse with the West Coast Avengers in tow, and they immediately detect the dimensional disturbance from the start of the issue. As that portal begins to absorb more mass around itself, the Lady explains that it's the first signs of the disaster which will soon destroy all of Britain! The Avengers overload the portal by making it overeat, and it closes for the moment, but that's only a stopgap solution to a bigger problem. There're apparently four more dimensional portals scattered about, and beyond that, in order to get his hands on the precious Promethium, Doom will have to collapse the realm of Limbo in on itself - or as she renames it here, Otherplace.
The Lady of the Lake sends the team through to Otherplace, where they arrive just in time to save Excalibur from being overwhelmed and killed by the murderous demon heroes. Iron Man frees Phoenix from her mental loop, revealing that Doom based the technology he used to make that happen on some of Tony's own. Want to explain that in a bit more detail, Tony? Wonder Man gets into a row with Captain Britain, who amusingly starts berating him for his poor imitation - he should be wearing an 'S' on his chest, not a W, and where is the big red cape? It doesn't take long before Wonder Man cleans his clock and makes him see sense. Cheeky, Marvel.
Scarlet Witch, meanwhile, uses her chaos magic to locate the remaining portals absorbing England into Otherplace, and the two teams split into pairs, with one member from each of the West Coast Avengers and Excalibur leaving together to close each portal individually. From nearby, the mysterious Sauron demon looks on and hopes they'll disrupt his master Doom's plans, since while it might mean the death of all who live in this dark dimension - it might also be the only way he'll ever find eternal peace...
Firstly, Scarlet Witch and Nightcrawler confront two demons disguised as parodies of Doctor Strange and Mister Fantastic respectively. Nightcrawler teleports around and is followed by Mister Fantastic, who quickly ties himself into a knot after getting tangled in the pillars. As Scarlet Witch causes him to fly off like a taut rubber band being released, Nightcrawler hurls a stone at Doctor Strange, who gets squished. With both of them down, Scarlet Witch seals the portal. For some strange reason Nightcrawler figures out Scarlet Witch knows German based on his use of the word 'doppelganger', which is really common enough as an English loanword that it shouldn't. Maybe he said it with an accent? The Doctor Strange demon thinks it's some ancient arcane tongue, though, which is admittedly pretty funny.
Elsewhere, Meggan and Iron Man find Silver Surfer and Human Torch demons protecting their portal. The two monsters pick on Meggan, thinking her the weaker of the two, but since she's a shapeshifter attuned to nature, she is more powerful than ever in this weird magical dimension. She first copies the Human Torch and his powers, and after she is nearly hurt by the Surfer and Iron Man dives in to protect her, she then transforms into the Silver Surfer and uses the Power Cosmic to shrink the two demons to a molecular level, leaving the heroes free to seal the portal. Huh, that actually works?
At the third portal, which proves to be the same one the heroes sealed from the other side, two Wolverine demons are busy arguing over who should be the true Wolverine. Shadowcat and Tigra soon arrive to begin their attack, but get rather embarrassed when fighting the two, since they're clearly very poor copies of the original and everything they say just makes them look worse. Kitty soon phases them into one being, and as two objects can't exist in the same place at the same time, they promptly explode and take the portal with them once and for all.
At the fourth portal, Captain Britain and Wonder Man find Thor and Thing demons, who easily beat the good Captain down earlier. He brought backup this time, however, and takes out the Thor demon first, after which they defeat the Thing together. A barely recovered Thor, however, summons down a storm which strikes a direct hit on Wonder Man with a lightning bolt - which has no effect since he's basically an energy being that can just absorb such things. Whoops. Thor warns him that no rational man would stand against the full fury of a thunder god, and Captain Britain replies that if he were a rational man, he wouldn't even be a superhero. Wonder Woman chimes in with a 'here, here' as the two toss Thor into the portal for his trouble, causing it to explode.
This leaves only the fifth and final portal, which is the one assigned to Phoenix and Quicksilver. The two are rather unimpressed to find a fat Professor Xavier demon alongside a partially transparent 'Invisible' Woman - not exactly the elite of the demonic legions. Phoenix causes Xavier to knock out the Invisible Woman, and Quicksilver then delivers a fatal blow to the rather harmless Professor X in his wheelchair. As Phoenix destroys this portal with complete ease, we switch over to the castle overlooking all this… and we get a glimpse of Doom.
