I would like to apologize for not really reading the last couple installments, they're a bit too Wall-of-Text-y and keep being posted at times when I have other things I need to do.
I hope you don't feel you're under some sort of obligation to keep up, heh! Though I'm a bit worried now that I was overly longwinded on these last updates. Maybe it's just a matter of having a whole bunch of comics in one post instead of spreading them out more, perhaps with a few more images to pad things out and provide some breathing room... I think I'll try that for the next one, split it up a bit so it's not a 10k+ block of stuff...
At least that Namor four-parter coming up won't have much issue in this regard. Somehow those four issues together don't really add up to the amount of story found in two regular ones... decompressed storytelling, man.
In the interests of slightly fewer walls of endless text, I'll only cover two issues here instead of four like last time - so it's something! Well, I say that, but then I plan to cover six next time - although one of those is basically a quick summary of a five-parter in which Doom only plays a relatively minor role, so it doesn't really count! Where was I going with this? Oh, right, covers! Only one actually has Doom on it, with the looming specter of his face hanging behind the gathered Fantastic Five, this time including Namor the Sub-Mariner among the lineup. This is going way back, to the very first comics of the team, so that'll be interesting! The other cover is less relevant, since it depicts the hypothetical Mary Richards, daughter of Reed and Sue, a character who only appears in that other 'feature length thriller' advertised...
Story Overview
What If #27 - What if Namor Had Joined the Fantastic Four?
This comic diverges way back when Johnny Storm briefly departed from the Fantastic Four and wandered the streets, before running into an amnesiac Namor by coincidence - all the way back in Fantastic Four v1 #4, at the dawn of their group's existence. The original Namor became both mankind's champion and bitter enemy - but that's not the world we're visiting here. Like in the canonical tale the Fantastic Four go looking for their missing member, but here they happen to find him in Namor's company. Johnny decides to test out his theory about Namor's identity and dumps him into the bay, after which the Sub-Mariner regains his memories and bursts out of the water sans clothes, but with his customary speedo. Namor briefly decides to pay a visit to gaze at Sue's beauty (remember, he was kind of enamored with her at the time) before heading to rejoin his people, but he's told that Atlantis is a ruin - his people are no more!
Namor rages against the surface population, blaming them for the fate of his people and declaring his vengeance. The Fantastic Four get ready for a fight, but Sue tries to talk sense into everyone, saying that Namor's already lost so much and they shouldn't make it worse. She suggests that if his world is gone, Namor could join theirs - he's come to mankind's aid before, so he shouldn't let his anger blind him now. Reed figures the ocean is a vast place, so there must surely be hidden remnants of Atlantis somewhere, and they could help him search. Namor decides to listen to his heart, to think before he acts, and with his eyes locked to Sue's he decides to take the offer of friendship. He gives his loyalty, as it is all he has to give as a monarch without a kingdom, and in that moment he joins the Fantastic Four. While Ben tells 'Subby' that there are no hard feelings, Johnny suggests new uniforms are in order…
Thus, the lost son of Atlantis joins the team, and they become the Fantastic Five - complete with giving Namor a blue speedo with the number '5' on the belt buckle, because style is important. While Namor longs for his underwater kingdom, with Sue at his side he begins to enjoy the dividends of his new life - but peace is not among them. Not long after Namor's addition to the team, a madman named Doctor Doom makes himself known, one who would eventually become the team's greatest nemesis. Using Sue as leverage, Doom then has the team time-travel back to the 18th century to retrieve the gems of Blackbeard, just as in Fantastic Four v1 #5.
Arriving back in time, Namor informs the others that he's familiar with the gems that Doom is looking for, explaining that the baubles in question once belonged to Merlin and have vast mystical qualities. He knows this because they were found early in Namor's reign on the bottom of the sea - a nice callback to a dropped plot thread, comic - and brought to Atlantis for study. Namor figures they must still be in the pirate's possession at this time, however. The team dress up as pirates to fit in, and soon discover a notice informing them of Blackbeard's death, which fills in a plothole in the original story. Reed recounts that the historical Blackbeard was a man named Edward Teach, confirming at least that Ben wasn't responsible for a complete time paradox wedgie in this timeline, and maybe not the original either. In any case, Namor remembers where the gems will be discovered in a few centuries, and jumping into the water, he figures he'll just go pick them up a bit earlier this time.
Much later, Namor discovers the shipwreck of Blackbeard and retrieves the chest containing Merlin's gems, returning to the team just in time to see the others get cornered by a bunch of pissed-off pirates. The team wonders if they're actually going to just give the gems to Doom, just as the time machine activates and whisks them all back to the present. Namor reminds them that the gemstones were studied in Atlantis, and that knowledge was passed down in the royal family - to him! Doom demands to be given the treasure, and Namor raises up the shining gemstones and wonders if these are what Doom wants to amplify his dark sorcery. Doom is shocked at Namor's ability to control the magic of the gems and is blasted off his feet with a surge of magic, but the villain responds with his own hand blasts and a vow of enmity and revenge.
While Namor uses magic to protect Sue, the team members combine their various attacks against the singular villain and manage to take him down in short order. Unfortunately for them, Doom is revealed to have only been a Doombot, who taunts them even as he lays in pieces on the floor. He declares his memory is long, and they shall all rue the day they incurred the wrath of Doom! Reed figures the real Doom must still be around, and Namor proposes bringing his castle down on top of him, while Sue begs for moderation since rushing heedlessly after Doom could prove fatal. Namor relents and decides a confrontation with the villain can wait for another day, and thanks her for reminding him, all while they flirt outrageously in front of the team.
The next few villainous plans against the Five are defeated as well, with the Puppet Master failing to turn them against each other, while the Thing and Namor team up to take down a rampaging Hulk, and the fight with the Red Ghost and his apes on the Moon (don't ask) is easily defeated when he no longer has numerical superiority to rely on. The Mad Thinker's android is reduced to scrap, and the Super-Skrull is defeated by taking the battle underwater where Namor rules supreme. Namor even convinces the others not to use a copy of Doom's technology to travel back to ancient Egypt, preventing the entire adventure in which they met Rama-Tut. And, of course, in between all that there was always Doctor Doom himself to contend with, his hatred growing with each confrontation as he became more deadly than before. The utter destruction of the Fantastic Five was now his only passion!
Though Doom builds a special resentment for Namor, the fish-man is more interested in Sue Storm, and the two begin a relationship, her schoolgirl crush on Reed forgotten in the face of the exotic. Whatever feelings Reed might have held are buried so deeply he could not have expressed them if he tried. The love between the duo is only tainted by their inability to find any survivors from Atlantis, though Sue still holds out hope. Namor admits that the absence of his people leaves an emptiness within him, and he could not bear losing her too. Thus, he asks her to be his wife, and she agrees. Ben just wonders what took them so long! Later, when Sue tries to tactfully inform Reed of her intent to marry Namor, the scientist barely bothers to congratulate her before refocusing on his work. Sue doesn't seem very reassured by his standoffish attitude.
A few weeks later the two get married - apparently that kind of thing can get done real quick if you're a superhero - and the likes of Nick Fury show up to the banquet. Reed is called on to make a speech, and he asks everyone to join him in wishing Sue and Namor a very happy life together, and declares this is a new time in their life together - and a new time for him as well. He promptly announces that it's time for him to step down, noting that Namor has now more than proven his leadership skills, and he wishes to spend more time with his first love - scientific discovery! Effective immediately, he's resigning from the team!
Though the team and Reed go their separate ways from there, they each achieve success. Namor and Sue become the married core of the Fantastic Four, triumphing over a string of bad guys including Diablo, Dragon Man, and the Frightful Four. The mysterious Mole Man and Namor even strike up a strange friendship, perhaps bonding over their outsider status. Reed, meanwhile, founds Richards Technologies, a company which flourishes into a leader of the scientific community. Under his leadership, 'Richtech' makes incredible strides in R&D, and the Fantastic Four naturally has complete access to all its breakthroughs.
That prosperity, of course, would not last forever. Reed goes looking for a research assistant and a too-good-to-be-true aspirant comes in for an interview, a redhead named Lissette Orlova. She thanks Reed for the opportunity, and promises he won't be sorry for hiring her - it's a great privilege he's granting her! Lissette proves to be as good as her resume, and with her at his right hand discoveries were made with regularity, but the oblivious Reed utterly fails to notice her obvious attraction to him, even when she goes out of his way to 'accidentally' touch him. Lissette laments to herself that Reed doesn't even notice her - it's like she's not even there! She's falling for him and he doesn't notice. She's betraying him, and he doesn't notice! Oof.
Later, Lissette brings Reed a cup of coffee, and he decides to take a break from his calculations. He thanks Liss for the drink, saying she always seems to know what he needs. Not much later, we see her on the phone, reassuring the person on the other end that Reed trusts her completely, and 'the effects' have already begun to show. One more dose, maybe two. She just wants to get this over with. Internally she despairs that she loves Reed - how could she be doing this to him? The man on the other side of the phone, naturally, is Doctor Doom, who declares she will stick to the plan rigidly. After all, she wouldn't want anything to happen to her family back in her homeland, would she…?