Doom spots the telltale glow of Phoenix using her powers, and tells the demon by his side that clearly she's alive - which means all of Excalibur probably is too, despite assurances to the contrary from his new minion. The demon lied, which Doom thinks is rather interesting since he rules this dimension now, and he really shouldn't be able to deceive his Master. This demon, the strange amalgamation of person and dragon I mentioned before, explains that while it's true Doom has no opposition within this dimension, the demon was not actually born here. In fact, Doom's control over him ended years ago, shortly before he became the creature he is now. Oooh, mystery! Though he will keep his true identity vague, the demon does promise one thing - he will be the man who shall rid the world of the horror that is Doctor Doom!
Doom suggests if the demon wants to get on with that, he best do it quickly. He's actively causing the dimension to fold in on itself and be destroyed, and he'll finish it off by plunging the Soulsword he still has with him into the very heart of the dimension, causing every grain of sand and creature within its boundaries to be reduced to its natural state of Promethium. Thus, the death of one dimension will herald a new era for another. As sole possessor of Promethium, it will be only a matter of time before Doom reigns supreme over all the Earth! Walking down a long, long spiral staircase towards the basement, Doom then declares there are many things he dares - and the least of them is this: turning his back on the creature that would kill him. He reveals that his statement about the 'heart of the world' was a bit more literal than expected, as a huge pulsing organ is revealed within the bowels of the castle…
The assembled heroes burst into the room, declaring that the jig is up - but Doom laconically tells them the 'jig' has only just begun as he plunges the Soulsword into the living, gigantic heart of Limbo itself…
Heart of the Matter
We pick up right where we left off, with Doom dramatically thrusting the Soulsword into the heart of Otherplace while captions recap what's been happening in this entire three-parter. Shadowcat tries to apologize to Captain Britain for her part in this whole debacle, but he warns her that self-recrimination has no place in battle. As fierce winds whip around them, Nightcrawler catches Meggan, Wonder Man saves Tigra, and Quicksilver catches Scarlet Witch, which leaves Phoenix and Iron Man to go after Doom directly. Phoenix blasts Doom with telekinetic force and fire, and he's forced away from the sword, which she's keeping in place with her mind. Doom cries out in frustration that she interrupted him mid-stroke! (Don't you hate it when that happens?) Iron Man, meanwhile, muses that the Avengers should get a celestial avatar of their own after seeing Phoenix at work…
Shadowcat mentally asks Phoenix how long she can hold that sword in place, and Rachel admits that it won't be very long. Doom explains that her telekinetic powers are ultimately grounded in science, while this whole realm functions on the rules of magic - she'll soon fall, and then he'll stripmine the whole dimension at his leisure! Iron Man takes advantage of Doom's grandstanding and tackles him from behind, much to Doom's frustration. 'You dare touch Victor von Doom?' the villain demands. Iron Man answers that it was through two whole layers of armor, so that's probably sanitary. When Doom declares Iron Man will pay for this effrontery, the armored hero asks if he accepts Diners Club. All the heroes of both teams gather together to attack Doom, and while Meggan momentarily wonders if this is a fair fight, the rest figure it wasn't fair to trick Shadowcat into giving him the Soulsword either, so why not?
Doom, seemingly defeated, states: 'Now, gentlemen.' It was a trick, naturally! As the last person to wield the Soulsword, Doom is still in charge of Otherplace, and with it its army of demons. A demon mimicking Beast of the X-Men flings into the room and tackles Tigra, while Meggan takes on another demon, the spiky half-dragon one from previous issues, and is puzzled when she can sense that particular demon's pain. In the past, strong emotions like that would trigger her shapeshifting powers - so why isn't she changing now? Weird. A host of superhero demons attack them, with a Spider-Man demon accidentally ensnaring some of his colleagues in webs, including a Daredevil and Moon Knight demon, while a Punisher demon just kind of randomly fires around while slurring 'stop in the name of the law' - he clearly did not do his research!
Kitty Pryde is puzzled that while Magik and the demons Belasco and S'ym were in charge of this dimension - the last three to do so - all the demons looked generic, but they took the specific shape of Doom's personal demons when he took power. What's that about? Meggan, nearby, concludes that the strange demon she was fighting isn't actually a demon at all - he's a human being, but his whole skeleton is laced with Promethium, like a magical Wolverine knockoff! How's that even possible? Captain Britain, meanwhile, punches out a Colossus demon who thinks a Russian accent is adding '-ski' to every word. Iron Man compliments a Namor demon on knowing the hero's catchphrase 'Imperius Rex' - at least someone did their prepwork!