Sue calls up Reed to tell her that she's due to have a baby in April, and Namor's beside himself in excitement. Reed congratulates them both, then suggests they keep him apprised of things as they progress. Sue tells him and Lissette to take care of themselves, having noticed she's clearly crazy about Reed and wondering if the bid dope has noticed yet. Reed tells Lissette about the good news and she admits she heard, proposing a toast to their happiness. Reed thinks her timing is perfect and takes a deep drink, only to become woozy and confused afterwards as the drug takes effect. He falls over to the ground as Lissette apologizes, but she had no choice.
Later, Reed regains consciousness to discover he's been strapped upside-down to the ceiling and dressed in an ugly purple leotard - quite the vile punishment! Doctor Doom is right next to him, declaring that he's now been confined in the sub-basement of New York's Latverian embassy, and he's totally helpless due to the help of Ms. Orlova. His faithful assistant has been poisoning him, Doom explains, as she's willing to go to almost any lengths to protect her family back in Latveria. It was Doom who planted her so close to Reed, naturally, and she's been dosing him with neurotoxins of Doom's design to destroy his will. By now, his muscles should be quite unresponsive… Lissette tries to explain that Doom forced her into dosing Reed, saying she didn't want to do any of this, and the monarch just tells her to shut up - all he needs from her is silence!
Doom explainsthat the neurotoxin is fatal in all but the small doses Reed has ingested, and larger quantities would stop all body functions like breathing. Controlled amounts, however, will sap free will. With one final dose, Reed will dance like a puppet to Doom's every command, and he'll walk the villain straight through the Fantastic Four's defenses so he can watch while Doom kills them all! With that he pushes a syringe into his old enemy…
Not much later, Doom tells a subdued and blank-faced Reed to activate the disabling code on a back entrance of Four Freedoms Plaza, wanting their appearance to be a complete surprise. They'd never expect Richtech to be their fatal flaw, nor for Doom to appear in their midst without warning! Deciding Reed's part in these events has been invaluable, Doom declares he'll kill him last, before clothes-lining him for unclear reasons. Without the Fantastic Four, Doom will hold the entire world in his gauntlet! His every whim will be law, every thought a reality! Doom uses a finger-beam to cut open the elevator (despite having a guy with him explicitly to turn off the defenses, but okay) and then he strides in like he owns the place. The commands Reed to override all the security precautions on that floor, and commends Reed for making the place so impregnable it might well be a prison rather than a fort!
Doom decides that he can take care of Johnny and Ben at a later time, and locks them in their rooms - they're beneath his notice. For now he wishes to focus on the happy couple at the heart of the team, Namor and Sue. In mere moments they will be no more, and all of Doom's defeats will be avenged in one bloody stroke! And then who will stand in his way…? Who would even dare?
In his bedroom, meanwhile, Namor reflects on how lucky he is, having found love, friends, and soon even a newborn family. He has everything! Suddenly he hears someone at the door and exclaims:'What?!' Doom throws open the door and declares the correct question is: 'Who?'
Shocked, Namor shouts out Doom's name, and Doom laconically replies that he is indeed Namor's doom - and, indeed, everyone's doom! He then commands Reed to capture Sue, before blasting Namor in the face with a hand blast which scorches the very air between them.
Doom actually deals some serious hits to Namor while Sue cries out for her husband. An obedient Reed goes to restrain her with his stretching powers, and Sue wonders what Doom has done to him, while Namor is tossed into some furniture and lays crumpled on the floor. Doom declares that he hasn't killed Sue's dear Prince Namor because he wouldn't dream of letting his death be that easy. He gets really creepily close to Sue as he says this, actually.
He then grabs her around the neck, declaring it won't be that quick for her, either - they will all come to know agony intimately before he grants them the release of death. He begins to slowly strangle her, and the placid Reed watches on and begins sweating while Doom demands that Sue beg for her life. Finally he manages to break through the haze in his mind, and with a cry of 'NOOOO!' he tosses Doom off his feet.
Reed declares that nobody will die tonight, but Doom is baffled by him being up and active - nobody's will is that strong! Still, Doom quickly adapts and violently bashes Reed into a window, shattering it on impact and knocking the hero out of the running. Elsewhere, a mysterious female hand releases Johnny and Ben from confinement, and they come rushing into the room to back up the team. Doom decides the element of surprise is lost and he's not ready for a pitched battle, so he blows a hole in yet another window and flies out with his rocket boots, narrowly averting a revived Namor's blows. He swears the team won't be so fortunate in the future, when he will inevitably return! After he's gone, Namor asks if everyone is fine, and while Ben and Johnny say only their egos are bruised, they find a desperate Sue tending to the broken and bleeding body of Reed, impaled on shards of the window he struck.
Weakened, Reed tries to speak to Sue, attempting to tell her before it's too late that she was always special to him, but he never knew how to say it. Sue tells him to save his strength while Namor morosely concludes he's not going to make it. That's when Lissette rushes in - she freed Johnny and Ben before, and she's here to ply her medical trade. She's a Doctor, and his only chance to live! Admitting to her role in earlier events, including working for Doom after he took her family hostage, Lissette explains that she grew close to Reed during her betrayal of him, and even fell in love with him. She declares she won't lose him now and rushes him to surgery, even as a barely coherent Reed hears every word of her confession…
Lissette sustains Reed long enough to get him medical help, while a call to S.H.I.E.L.D. ensures that Lissette's family is liberated from Doom's clutches. Reed mends slowly but completely, which gives him time to get to know Lissette more closely. He tries to excuse his blindness to her advances by proclaiming he was too busy, which doesn't really impress Lisette much. Finally he admits he might love her too, and Sue figures that took him quite long enough to realize that. Soon Reed and Lissette get married too, delaying only until her family escapes Latveria. Sue gives birth to a baby boy and names him Leonard, after Namor's father. Reed and Lisette also have an unnamed daughter, who has her mother's eyes and shock of red hair, but her father's prodigious brain. The final page reveals that both these children later gain powers of their own, but this comic doesn't show what becomes of them...
What If #30 - What If the Invisible Woman Had Her Second Child? (First Story)
Sue's second child being born after all, huh? This is actually a story concept that would get a couple revisits - with quite a bit of Doctor Doom relevance when it comes to its future canonical follow-up! Here, we start with Franklin Richards having a nightmare. That bad dream includes him running down endless corridors as faces swirl around him, including Doom's looming mask, as well as the dead body of his father Reed Richards. Franklin declares that Reed refused to acknowledge the monster so it devoured him. then screams for his father as he wakes, which causes his parents to come running to find him sitting upright in bed, utterly terrified. Sue comforts him and Reed says they'll never let anything happen to him, but Franklin answers that he will - and the monster will kill them for it. Reed and Sue tell him there's no such thing as monsters and wish him a good night, while Franklin murmurs that the monster is growing inside of her…
In the reality that's canon, Reed Richards sought out the assistance of Doctor Octopus to help with his wife's troubled second pregnancy, but she ultimate suffered a miscarriage. The frightened little Franklin here is from another world, one in which Reed did successfully bring a second child to term. The Watcher turns back time to the early days of Sue's pregnancy, revealing that while in the normal continuity her pregnancy was relatively normal until the end, her gestation was troubled from the start here. The doctors warn Reed his wife might not be able to bring this child to term, but Reed is adamant they're wrong - Franklin turned out alright, so why couldn't they have a second child? He's just told every pregnancy is different. Franklin, meanwhile, worriedly looks on as the object of his nightmares grows.
His mother proceeds to grow weaker with each passing day, until she can no longer walk without assistance, and Franklin looks on in horror at her sunken cheeks. She confesses she can no longer turn invisible to her husband, but Reed just tells her to get some rest. Franklin watches on, aware that the monster will soon claim his mother's life. A few days later Sue is rushed to hospital, where an all-star team of Reed, Otto Octavius (Doctor Octopus), Bruce Banner (the Hulk), Michael Morbius (the Living Vampire) and Walter Langkowski (Sasquatch) are gathered to try and help her through the birth. Morbius thinks it's too dangerous to give Sue anything for the pain - they might lose both mother and child! Outside, She-Hulk sits with Franklin, Alicia and Johnny as they wait for news. The kid tells them things won't be alright - the monster is going to kill his mom. And then it's going to kill them all.
Inside the operating room, the Doctors concur that a Cesarean section is their best chance at saving the mother, but it's risky in her condition. They just don't have any other option. Johnny, meanwhile, tells Franklin should lighten up since his mom has some of the world's most brilliant minds looking out for her. If they can't save her... Reed soon holds a little newborn girl in his hands and tries to show her to her mother, only for Morbius to regretfully tell him Sue didn't make it through the birthing process. Reed cries out in horror as he hugs Sue's body, declaring it wasn't supposed to be like this. She can't be dead. And she won't be, not really - because she left the best part of herself behind. Her children. Cue a creepy shot of the baby…
Reed goes to tell the others that Sue is gone, and they are horrified. She-Hulk asks after the baby, and when Reed says she's fine, and he's going to name her Sue after her mother, Franklin is horrified and storms out of the room. He crashes through the door on his way out, and one of the doctors reassures Reed that it's a natural reaction to learning of the death of one's mother - he's misdirecting his anger. First to Reed, and then maybe to the baby itself. Sure enough, when we see Reed tending to little Sue some time later, Franklin refuses to have anything to do with feeding the baby, staying as far away as possible.
Years pass, and Franklin's abhorrence for his little sister grows, much to his family's anguish. Alicia asks him if he'll join her and Sue in the living room, but he just warns her she should stay away from 'Suzy'. A sickly Alicia reminds him she's supposed to watch them both now that Reed has rejoined the Fantastic Four. Not much later we see Alicia Storm's funeral, even as we read Franklin's earlier warning to her that she's getting just as ill and thin-looking as his mother did before the end. Sue is killing her, he explains, just as she killed her mom! She's going to kill them all!
A year later, Franklin looks in on his uncle Johnny, only to discover he's delirious in bed, suffering the same wasting condition that Sue and Alicia before him had, having nightmares of Doctor Doom kidnapping his dead wife.
Franklin goes to find his dad to try and make him listen to reason, but naturally Reed is too busy with experiments. Franklin doesn't take no for an answer, declaring that she won't let Sue kill Uncle Johnny too! Reed angrily shouts at his son that he's sick and tired of these unfounded allegations and he's just jealous of his sister! Franklin declares he's wrong, and he'll prove it, pulling up a list which shows that all of Suzy's baby sitters are dead now, as well as most of her teachers, and many of her classmates. All of them were eaten alive by the same 'sickness' that his Mom and Alicia caught, too. Sue's a monster, and now she's killing uncle Johnny! Reed responds by violently smacking his son in the face, and telling him he won't hear any more of this. All of these deaths are just byproducts of their excess cosmic radiation! He won't hear another word about it! Uh, okay…?
Several weeks later, the entire superhero world is in shock to learn that Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, unexpectedly passed away. This once more raises questions about the long-term effects of cosmic radiation, or so the TV claims. Franklin once more accuses Sue of being responsible. Ben figures he's talking nonsense, especially when Sue asks him if she believes Franklin about her being a monster. He reassures her she's no monster and gives her a rocky hug, while Sue grins ghoulishly over his shoulder.
Six months later Ben Grimm has regained his human form - it seems those cosmic rays eventually run out! That night he goes out for a date on the town, only for a criminal he nabbed in his superhero job to come for revenge now that he's once more vulnerable to lead bullets. Ben is brought to the critical ward at the hospital, and his family has been called in to say their goodbyes. Sue asks to be allowed to say goodbye to him - alone - and Reed doesn't see the harm. Franklin protests, parking himself in front of the door and saying she can't go in there - he won't let her! Reed punches him out of the way, once more screaming that he's tired of his son's defiance. Franklin tearfully reminds Reed that he once believed in his son's dreams, but now he just won't. Why? Reed replies that this is not a precognitive vision - this is just jealousy. He's been jealous of his sister since she was born! Nearby, a red-eyed Suzy looks on as her uncle Ben dies in front of her...
We then switch over to Latveria, two months later, to find that Franklin has traveled to the abode of Doctor Doom to meet with him. He hasn't spoken a word to his father in two months, not since that terrible meeting in the hospital. Doom concludes from his story that Franklin believes his sister to be some form of Succubus, and Franklin agrees that's true in a manner of speaking - she does suck the life out of people, after all. Doom wonders why she would not have drained the energy of her father, and Franklin admits he doesn't know - maybe she needs him for something, or maybe she just loves him - he certainly worships her. Doom observes that Reed doesn't love Franklin, and then wonders what concern all this would be to him, even if it were true. That question Franklin can answer, at least.
The deaths Sue causes, Franklin explains, are growing more frequent as she gets older. Her appetite, it seems, is growing with each passing year. Thus, with time, she may yet pose a threat even to Latveria itself, whatever she might truly be. Doom decides he'll have a look at Franklin's evidence and make his deliberation based on that, and Franklin happily agrees. Within the week Doom has joined Franklin in New York to speak to Reed, deciding that while based on circumstantial data, Franklin's theory bears closer scrutiny. Thus, in the interest of scientific study, he demands Reed hand over his daughter! Smooth, Doom.
Reed wonders if Doom is out of his mind, asking to have his daughter dissected, and Doom denies any necessity of dissection - observation only, he swears. Reed decided Doom just wants to make her a guinea pig and screams for Doom to get out, and to take his betraying son with him before Reed kills him! Doom concludes that Franklin was correct in at least one observation of his - that his father has become truly deranged!
He then uses his force field to counter Reed's attempt to attack them with his stretching powers, and Doom observes that Reed is mindlessly lashing out where once he would have reasoned. Perhaps there is truth in what the boy says! Reed just screams at him to shut up, but Doom says he will not - cannot! After an exchange of punches and a narrowly averted hand blast, Doom finally manages to launch Reed off his feet. A wounded Mister Fantastic then warns his daughter to run, since he can't protect her anymore.
Sue then reveals herself, engulfed in pink energy, and reveals herself to be a monstrous, Xenomorph-like creature - this is her true form. She wonders why on Earth she would ever run? Reed, aghast, wonders if this means she really did kill all those people like Franklin said, and Sue gleefully lays claim to the murders.
Reed turns to his son and asks for forgiveness, offering his hand, but Sue gets in the way and drags him away so she can gobble up his life energy, killing him for good. Franklin cries out in horror as the monstrous Sue announces he'll be the main course. Doom, however, swiftly gets in the way and declares the monster will have to go through him first, telling Franklin to run. 'Have at thee, foul one!' Doom declares like he's freaking Thor, and he and the demon get into a fight, in which Doom declares he will not die easily. The creature agrees - but he will die! Soon it starts draining Doom's armor of energy and drags him to the floor, after which it also drains the living energy of his body as well and reduces him to a hollowed-out corpse. Does her brother hear, she wonders, does her brother know that Doctor Doom is dead?
Sue rushes down the long hallways of Four Freedoms Plaza to find her brother, echoing the dream from the opening of the story, and she wonders if he knows how long she's wanted to kill him. He'd never let her close enough, though, not in all those years - but now there's nothing he can do to stop it! She soon finds Franklin, who has equipped himself with some heavy-duty sci-fi equipment, and she squashed the door flat as she enters like the Alien Queen - actually this is probably a direct reference. Franklin aims his cannon at Sue and blasts her backwards. The gun isn't the real trick here, it turns out, but what he's herding her towards - a portal. A portal to the negative zone! Sue screeches as she attempts to hold on to the edge of the portal in a very definite reference to Alien, and then she's blown into the dimension of Annihilus with the portal quickly closing behind her. Annihilus shows up to see who's intruded on his domain, and Sue figures he looks like food…
Back at Four Freedoms Plaza, Franklin decides it's over - finally. At first it was only a nightmare, a dream gone awry, probably from something he ate. Then it was jealousy, sibling rivalry, like Cain and Abel. But all along it was only ever fear. Franklin goes back to his father's dead body and cries over it, wondering if only Reed had ever listened to him, things might've been different. If only...
Rating & Comments
What If #27 - What if Namor Had Joined the Fantastic Four?
This comic is actually reasonably good, going into numerous minor consequences of the premise on the sidelines while the final part of the plot is, as far as I can tell, entirely original. Things start with an alternate take on Fantastic Four v1 #5, but it moves on to the entire Lissette plot afterwards which is separated through an interlude of references to other comics. There are some… inconsistencies… that I noticed along the way, here. While the entire sequence taking place in the past does sort of retcon the nonsensical idea that Thing with a fake beard was the historical Blackbeard, it doesn't neatly tie up all loose ends. Since Namor finds Merlin's gemstones on the seafloor here and brings them back to the present, there is no logical way in which his people could have found them on the ocean floor early in his reign anymore, thereby preventing him from learning of their location. He created a predestination time paradox, but as far as I can tell the story entirely ignores that. So, out with one temporal flub, in with another…
Moving on from that sequence, we pick up with the marriage of Namor and Sue. Reed remains a complete dumbass in this comic, as not only does he refrain from acting on his attraction to Sue even as he notices another man running away with her, but he decides their wedding is a good time to announce his retirement from the team and his re-dedication to science. While this is his decision to make, was a celebration of two people's union really the best time to make an announcement that's all about you, Reed? At least it seems the team separates amicably, which is something. Actually, now that I go over it again, technically this interlude about the wedding is separated from the final storyline by yet another interstitial of one-panel takes on other comics, so perhaps we're dealing with three separate stories rather than two. I guess this is supposed to replace the big Reed & Sue wedding annual in the timeline? A lot fewer invading super-villains at this one.