The pain Meggan was feeling fades, which suggests that whatever transformation the strange demon was going through is just about complete; he's now a person with a bunch of additional, bendy spider-limbs for one reason or another. For all that he's changed, however, Megan isn't sure if this weird Promethium man is on their side or Doom's. Wonder Man wonders if the demons are fiercer and more dangerous than the ones fought before because of Doom's worries - might he be panicking? One of the demons proclaims 'stop him, he's only one man!' and then admits he only said it because he's always wanted to. Captain Britain brains the Colossus demon who says 'Owski!' and asks if he can surrender. When he's allowed to do so after being reduced to a crumpled heap, the destroyed demon admits the hero is 'all heart - and jaw!' Nearby, Shadowcat disarms the Punisher demon, who protests and asks if there's somewhere he can file a complaint. His last thought? 'War Journal, entry #666: Ow.' Derivative, but still amusing.
Doom, meanwhile, has regained his footing while everyone's busy with his legion of demons, and figures Phoenix is too distracted by keeping the Soulsword steady to notice him. He raises his hand to blast her, but he's interrupted when a purple hand clasps around his wrist - the hand of the spider-Sauron Meggan was puzzling over before, and who lied to Doom in the last issue. Doom is annoyed with the creature for continually interrupting his plans, and the demon loudly wonders if he really can't imagine a reason why. It seems Doom still doesn't recognize him then, even though he's the man whose life Doom destroyed! Doom, naturally, responds like M. Bison - a variant of 'do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?' Gotta hit those classics, right?
Here, we get the big reveal, as the demon grasps Doom with tentacles and declares that the first time they met, Doom broke his arm, and then continued bone by bone, replacing his bones with the only supply of Promethium on Earth at the time - he broke the being's body, and then his spirit, and recreated him in the image of a demon! Doom admits he now recalls that particular experiment - at the time he had not yet discovered the mystical metal's potential as an inexhaustible energy source, so he wasted it on creating this creature - Darkoth, the Death-Demon! Huh, haven't seen him in a good long while, have we? We get a brief recap of his origin story, as well as his eventual death, which happened in his next appearance after his encounter with Doom in space, back in Fantastic Four v1 #144. It's a story also featuring Diablo, which I briefly covered in a prologue to the whole 'Son of Doctor Doom' storyline. Anyway, it turns out death wasn't the end for him, since the Promethium in his body returned to its source, Limbo, and dragged him along. Since then he's hung out waiting for Doom to try and replenish his supply, so he could get his final revenge…
Doom isn't impressed, wondering if Darkoth's grand revenge is everything he hoped it would be. As Darkoth begins stripping the armor off Doom's body piece by piece, he wonders if the villain will still laugh when his equipment is destroyed, and the fragile human within is crushed. Doom responds that if his intent was death, perhaps Darkoth should pay more attention to detail. Darkoth wonders what that even means, at which point Doom's armor detonates on its own, blasting the demon away. Darkoth wonders if that was really Doom's best shot, but he's told it was just the opening volley. As a resident of this realm, Darkoth should be aware that he who wields the Soulsword is also granted Promethium armor, like Kitty was before. Except… Doom was already wearing armor when he grasped it! Thus, Doom rejected the armor by force of will - until now, that is. Throwing his arms wide, Doom is engulfed in mystical metal, which reforms into a shiny new costume, a magical armor to replace the one that was broken! New costume time!
Throwing himself back into battle, Doom declares Darkoth a fool - a fool and a whiner! And Doom abhors whiners. Since the moment he was created, he chose to make his own life miserable by first bemoaning his fate as a demon among men, and now as a man among demons! Darkoth replies that Doom destroyed his life, and the villain rejects this entirely - he merely changed it, while Darkoth was the one to destroy it. Where would he be, Doom wonders, if he'd sulked about and wallowed in self-pity after the accident that scarred his features? He would have denied the world the benefits of his genius! Doom figures any lesson Darkoth learns today will be too little, too late, however. He knocks Darkoth over into Phoenix, who is disrupted from holding the Soulsword steady - and the heart of Otherplace is finally no more! Wow, what were the Avengers doing this entire time, twiddling their toes?