The final storyline is the most developed, and the best. While Lissette is never presented as anything but a snake in the grass, I thought that she was pretty sweet anyway - the awkward budding relationship between her and Reed works, especially Reed's utter mental refusal to grasp the distressingly obvious. I'm a little impressed that the authors brought in an entirely original character here instead of just having some established female character from Marvel canon show up to have a random tryst with Reed instead. Nope, we get a full-on new character! Reed can get together with another woman if his original pairing doesn't work out - it's not a fated union! Now, granted, his eventual girlfriend turns out to be a patsy for Doctor Doom and poisons him nearly to death, but what can you do? Nobody's perfect. Anyway, Lissette's self-doubt and guilt over going through with the betrayal despite her love works, and it's nice that she isn't entirely dropped from the story after this, making a triumphant comeback in the final pages of the book. Not a lot of issues I've covered thus far are half this complex!
Now, Doom's actions on the way into the actual Fantastic Four base are variously sensible and then suddenly not. It makes sense for him to brainwash Reed into flagging him through the defenses, but then why would he physically cut through the elevator door when he clearly has the ability to open it without getting noticed like at the bottom of the shaft? Also, if Reed still needs to take security programs down on the floor you're currently visiting, how are you not being noticed? This seems like a design flaw. Also, I'm not entirely sure why Doom slams Reed down beyond just wanting to get some assault in. Was it just for kicks? Doom eventually turns his brain back on and locks up Ben and Johnny to avoid their interference and goes for the kill, which is again sensible. I'm not entirely sure why Doom has such an enmity for Namor in particular here, but I assume he got all the built-up hatred Reed got in canon as the de facto leader of the Fantastic Four, and the one to blast him with Merlin's gemstones during their first encounter.
It's neat that despite the heavy focus on Namor due to the story's premise, and the exclusion of Reed from the main team, the latter does get a much more victorious moment than any Namor can muster here, overcoming Doom's mind control and freeing Sue from her confinement and probably death. Now, he doesn't actually get much further since Doom nearly kills him afterwards, but it's a great moment nevertheless! Then, instead of Namor swooping in as one might expect, or even Sue, it's actually Lissette who comes to the rescue! An original character from this very story, and an enemy at that, who not only saves the day, but miraculously survives until the end of the story! What a refreshing change of pace! Doom's escape is in keeping with his original escape in Fantastic Four v1 #5, flying out the window, so that works - symmetry and all that.
The comic ends… anticlimactically, really. Everyone survives, the team moves on with their lives and all have children together, and things are happily ever after. Meh. Honestly, this entire comic was a decently fun read, probably better than the rest I've covered thus far, if only because this one told a coherent and entirely consistent story (with a time hiccup or two, perhaps) which successfully included original characters and plots without just rehashing an entire canon storyline beat for beat. That's good, even if the end product is still pretty average, and finishes in a mealymouthed Happily Ever After. It seems 'What If?' can only tolerate that ending or the complete opposite. Speaking of which…
What If #30 - What If the Invisible Woman Had Her Second Child? (First Story)
Well, after the previous story was a generally wholesome tale, at least in the way it ended up, this time we're looking at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Which is the suffering roller-coaster in which the entirety of the runtime is spent on people dying slowly from something which any half-decent writer would have explored a tad bit more in a timely manner than anyone apparently did here. It's a cavalcade of people dying and nobody picking up on the blatantly obvious pattern that even a child could notice, and I can only conclude that Reed used his money and influence to just buy everyone off and then pretended really hard to himself that everything was fine, no need to worry about it at all. Time to whistle loudly to drown out my thoughts!
Leaving aside Franklin and little Sue, here, the take on Reed we get here is intriguing because it's so… terrible. It's worse than just ignoring his definitely very psychic son who has repeatedly had significant visions in the past, or even his unwillingness to immediately agree that his newborn daughter might be bad news. It's how he willfully ignores data that a crazy intelligent supergenius like him wouldn't need charts to remember, or how he literally hits his child for daring to speak up, accusing of jealousy when the - again, definitely psychic - kid has been sticking to the same story since day one. And he never bothered to check, he just went with the physical abuse. Later, he even attempts to murder his first child because he dared to call in Doom on the matter. All of this would be terrible if we're dealing with a mind control situation where Reed is corrupted - but we never get a hint of that. Nobody in the story appears to be mentally affected by Sue, unless we are to assume she's staying hidden by using such methods - and Reed's reaction when she reveals herself is to try and ask forgiveness from Franklin, not some declaration that he's been hoodwinked all this time. It doesn't make him look good, honestly.
I mentioned him briefly, but Doom's appearance in this story is interesting and kind of fun - he basically shows up here like Godzilla in one of the later sequels - he might have a history of being a massive enemy with a bad disposition, but here he's the heroic protector of children. Instead of taking immediate advantage of having Franklin in his grasp, Doom instead tags along with his nemesis' child to investigate the potential threat, and then shows himself to Reed to discuss the matter too! Granted, it's in the usual subtle matter where he demands Reed hand over his child for study, but it's something. The more interesting part happens after Reed goes rabid, though - not only does Doom take down Franklin's father nonlethally and it takes Sue to take advantage of that weakness to finish him off, but Doom then instantly puts himself between the creature and Franklin, not even sparing a second to think before telling the kid to flee while he takes on the monster himself. He, indeed, dies in the process of defending Reed Richards' son! Maybe that whole 'I don't wage war on children' thing from Fantastic Four v1 #361 is actually going to be a thing from here on out?
Sue herself is, I think, the weakest part of this entire story. Not only is she just kind of evilly mugging the camera half the time, but her reveal is kind of sudden and without much impetus, just sort of showing herself the moment Reed gets beaten in a fight, when as far as I could tell she hadn't even been in the room until that point. And then she turns out to be a thinly veiled Alien ripoff with no particularly interesting traits beyond being an energy-eater. Also for all that she was a massive threat that waited around for a decade or something eating people, she was dispatched by Franklin in about five minutes with some random scraps he found lying around and a trap door, which felt really anticlimactic and a bit simplistic. Also way to ruin your premise by making Sue this creepy monstrous human-shaped being and then ditching that for alien tentacle nonsense at the last moment so you could plagiarize. Lazy.
In my own version of this story, the conclusion of the tale would have involved Doom getting called in and possibly killing Reed during that standoff where he attacked, then a distraught Franklin discovering that Sue wasn't actually a succubus after all - that he'd been wrong all along and the cosmic energy thing was the true culprit all along, and maybe even he himself was affected and may have been making people sick along the way. Still a horribly depressing ending like they intended, clearly, but one that would turn it at least a little more original and less banal and predictable!
I think I would have kept Sue as indeed being evil but ditch her having a secondary form because something that is for all physical appearances a human child but internally is a complete and utter monster would be vastly more terrifying than any sentient cosmic energy being or having a monstrous form.
I would have also likely ended it with Franklin and Doctor Doom being forced to flee while looking like the villains to outside observers leaving them in a situation where they know about a growing threat but nobody willing to listen to them and instead attacks whenever they show up to try to deal with her growing threat.
I like how Namor joining the Fantastic Four just straight up makes everything better for everyone, except the people of Atlantis. That's completely logical. I count Sue marrying Namor as better, because while Namor can be kind of an asshole, Reed has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be an absolutely terrible husband over the years. I feel sorry for that poor redheaded double-agent, unless losing Sue taught him a few lessons. The ending isn't really an anti-climax, the climax is the whole thing with Lisette, the ending is just falling action.
Now, Doom's actions on the way into the actual Fantastic Four base are variously sensible and then suddenly not. It makes sense for him to brainwash Reed into flagging him through the defenses, but then why would he physically cut through the elevator door when he clearly has the ability to open it without getting noticed like at the bottom of the shaft?
Doctor Doom being needlessly dramatic and destructive of other people's property? Shockingly, I don't think that's out of character.
I'm not entirely sure why Doom has such an enmity for Namor in particular here, but I assume he got all the built-up hatred Reed got in canon as the de facto leader of the Fantastic Four, and the one to blast him with Merlin's gemstones during their first encounter.
I think he hates both of them. Reed for canon reasons, Namor for the thing with the gems (and maybe stopping him a few times off camera as the Four's leader). I mean, his plan for Reed is pretty clearly to make him suffer as Doom's zombie minion, helplessly watching as he is forced to help Doom destroy everything he loves, even engineering it so it happens to him via betrayal by someone close and trusted, to add another layer of hurt. Similarly, that clothesline is probably just to throw a little physical pain on the mental. That's probably worse than anything he plans to do to the rest of the FF.
I do wonder if it would've been more in-character for Doom to have sent in a Doombot first against Sue, given the suspicion that she's a life-stealer. After the bot goes down from Sue's energy drain, he may have swooped in personally, perhaps with adequate protection whipped up from what he observed and/or data collected by the bot, if he had time for it.
Something I discovered recently: The Thing wasn't declared Jewish on-page until 2002. It would only implied prior to that. Which could explain why he was celebrating Christmas in that one comic.
Something I discovered recently: The Thing wasn't declared Jewish on-page until 2002. It would only implied prior to that. Which could explain why he was celebrating Christmas in that one comic.
I mean, that's not really sad, Christmas is 90% traditions entirely divorced from Christianity that they pilfered from other regions or religions, and maybe a church service for the people who care for that sort of thing. Easter isn't terribly different.