Everywhere around them the demons lose their distinctive superhero features, and the whole place slowly starts to revert to chaos. Just as Doom planned from the start, the destruction of the dimension's heart has created a temporary vortex back to Earth, which Doom intends to use. Barring any further unforeseen complications, the place will become a Promethium graveyard for his adversaries. Doom thinks it's unfortunate everything inside the dimension will die - he figured Darkoth was only just beginning to grasp the potential scope of his destiny. Doom vanishes into the golden light, and out of this comic entirely.
In his wake, a demonic arm reaches out of the disintegrating dimension and wonders if Doom's gone yet - yes? Good. He goes to take the Soulsword, only for Darkoth to interrupt and take it for himself. The demonic arm actually belongs to S'ym, the previous demon to hold court here before Doom arrived with the sword, and he's looking to regain his rule - but he'll need the sword to rebuild his armies. While the heroes fight with some of the Promethium demons, now more generic rather than thematic, they figure that they have to find a way to reverse what Doom started - to rebuild and stabilize Otherplace so it can't be stripmined for Promethium later. Meggan suggests the hostile demons are reflections of Darkoth's pain and rage, and Iron Man figures they might be able to use that information somehow. Captain Britain suddenly has a great idea, and is about to tell everyone when he's knocked unconscious - as Nightcrawler puts it, that would've been too easy!
S'ym and Darkoth are still fighting, meanwhile, with the former saying that just because Darkoth's all-powerful now, it doesn't mean he can win! Uh, you know the definition of those words, mate? S'ym wonders if Darkoth plans to swallow him whole, which promptly happens.
Even as he's gobbled up, the demon promises he'll only fester inside him, planning his return. Darkoth muses that there will be no dimension to return to, since as the wielder of this dimension through the Soulsword, he reigns supreme. If he dies… the dimension dies with him. Meggan is the only one near enough to overhear this, and realizes Darkoth intends to commit suicide. The Death-Demon raises the sword high, intending to cleave himself in two, thereby denying Doom his world-domination and ending Otherplace. Meggan intervenes, declaring that suicide is a coward's way out, and a waste - Darkoth spent all this time clinging to life, after all. There must be a reason for that!
Darkoth does not appreciate someone trying to justify his suffering, and Meggan says that's not what she meant - she sympathizes with the suffering Doom inflicted on him, but he's gone now, and the only one hurting is Darkoth. When Darkoth demands to know what she thinks she knows about him, Meggan explains she's an empath and a shapechanger, and not great at either - but usually she would have changed her shape when he did. Yet… she didn't. Darkoth kept her together without even realizing it. He might be in a lot of pain - but he also has a lot of strength within him. She then offers herself up in a… dubious manner, proclaiming that he can swallow her up if he wants to - she's been 'inside him' already, so she's not afraid. Phrasing?
In the blink of an eye the demons all around the dimension vanish, as does the landscape. This world reflects the wishes of its ruler, so perhaps this means that Darkoth has found peace with himself? Iron Man wonders if they should take the sword from him before he has another mood swing, and Darkoth says that's not going to happen. He informs the Avengers that they've served their purpose by keeping this world together long enough for him to come to his senses. He swings his sword and teleports the heroes back to Earth. Doom next turns to Excalibur, and explains that he purged the plane of Promethium, thereby defusing Doom's plans before they could go anywhere.
Kitty arrives with Lockheed in her arms, explaining that he got hurt in a fight with Doom. It's unclear when exactly this happened, as the caption references #39 - which is this issue! I presume it happened last time, and I just didn't notice. Anyway, Darkoth can't heal him, and Kitty just asks to be sent home. Darkoth agrees, teleporting everyone except Meggan away. He turns to her and says she lied to him - or more accurately, she lied to herself. The strength she felt from him, the reason she recognized it - that had nothing to do with empathic powers. It's the same strength she carries in her own heart. Meggan is touched, and says nobody's told her that before. Darkoth replies that nobody must've seen her for who she is before. Meggan asks if he'll come back with her, and Darkoth says he will - someday, when she needs him most. He then teleports her away to the others, remaining by himself in the void.
And there he remains, the protector of Otherplace. For years he's felt alone in a dimension full of demons. Now he's completely alone there, but he's regained his humanity - and believes it was a fair exchange. Although Otherplace would eventually be reborn, the fate of Darkoth after this moment is unknown, as he's never seen again...