Pilfering things from other cultures and mashing them together with your own is how you get things like the Renaissance and Rock & Roll, it's a perfectly natural and often good part of cultural evolution.
One can argue that Christmas' adoption as a largely secular tradition of gift-giving and goodwill in the 20th century is in part one of the greatest triumphs of American Jewish culture.
I mean, that's not really sad, Christmas is 90% traditions entirely divorced from Christianity that they pilfered from other regions or religions, and maybe a church service for the people who care for that sort of thing. Easter isn't terribly different.
Admittedly Easter was originally was literally celebrated as part of Passover by early Christians and early Christian communities actually depended on Jewish communities to determine when to celebrate it until the first council of Nicaea in 325 led to the adoption of a separate system of calculation and there was apparently major debate within early Christian communities over wither it should be held on Nisan 14 or the Sunday following.
Let's put aside any discussion re: religion and holidays unless it becomes relevant - in this thread we only celebrate one holiday, and it's Doom's Day.
In keeping with the spirit of the moment, though, have a fun tidbit I discovered - Doctor Doom did not actually debut in 1962's Fantastic Four, but a full twelve years earlier! In Detective Comics #158, published by the distinguished competition, Batman runs into a smuggler with a rather familiar name... (I'll have to remember that for next year's April First, I guess.)
Sort of makes you half wonder if its from that same shared universe with Spiderman and superman coexisting especially as apparently there are apparently batman comics where Batman has apparently run across Captain America(where we learn that even the joker hates nazis), Spiderman, the punisher(oh boy) and the Incredible hulk.
Sort of makes you half wonder if its from that same shared universe with Spiderman and superman coexisting especially as apparently there are apparently batman comics where Batman has apparently run across Captain America(where we learn that even the joker hates nazis), Spiderman, the punisher(oh boy) and the Incredible hulk.
We will get to more Marvel & DC crossovers down the line. Hell, we'll even get to a merged version of their universes! Although a bit more literally than one might expect...
Infinity War (Part 1) - Infinity War #1-3 (June - August 1992)
Introduction
Following up from the juggernaut that was Infinity Gauntlet, its sequel Infinity War had a lot to live up to. The success of that first miniseries actually spawned two sequels - Infinity War and Infinity Crusade - in subsequent years, but I think this is the only remaining one in which Doom plays any role of significance. Basically, it meant that Marvel put out line-wide mass crossovers three years in a row, and Infinity War went further in that regard than the original Infinity Gauntlet, as instead of roughly a dozen-and-half tie-ins we're now dealing with Acts of Vengeance levels of cross-pollination. And that doesn't really work in Infinity War's favor, I'm afraid. One of the downsides of such wide reach is that the series spends a large amount of time setting up all those random tie-in issues, only for basically none of them to actually matter much to the central plot, which is neatly wrapped up in the core miniseries. Basically, think of how Doctor Doom getting knocked out and then revived in a dedicated tie-in issue last time around didn't ultimately end up mattering the slightest bit at all.
The art for this series was done by Ron Lim, who also took over from George Perez halfway through the original Infinity Gauntlet, so that works well enough. Still, it's hard not to notice that the art quality has suffered some in the interim - perhaps the inkers are responsible for that, or Perez' influence still loomed over the previous project after he was gone? In any case, the story is written once more by Jim Starlin, and the core Marvel superheroes once again serve as a bit of a sideshow, with the major players being the more cosmic characters of his creation. Lots of Adam Warlock and Thanos, not a lot of Captain America, shall we say. Now, that can be done poorly like in Secret Wars II, but just because the core cast is cosmic blowhards isn't necessarily a bore. So let's get started, shall we?
Covers
As expected with these events, the covers are a little… extra. Each issue has a regular narrow cover and triple-sized ones with a whole lot of additional material to the sides, but generally speaking they all share a similar approach - saturate the page with lots and lots of characters, even if the vast majority of these people have no lines at all, any meaningful things to do in the story, or even a moment of significance to point to throughout. Lots of participation trophies here, basically. Worse, much like in Infinity Gauntlet, the core cast of Infinity Watch characters are so much more relevant than all the minor Earth heroes crammed in, that they each barely get anything to do. Most of them just get shunted to tie-in issues, while the big important stuff is done without their involvement.
Doctor Doom doesn't show up on the covers until Infinity War #3, and even there he's all the way to the side on one of the extended side-covers. That said, due to various plot-lines being separated into different columns on the cover, with the Earth heroes divided from the Infinity Watch, which are both divided from the villains, Doom and Kang actually get the biggest mugshots short of the Magus and the doppelganger Thanos. Honestly, I think the cover fits better with later circumstances that are a few issues down the line, especially with that wave effect going leftwards, but I guess it's used generically here to depict the (apparent) death of a bunch of characters. Even on the cover they're clearly just fine, though...
Story Overview
Infinity War #1 - Chthonic Maneuvers
No skipping ahead, this time! We start off with a dual dose of Thanos - one is in his traditional armor, while the other looks as we've seen him since he lost the Infinity Gauntlet and retired to a rural existence, though he's wearing a shiny skullcap and a scouter here, presumably to test people's power levels. The new Thanos plays a kind of peek-a-boo with the other, something that will continue throughout this entire series.
The rural Thanos, who is the real one, does not pursue the duplicate. After entering his personal lab, Thanos converses with his computer and analyzes some mysterious energy patterns he's picking up from space. Deciding there's something of cosmic significance going on, he grabs his discarded armor off the scarecrow outside and boards his reconstructed flying Space Throne to find the source of the energy. The comic notes that the original chair was magical in some sense while this rebuilt one isn't - but it'll get him where he's going.
Somewhere else in space, Galactus and his herald Nova discover the entity Eternity in a catatonic state - they determine this condition is artificially induced by an outside force, and seek to investigate who could have that level of power. Nearby, Thanos observes the scene as well from his chair, and catches a glimpse of his doppelganger again. From there he follows an energy trail that he finds 'strangely familiar. But not familiar enough to elicit an exact memory.' The trail leads Thanos to a floating castle in space that reminds him of his own such space island, the asteroid throne of Death that he created as the setting for the original Infinity Gauntlet.
Inside he discovers the source of the mysterious energy is a mysterious 'module' which is nearly as powerful as the Infinity Gauntlet. He is then confronted by the Magus, the dark side of Adam Warlock's personality personified, alongside his own doppelganger.
On Earth, and more specifically in Latveria, Doctor Doom detects the mysterious cosmic energies as well. He says he's never seen scannings like this, and doubts anyone ever has - and given that he lost his memories of the Infinity Gauntlet event, I suppose that makes sense! He's familiar enough with the type of energy to identify it as similar to that of cosmic entities, however, but senses no involvement from such a powerful being here. Since Doom has repeatedly attempted to absorb unfathomable cosmic powers for himself, I guess he'd know! Doom decides that while others would be scared, he just sees opportunity beckoning - where there is power, there is power to be gained! Still, he figures this quest would require technologies beyond those directly available to him, and wanders off to seek alternatives…
Elsewhere on little old Earth, Spider-Man is watched and followed by his own spooky alien doppelganger. Various other heroes also battle their creepy evil twins, with most of those fights truncated while being elaborated on in dedicated tie-in issues. Are you sensing a trend yet? The winner of Mister Fantastic's fight is ambiguous and uncertain here, but reading a Fantastic Four tie-in comic confirms that the evil version won out in the end. Iron Man is defeated in a large explosion, while Wolverine stabs and kills his doppelganger, which then disappears. Spider-Man's doppelganger is seen impaled on a spiked fence, though we don't see that fight outside another tie-in issue. Finally, we return to witness Iron Man's doppelganger transform into a mass of tentacles, engulf him, and merge with him. In space, Galactus loses the energy trail he had been following and decides to enlist a mage who can help penetrate mystical barriers. Yet more tie-In bait? Probably.
Thanos, meanwhile, spends some time socializing with the Magus in his space citadel, while his doppelganger serves them drinks. Firstly he's curious how the Magus is even alive and existing when last he knew the man's timeline had been destroyed and he'd been reverted to just a personality aspect of Warlock's - it's a whole complicated storyline from way back. Magus just claims there's many paths to grandeur, then implies that there's some sort of divine power involved with his return, even referencing Thanos' own survival of death during previous events. Thanos isn't convinced by the handwaved explanation, and when he hears Magus go on about how he wants to basically take over the universe, he muses to himself that some mistakes are evidently too tempting not to repeat. Magus, naturally, threatens Thanos with death if he keeps up this backtalk.
Thanos thinks it's weird to talk to a man from a future which no longer exists, referencing the originally stated origin of the Magus in his first appearance. Magus claims that there's unlimited variations on tomorrow, and some of them even repeat - a commonly used justification for the many timeline shenanigans that Marvel engages in (and presumably also how the MCU time-travel works to some extent.) Thanos again thinks the explanation is unsatisfying, and then notes that the energies that Thanos can sense within the containment vessel the Magus has are disturbingly familiar to him. When Magus wonders if he wants to know what the intended use for that energy is, Thanos admits that's why he came - not to elude the Magus' wrath, but to ensure the safeguard of his own reality!