Rating & Comments
This trilogy has some serious issues to discuss, not least of which is the art. Now, the art here was done by Mark Badger, who has previously done an array of mystical stories like Gargoyle and Doctor Strange, where the stylized and abstract stuff works well enough, and since this trilogy is 90% Limbo/Otherplace that seems a good fit. But since this include the superhero teams Excalibur and the Avengers, and all the demons are also superhero-themed, it just comes off as a whole array of atrocious-looking caricatures of characters with weird faces. Between that and the constant flippant silly humor of everyone even while things are apparently going terribly wrong this whole thing comes off as pretty off-kilter and uncanny valley. Not just in the sense that nobody looks quite like people, but also they don't act like it either.
One of the earliest weird moments is Kitty Pryde's overt willingness to trust Doctor Doom. Sure, he saved her life - but even within that very arc she's quite aware that Doom is ultimately a bad guy, and there's ongoing worries about what sort of price the villain will exact for making a deal to cure her condition. Kitty's rather credulous acceptance of Doom's story that he's here for humanitarian purposes, he swears, really comes off as dumb - even when Phoenix apparently back him up on that. I'm still not sure if Doom really can manipulate super-powerful psychics on command (as he did with the Beyonder in Fantastic Four v1 #319), if he's a Doombot who just sections off a relevant part of his fake mind, or if he really does believe his every action is completely justified and benevolent. This arc doesn't help establish that, since even if Doom technically sort of stays by his word, he does not act remotely honorably when it comes to Kitty, which doesn't seem to match his supposed positive intent.
The entire second issue of this arc feels extremely filler-y, as does the inclusion of the West Coast Avengers. It's cool that the Lady of the Lake directly references previous encounters between Iron Man and Doom as justification for calling him up for help, but the Avengers basically act as second fiddle to Excalibur heroes in the second issue, then hang around doing basically nothing but punch irrelevant background demons in the last one (if they even appear on-panel at all) before getting teleported away without a fuss. Ditch their inclusion and you could easily have made this a purely Excalibur story - especially since all the actually relevant storytelling concerns people entirely unrelated to the Avengers anyway.
Which brings us, of course, to Darkoth, who here gained the superpower to talk in red on black speech bubbles, making his dialogue really hard to understand. I certainly didn't expect that this random three-parter about a Britain-based bunch of mutants would bring resolution to a minor character arc that started and was dropped somewhere in the 1970's! Kudos from a continuity nut, though I'm not sure why anyone but someone like me, who has read all that old stuff, would even care... Darkoth has less than ten total appearances in comics ever, and that includes two of these Excalibur ones - the first one escapes under a technicality because that was when he was hiding out as a generic demon. We've already discussed most of the rest too, none of which were terribly fantastic. So to see Darkoth pop back up here, after an apparent finale in which he went to the afterlife, feels really weird and kind of ridiculous. Like, thanks, you pulled a guy from heaven and dropped him into hell so he could be a nuisance for like ten minutes. Joy.
This whole issue reeks of fixing things, by the way - not only does it finish off the whole thing about the Soulsword, which had been hanging out around the Excalibur base for a few dozen issues without resolution, but the comic also went out of its way to inexplicably repair Nightcrawler's superpowers to their legacy state, closed off Limbo for the foreseeable future to prevent any more messes from spilling over, and even fills in something we'll discuss at length in the next issue - granting Doctor Doom his new, shiny, red-eyes suit of armor. The comic glosses over it here, but it will be highly important there, and I'll get into the specifics. In any case, this is among the writer's final issues for this title, I believe, so rushing through some continuity fixes in quick succession may just have been a mandate.
Something which really puzzled me here is that we never really get a good idea of what Doom's intent was at the end there. Yea, he just left to await Otherplace's collapse - but the old demon rule S'ym almost immediately tries to take the Soulsword and Darkoth has to prevent him from doing so and take his place. Did Doom not anticipate that anyone would grab that sword before the dimension actually died? That seems negligent. If he's in total control of the dimension, why couldn't he just dissipate that sword, or destroy the heroes still trapped inside his dimension? It feels like the writers just ran out of room to explain Doom's defeat while still having supreme control and just made him leave. Darkoth belatedly short-circuits Doom's attempt to get more Promethium according to text boxes - but he leaves with a full armor made of the stuff, so that didn't really work out, did it? It's a puzzle.
Between the disjointed plot, pointless character resurrection which turns into another banishment (but into a lifeless hell instead of heaven this time, thanks writers) and the entirely superfluous Avengers inclusion, I can't give this a good score. Add the constant and annoying humor which only rises to chuckle-worthy once or twice, the way even normally sedate characters are reduced to verbose jokesters, and the dubious threat posed by all these hordes of demons, who only ever beat someone in between issues, and you're left with… something decidedly below average. The middle comic would get the lowest score for being pointless, but I'm thinking the whole thing is worth only about two stars at best. Meh. Escapes worse for being lame instead of offensive.