Magus wonders why Thanos would protect what he once sought to decimate - what does reality mean to a man like him? Thanos says it has meant much to him in recent months, and when Magus points out that he doesn't sound much like the Thanos he once knew, the Titan admits that he has been replaced by someone with different priorities. Magus asks if he had some sort of revelation, and Thanos agrees that he has - of a sort. He once strove for ultimate power, he explains, and he can see from the fact that the Magus already has vast power but still hungers for more that he is much the same. Thanos already had his taste of omnipotence, however, and found it impossible to keep down - such power was not meant for beings like themselves. Magus decides he's overestimated Thanos - they're clearly not the same breed. After an angry staring contest, the Magus then threatens Thanos with dozens of doppelgangers of various heroes, taunting him to let Adam know he's coming, before teleporting him away to his space-chair.
In space, Thanos realizes that the energy signal is now scrambled, so there's no way to trace it directly anymore, but he doubts the Magus expects that to stop him. He's not sure how he fits into the being's plans - and why does Magus have all that power at his disposal yet chooses to manipulate it mechanically? How strange! Is he insane, maybe? Thanos isn't sure, but perhaps that'd be all the more reason to put down this mischief. Unfortunately, there is one thing that has become abundantly clear to Thanos in this encounter - this is a struggle he'll need help to win. Ugh. With that, he teleports away. Magus and the doppelganger Thanos watch him go, and the former smiles when he recognizes whatever coordinates Thanos went to...
On Earth, the alien monster posing as Mister Fantastic sends a rather vague message to the Avengers, X-Men, New Warriors, West Coast Avengers, X-Factor, and Alpha Flight to gather for a big mission. He requests a meeting the next morning to discuss a universal threat, evidently considering it a bit too dangerous to broadcast on open radio. Doctor Strange, meanwhile, is surprised by a bright flash of light in his office, which directly leads to a two-part tie-in where he meets up with Galactus. Did tell you that was tie-in bait, didn't I? Actually, a bunch of these calls to the teams also have their own tie-in issues, where the same scene is repeated but with more elaboration and some flashbacks to the original Infinity Gauntlet, mostly just as a preview so readers would go buy the main event. It's a lot of time-wasting fluff.
Elsewhere, Doctor Doom is busy appealing to someone over a video screen, declaring that the other person on the call must come - surely the data he has forwarded is sufficient incentive? Doom then admits that even he does not dare take on this sort of endeavor alone, and the other person is the only one he can trust in this matter!
When the other man says there's great risk in them working together, Doom notes that the prize is well worth it nevertheless, and he has further incentive to sweeten the pot. You see, he's discovered that there's not just one energy source out there - there are five! With even one, conquest of the universe is possible - with five, no dream is beyond reach! He then declares that today will be his, and tomorrow will be his companion's - together, they can do it! The context to this quote becomes apparent when Doom asks: 'What say you - conqueror?' The time-traveling villain Kang the Conqueror steps out of the future into the present day, and greets Doom as a partner. Inside their own heads, both villains are already planning to betray the other at the first opportunity...
Finally we switch over to Monster Island, the home of many bizarre behemoths, possibly Godzilla, and the Mole Man's little empire. The desolate island also boasts another new bunch of residents - Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch, which includes Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Pip the Troll, and Moondragon. They have guarded the Infinity Stones ever since the previous crisis happened. Basically, shortly after Infinity Gauntlet Warlock was forced to get rid of ultimate power by holy writ of the cosmic entities, and he ended up distributing the gems to his posse. Anyway, the details of all this stuff are once again left for a tie-in issue.
Warlock is just closing the deal on housing his team in Mole Man's territory when they're interrupted by a guest, a mysterious visitor from beyond the stars. Who else could it be, of course, but Thanos of Titan himself? The Infinity Watch are shocked by the appearance of their old nemesis and get ready to fight. Warlock holds back an enraged Drax, however, and says that that was then, and this is now. What's Thanos doing here? The Titan, gritting his teeth, admits he's come for aid.
Infinity War #2 - Ethereal Revisionism
In the last issue, the Mister Fantastic doppelganger summoned most of Earth's superheroes to Four Freedoms Plaza. Most of them have arrived at the beginning of this one. Even as Reed repeatedly tells everyone to wait until the rest have come in, the comic zooms in on him holding a finger over a hidden button on his lectern. Cap asks who hasn't shown up yet, and Reed tells him it's Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Hawkeye - three of those were seen battling doppelgangers last issue, so there might be a connection there! Hulk suggests they should just start without those light-weights.
Elsewhere, we catch up with Doctor Doom and Kang, who are using the latter's technology to try and track down the energy emissions from space, but are not having much luck - probably because of whatever Magus did to hide the place from Thanos last time. Doom concludes it must have been hidden through some mystical means, and Kang agrees, saying that he won't let that stop them. Inside his head, he also calls Doom a Neanderthal for good measure. Kang decides to try and approach the problem from the opposite direction, noting that the energies are being funneled through myriad places in the heavens. Doom internally thinks Kang is a pompous fool but asks for clarification, and Kang demonstrates that a map of the galaxy and a map of the energy's reception points is a perfect match - and every star's planets are secondary receivers. The two conclude that every moment counts, and if they want to wrest power from their adversary they must strike before he has solidified his power base. They then head over to Kang's spaceship. This is actually another set-up for some tie-in issues, but we'll get to those down the line.
Over on Monster Island, Thanos and the Infinity Watch are discussing the Magus' return. Warlock is understandably confused and dubious, noting that he was personally responsible for that being's downfall and the destruction of his timeline - he can't be back! Thanos himself was there, and saw him fade from existence! Thanos agrees, but nevertheless he saw and spoke with the returned Magus, and the villain now has reality-altering power at his fingertips. Warlock sarcastically wonders if there was no time for Thanos to trick him into helping again like he did last time, during Warlock v2 #1-6, and the Titan just grins. Moondragon suggests contacting the Avengers for assistance, but both Warlock and Thanos say it's a terrible idea in stereo. Neither of them are particularly liked since the Infinity Gauntlet affair - the Avengers understandably fear the power of the Infinity Gems, and they would attack Thanos on sight. Drax is annoyed he doesn't get to smash Thanos while they're on the same side, but goes along with it.
Thanos declares they need hard intelligence on the Magus, to figure out what his goal is. He intends to use the Space Gem to get to the Palace of Mistress Death to get that information. Magus and the Thanos Doppelganger secretly watch them on a monitor, confirming that everything is still proceeding according to their plan. When the Thanos copy calls Warlock the 'other self' of the Magus, however, the villainous mastermind lashes out at his minion and declares Warlock a mere shade! After the doppelganger hesitantly agrees, they turn their attention to Galactus, only to note that the cosmic being is approaching the energy receptor at Earth ahead of schedule - best to slow him down a bit!
We see Galactus' spherical transport vessel approach an island on Earth, only to disgorge a motley crew - Doctor Strange, the Silver Surfer, and Nova. Galactus himself stays with his ship, commanding his current and former heralds to scout the area, since he senses a strange power fluctuation on his way here that concerns me. Doctor Strange, meanwhile, tracks down the reception relay they're looking for to a nearby cave. At that cave, Doom and Kang are attempting to break into the receptor's defenses while mystically cloaked, but the defensive coding Kang is working against keeps changing. Doom spots the new arrivals and tells Kang about them, who shifts their spaceship over a few dimensions before they both duck inside the cave to take shelter from Galactus. Still, Kang figures circumstances might just work out to their advantage…
Strange leads the Surfer and Nova into the cave, figuring their power might be the oomph he needs if it comes to a fight. They head around a bend in the cave only to discover an enormous column of shiny, glittering lights - it's an energy configuration of great complexity and power.
Doctor Strange decides it's definitely mystical and asks Galactus if he can pick up on it through the Eye of Agamotto, and the cosmic being says he can - and with Strange's assistance, he believes his ship can track the energy to its source. Strange notes the energy keeps changing in wavelength, but Galactus says it doesn't matter. After the heroes leave, Doctor Doom and Kang conclude that they successfully cloaked themselves from even the Surfer's advanced awareness. Kang also managed to slap a trace beam onto Galactus' ship, so they plan to follow the group to wherever the energy source might be…
Meanwhile, in Death's realm, we see Warlock blast a guard with his Soul Gem. Traditionally this is an extremely lethal move that steals a target's soul, so it's kind of brutal - but here we get a retcon which allows Warlock to also use 'karmic blasts' which 'disrupts the anima centers.' Basically he gets to attack people without having to absorb all their souls now, so he's not a Dementor anymore. The reason they're in Death's place is actually to visit the Infinity Well, which has previously appeared in Thanos Quest, back when Thanos was gathering all the gems for his Infinity Gauntlet in the first place. It's a little wading pool where all things can be learned if one gazes into its depths long enough, or if one asks the right questions. Thanos tells Moondragon to keep an eye out for Mistress Death and ensure she doesn't become aware of their presence, then goes to stir the waters.
In the Infinity Well, we get a recap of the Magus' previous appearance, letting the reader in on some relevant continuity. Once, a timeline existed in which Adam Warlock eventually went fully evil and became the conqueror Magus. In order to assure his control of the future he returned to the past to cement his power base, using his knowledge of what had once been to conquer thousands of planets in that past. He belatedly realized that all this conquering in the past might disrupt the life of his own past self, however, and thus lead to paradox - so he began carefully engineering his own past self's path towards becoming the Magus. Thanos found out about this and decided to prevent Magus' future from coming into existence, and with Warlock's help they destroyed the timeline which spawned Magus, thereby also preventing his past time conquering. He then faded from existence, remembered by only a scant few in the universe.
When everyone there complains that they already knew this stuff - except Drax - since Warlock recounted the original run-in with the Magus to them, the Infinity Well spouts some actually new information. The well explains that the Magus was destined not to remain a mere memory, because at the end of Infinity Gauntlet Warlock held the Infinity Gauntlet for a short time. In that moment, while all-powerful, he subconsciously decided that in order to be perfect he had to cast off the good and evil sides of himself, leaving him as a truly neutral being. Dungeons and Dragons players will get it. The two personalities - good and evil - are personified as a woman and a man respectively, with the former left for Infinity Crusade to explore. For now we concern ourselves with the evil half, which manifested as the Magus once again.
Anyway, interrupting all that cosmic stuff, let's see what an archer is up to. Hawkeye flies up to Spider-Man on a silly flying motorcycle he used to have, and warns him of the meeting at the Fantastic Four's place - Spidey admits he's been distracted, since something really weird happened to him the night before. Still, he figures he might as well mention it at the meeting. After leaving, Hawkeye is attacked by his doppelganger, as if to fill out that quartet of missing heroes at the start of the issue, and his double looks more like a Hawkman clone than anything. It starts to try and absorb the original with its freaky tentacles when Spidey jumps in from out of nowhere and tackles it off the building, killing it. While beating himself up for continuously failing to get any answers from these freak alien copy things, he is then attacked in turn by Iron Man's doppelganger and goes down.
Back at the Infinity Well, it explains that the Magus reincorporated at a nexus of a bunch of alternate realities, which may not have existed before his resurrection, and it's unclear what he may have done in those other worlds - the well cannot see more than mere glimpses beyond there. When the others wonder what the well knows about those places, it explains that it can only relay what the Magus wants it to know - which is that he retrieved some source of near-infinity power from these realities, or more specifically five sources. Thanos hypothesizes that he found himself alternate dimension Infinity Gems, but the well denies that - the energies involved are different. Magus and the Thanos clone are still watching, and decide the group has learned enough. They disrupt the cloaking that Moondragon was doing and reveals their presence to Mistress Death. I gotta say - love the panel of pissed-off Death power-walking towards the reader!
Unaware of the danger, Thanos asks about the alternate dimensions Magus was using, and the Well explains that the Magus chose a barren region to call his own, and constructed his space fortress from which he could execute his ultimate plan there - the same one that Thanos visited before. He also recruited weird extra-dimensional tentacle aliens from a nearby dimension, altering them to become his foot soldiers in the guise of other beings. Thanos muses he has seen one of these altered beings, just as Moondragon warns everyone they've got a problem. Thanos quickly asks the Well if it knows what Magus' goal is, and it gives an incredibly literal answer to the question: 'Yes.' The group are forced to escape before actually learning that goal, as Death suddenly arrives to chase them out of her realm. Again, we get another pretty sweet panel of Death - she's getting some quality panel-time this time around! After the Infinity Watch flees, the Well innocently asks Mistress Death if she wants to know the answer to the last question asked - what is the Magus' plan?
On Earth, Mister Fantastic finally gets around to starting his meeting after 'Iron Man' arrives and explains that Hawkeye and Spider-Man are unavoidably detained - they are actually unconscious on a roof somewhere. Wolverine is also missing, and Professor X says he'll fill the mutant in on the details later. Reed tells the gathered heroes that he was attacked by a doppelganger during the previous night. He believes the doppelganger came to replace him. When Daredevil wonders how a doppelganger could hope to replace someone with superpowers without having their own, Reed hypothesizes that the trespasser's extremely complex fluid structure could allow it to become anyone it chose! Asking the room if anyone else has run into something similar themselves, a voice suddenly pipes up that he has!
Wolverine stumbles into the room, his costume half-covered with a trench-coat and a cigar on his lips. He explains that he snuck back into the Avengers base earlier that morning through the back door, figuring it was better for his health. When Cyclops and Iron Man ask what he's talking about, he explains that he wanted to check out the players before throwing in his ante - he wanted to hear what Richards had to say before showing his face. His spiel sounded pretty reasonable… too bad it's a pack of lies! While Reed goes for the hidden button on his lectern, Wolverine blows a puff of cigar smoke directly into Iron Man's face. He accuses both Mister Fantastic and Iron Man of being impostors based on his superior sense of smell - it's never failed him before!
Iron Man responds by calling Wolverine a 'mutie' to his face - a bit of racist slang - and accuses him of being the true impostor. Cap isn't sure how to tell who is real or not - they all seem the same as usual! (Does that mean Tony regularly uses racist slurs…?) Even Daredevil isn't sure, since to him the people smell the same as always. Could Wolverine's sense of smell be that much better than his own enhanced one? Reed asks why he would warn everyone of the danger if he was an impostor, but Colossus points out it would be a clever way of avoiding suspicion. Wolverine insists that the two are fake, and Guardian from Alpha Flight suggests there must be some test they can perform. Beast suggests fetching Doctor Strange for a mystical check, but he's absent from the meeting due to his Galactus-related shenanigans. Convenient, that. Jean Grey asks Professor X if he can use his psychic powers to ferret out the fakes, but he's getting exactly what's expected - maybe none of them are impostors at all? Daredevil, meanwhile, concentrates on his senses while Wolverine and Iron Man squabble some more, and suddenly cries out: 'Good lord!'
At the Mole Man's place, said landlord has come to deliver some information the Infinity Watch might be interested in - namely that Reed Richards has called a meeting of all superheroes on Earth to counter a major crisis that is brewing. Something which threatens the very universe! Thanos decides that can't be a coincidence, and Warlock decides to send Moondragon over to connect with the local heroes on the issue, while keeping Thanos' involvement silent. Pip then offers Moondragon a lift, and the two teleport away.
Back with the heroes, Daredevil joins Wolverine in accusing Mister Fantastic and Iron Man of being impostors, tossing his billy-club at the former and clothes-lining him around the neck to keep him away from the podium. Iron Man blasts Wolverine off his feet in retaliation, but when Colossus goes to restrain Iron Man he accidentally steps on Hulk's foot and starts a full-on brawl. Hulk punches Colossus and Cap across the room while nearby other mutants and superheroes start clashing as well for… some reason? Daredevil desperately asks for a hand against the fake Mister Fantastic, but even as Beast and a few more X-Men come to his aid, it's too late and Reed manages to hit the hidden button on his lectern. To the shock of everyone in the room that action unveils a live gamma bomb!
Pip and Moondragon appear on top of a building a few streets over, figuring that teleporting directly into a superhero base is a great way to accidentally get shot. They intend to contact Quasar to warn of their presence, then fly over there sedately. Which they would have done if the top few floors of Four Freedoms Plaza didn't promptly detonate in a violent green Gamma explosion. The two quickly teleport back to Monster Island - so much for that idea!
In another dimension, the Magus chortles at the success of his latest move, but declares the game is far from over. No, things are just beginning to get interesting!
Infinity War #3 - Nefarious Rhapsodies
Well, I predicted the start of this issue rather precisely - the gamma bomb which destroyed the top of Four Freedoms Plaza was redirected by the Invisible Woman, who manages to hold the blast back with a force-field, if only for a little while! She's kinda known for this sort of thing by now, and she did precisely this in those recent Deathlok issues… Thor creates a whirlwind to carry the nuclear fallout into space so there's no leftover problems to deal with, and the heroes turn to confront the doppelgangers of Mister Fantastic and Iron Man, their random mutual brawl forgotten for the moment - it was mostly tie-in bait anyway, since the same fight shows up in a bunch of those from different perspectives. Sue goes to question her supposed husband, but before she can get answers the Magus and Thanos' eviler twin teleport in and escape with the impostors.
The heroes, dum-dums that they are, confuse the two beings for Adam Warlock and the real Thanos. Now, I can get the latter confusion, but what about the former…? No one comments on the oddity of Warlock being randomly purple and malevolent-looking, but maybe they were thoroughly dazzled by all of the glowing lights. Cap immediately decides he was never that sure about Warlock, but this might have swayed him! Uh, sure. Shaman senses deep mystic energy, and suggests enlisting a more powerful mage to help. Hulk says Doctor Strange is unavailable, so Scarlet Witch intends to contact some substitutes.