What's next? Fantastic Four v1 #350. The big one. Next time we're heading back to Latveria to finally, finally deal with the Kristoff situation. It's been half a publication decade, and many, many diversions. Doom has been shown reconquering his homeland or having already done so on multiple occasions just because other writers got tired of dealing with this continuity boondoggle. It's about time to finally put it to bed. See you there!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
Probably not the best panel among a glut of subpar ones, but I just thought this one was too funny not to include. WOMP.PossiblUNGH?!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
Doom: "Hello. For the benefit of those I have yet to meet, I am -" Everyone:"DOCTOR DOOM!"
Kitty: "Science and spell-weaving... Is there anything you can't do?" Doom: "Knit. I find it too repetitious."
"I almost felt that."
"There is no honor in torture, demon. They were noble - albeit brief - adversaries. Kill them. Quickly."
"There is much I dare, demon... of which turning my back on you is the least."
"You can't possibly expect me to remember every life I have destroyed."
"You are a fool.Worse, you are a whiner! I abhor whiners. Since the moment of your inception, you've chosen to make your life miserable. First bemoaning your fate as a demon among men, and now as a man among demons! ... No, I changed your life, you destroyed it! Where would I be if I had sulked about, wallowing in self-pity over the accident that scarred my features? I would have denied the world the benefit of my genius. I fear that any lesson you learn today, however - has come too late!
Doom's Bad Hair Day
I'll just nominate the art in these issues in general, okay? Ugh. Check out almost any of the images above for illustration of what I mean. There's whole pages that are just smears that are hard to look at, and they were a chore to go through. For all that I enjoy the occasional abstract piece, like Astonishing Tales #8, this is a bit much!
Doom-Tech of the Week
Not really tech, in a way, but this is the first appearance of Doom's Promethium Armor, at least chronologically. If we go by publication date, we'll be covering that issue next time, and it's a doozy... Beyond that there's really nothing here, and if not for all the mysticism which Doombots generally don't use, this could easily be chalked up to a robot going through the motions.
Doom explains that he learned it all in but one chapter of the arcane book of the Darkhold. Oh dear. I won't go into the whole history of that book here, but suffice to say it was written by an Elder God and was responsible for stuff like the origin of vampires, werewolves, and all manner of nasty stuff in Marvel. And Doom has access to it…?
What's next? Fantastic Four v1 #350. The big one. Next time we're heading back to Latveria to finally, finally deal with the Kristoff situation. It's been half a publication decade, and many, many diversions. Doom has been shown reconquering his homeland or having already done so on multiple occasions just because other writers got tired of dealing with this continuity boondoggle. It's about time to finally put it to bed. See you there!
Remember how he defeated a sword master while underwater back in the Super-Villain Team-Up days? Doom knows his way around a blade. In this case the blade is actually a magical tool like a wand, though, so I guess his mystical power is relevant too. He didn't get to ply his trade on Excalibur in Iron Man #250 so I guess he had to wander over to the book with the same name and make it happen by a technicality!
Really feels like it was longer than 5 IRL years to be honest.
Doom first lost his rule to Kristoff Vernard back in Fantastic Four v1 Annual #20, which came outat the tail end of 1987 - so it's been three years and change since that moment as of the release of this comic.
Before that, however, Doom just spent a whole bunch of issues 'dead' as a passenger in Norm MacDonald's head after getting ostensibly murdered by Tyros/Terrax the Tamer in Fantastic Four v1 #260, extending his absence back to late 1983 just like that. He showed up in-between, but only out of continuity in Secret Wars, and once as a Doombot.
However, when we go to that death in 1983, it's quickly apparent that Doom had only just reconquered his country from the usurper Zorba two issues earlier, and that was after spending quite some time absent from his country after his revival by his allies in Fantastic Four v1 Annual #15. all the way back in 1980. Before that? Yeah, he was in a comatose state in the basement of his own castle. Since the end of 1978.
Doom has been comatose, dead, or usurped by one jackass or another for the vast majority of the past 13 years of publication. And I haven't even taken Rudolfo or Red Skull into account there!
This fact is about to become highly relevant in Fantastic Four v1 #350....