Galactus, Doctor Strange, Nova, and Silver Surfer travel through a dimensional corridor outside conventional space and time, and while Strange has trouble tracing the intermittent mystical signal through this place, he does manage to hold on. Galactus is not interested in excuses, only results, while Nova worriedly observes that Galactus is not known for his patience. Nearby, they are secretly followed by Doctor Doom and Kang in the latter's spaceship. Kang notes their present course will do them little good, as they can't let Galactus beat them to the energy sources - but could they even find them without him? Kang says they can, as his ship's computers have determined the destination of their quarry and locked on to it. Doom concludes that their next problem then is to somehow pass Galactus' vessel without being detected. Thanos and the Infinity Watch meanwhile examine a column of 'quasi-mystical' energy, one of those receptors we saw in the last issue, while the evil Thanos duplicate keeps a close watch from nearby. The group soon teleports away to trace the source of the energy as well.
Back with the heroes, Wonder Man informs Captain America that he found Spider-Man and Hawkeye unconscious on a roof, and the two heroes are on their way to the hospital. Black Cat and Black Widow volunteer to stand guard and protect them. Hank Pym, Invisible Woman, and Vision study data on Mister Fantastic's computer, and discover energy receptors throughout the galaxy - the same stuff Doom and Kang figured out in the last issue - and apparent coordinates to the transmission source, which they did not. In his fortress, Magus monitors the heroes and reveals that he had planted those coordinates there. He also explains that the gamma bomb was simply meant to confuse and distract the heroes, rather than destroy them, because their role is to be spoilers, havoc reavers, muddiers of the water. Mere pawns to his greater schemes. The real kings and queens of this game are others - Thanos and Warlock among them, and the rest of the Infinity Watch. He shall manipulate them to deliver him the ultimate prize! All his dreams will come true…!
On Earth, Scarlet Witch returns with Agatha Harkness and Doctor Druid as her mystical experts. Wonder Man is a little wary of the latter, since they previously met as enemies before he was de-aged, but they decide to work together anyway. Along with Scarlet Witch and Shaman, these four mystics offer to transport the heroes to the energy source together. Quasar contacts Captain America from another dimension where he's been gathering intelligence on the current crisis in ways only he can, namely by contacting the cosmic entities. He reports that Eternity has been rendered catatonic, just like Galactus and crew discovered before him. Captain America recalls him back to Earth, and the heroes worry that this is looking like it'll get real bad. Cap concurs - this could be the worst.
Galactus and his crew are approaching their target dimension, but pick up on a mysterious cloaked vessel tailing them. Just then, however, the Magus detects their group again moving ahead of schedule. In order to delay them, the Magus promptly explodes their ship. Thanos' doppelganger wonders what Magus would need more power for if he can so easily destroy even the ship of the mighty Galactus himself. Magus declares that his power might seem infinite to the clone, but his horizons stretch further - this dreams grander, his vision clearer. He asks the clone if he understands, and he admits that it doesn't - this does not surprise the Magus one bit.
In their spaceship, Doctor Doom and Kang pass the debris field that remains of Galactus' ship and marvel that their foe wields such power, but figure the vessel had served its purpose and it's real easy to sneak by it now! Still, this further underlines the danger of what they face. They blast onwards, intend on avoiding the same fate. Kang muses that the prize shall soon be theirs, and then he'll take care of Doom with deep satisfaction. Doom, meanwhile, muses that he covets Kang's technology, but doesn't care for the man himself…
On Earth, we see Spidey and Hawkeye in hospital beds, and the doctor notes all they need is some time and some TLC before they're back on their feet. When Black Cat wonders why they're still unconscious, she's told they're sedated with some high-grade painkillers. Black Widow quips she hopes that's the only kind of killers they'll have to deal with, while the Doctor acknowledges that people like them are always at risk of attack by their enemies. Still, the two heroines will keep an eye out for any threats. Neither are happy to be reduced to nursemaids with the crisis that's brewing, but without superpowers they aren't of much use against a cosmic level threat, so they should be glad they could help out in any way they can. Behind them, a spooky shadow looms through a doorway. This feels very much like a set-up for a tie-in, but nothing ever comes of this. Weird!
In space, Magus hasn't tired of hearing himself speak, and he elaborates to his Thanos-shaped minion that his power is nearly infinite - he can create doppelgangers, debilitate Eternity, even destroy the ship of Galactus - but even such feats are not worthy of the heights he aspires to. The godly stature he enjoys is only a stepping stone to true glory! He is unique in this or any other reality! His dreams are beyond containment! The Thanos clone has gotten bored of the dramatics and is checking on the computers, noting that the Infinity Watch are approaching what's only called 'Point #2', and Magus decides to keep an eye on them.
Elsewhere, thinking they had finally found the energy source, Doctor Doom and Kang find another relay transmitter instead, located on some god-forsaken asteroid. 'Curse our secret enemies!' Doom mutters, and Kang heartily concurs. They figure the true goal lies yet further down the dimensional corridor they were in before, and they try to use the transmitter's signal to track the next point in their path. Before they can re-calibrate the sensors they note a disturbance and recognize it as the arrival of yet more visitors, and they quickly cloak again. The arrivals are, naturally, Thanos and the Infinity Watch! Magus and Thanos' doppelganger are still keeping an eye on Warlock's group, and detect the presence of Doom and Kang as 'odd energy fluctuations,' but Magus assumes the reading is simply a result of the relay transmitter. He then laments to the clone that it's agony to have a past that never was - to be denied all his yesterdays and tomorrows! It was the doing of Warlock and Thanos - and with pen-ultimate power he shall make them pay for their deeds!
The Thanos clone wonders if Magus can really ignore the real Thanos' warnings about attaining divinity, and Magus says that the reason he keeps the clone by his side is that despite being a clone, the original Thanos' mind still drives him. He notes that Thanos betrayed himself when he achieved ultimate power, subconsciously feeling unworthy - but he has no such fatal flaw! In an eradicated past he once ruled a thousand worlds, and was worshiped as a god! He knows what it's like to bask in that grandeur. There lies the difference between Thanos and him. His goal is the benefits of great power - not the power itself! The Thanos Clone just stares at him blankly for these idiotic thought-pretzels, but Magus keeps going, declaring that Thanos' fear and hatred drove him to seek omnipotence so no one would control him, but the Magus has grown beyond such juvenile passion. That is why he shall not fall victim to the same snares - his dreams are woven from a more durable weave!
While the Infinity Watch waits the half hour it will take for their equipment to reset and find the next teleportation point, Warlock and Thanos talk on the alien asteroid. Warlock observes that he hasn't had any dreams since his brief trip to omniscience, except for one about the Magus which he's pretty sure the villain sent to taunt him. Thanos figures it's probably because he purged good and evil from himself, and Warlock agrees, wondering idly if Magus dreams. Thanos muses that his own dreams have always been unappetizing - mostly about death. When Warlock wistfully talks about wanting to be normal, Thanos says it's not his lot in life - neither of theirs, really. Warlock asks what Thanos thinks will be his fate, and Thanos just says they both know it already. Warlock thinks it's not right, unfair! Thanos agrees - but so is all life.
Wandering back down memory road, Warlock recounts that he once gave up his life for the sake of the universe, and attained the bliss of the Soul World for a while, but even that was eventually denied to him. This fragile reality once more needed saving from Thanos' mad ambitions, so he returned. Thanos notes that his reward, this time, was godhood. Warlock irately points out that he had to forsake that too for the good of this fragile reality! Thanos wonders if it's his fault that Warlock works for cheap, and the hero finally snaps and decides he won't do it this time - he's sacrificed enough. Let someone else save the universe for a change! As he walks off, Thanos raises a hand, then balls his fist as if wearing the Infinity Gauntlet again, and states that nobody else can.
Gamora shows herself and says that when the time comes, Warlock will do what he must. Thanos knows that, and muses that you can deny neither your black or white shadows…
Back on earth, the superheroes form an expeditionary force, and the mystics cast their teleportation spell. Captain America isn't too confident - he wishes Doctor Strange were here, lest these less familiar people teleport them all inside some slabs of alien rock or something. Quasar arrives just in time to join the party, which is quite the varied bunch - too many to list neatly, so I'll just include a picture.
These are the maximum amount of people the mystics can safely teleport over, so this is what will have to do the job. Soon the whole group vanishes in a brilliant flash of light, presumably into the next issue (or half a dozen tie-ins, I don't know.) Magus and the Thanos Doppelganger watch them travel through dimensions, concluding they will arrive in about two-and-half minutes. More than enough time to get the final player into this little comedy of errors.
In a pure white space between spaces, the catatonic Eternity waits in the void, staring into nothing. Suddenly a spark of light comes into being in front of it and soon erupts into being - he is the Living Tribunal, a representative of a being more mighty than even Eternity itself - the Marvel God, the One Above All. His task is to sit in judgment of events on the far end of the cosmic scale. He sensed the need for adjudication and came, awaiting Eternity's appeal. Magus watches this happen, having seen this coming long ago - unlike chaos, orderly beings like this are eminently predictable. Speaking of chaos, though, Magus figures it's time to stir the pot a little more, and teleports an army of doppelgangers to Earth to fight the heroes who remained behind at Four Freedoms Plaza after the expeditionary force left. That should keep them too busy to interfere with Phase 3 of the Magus' plans.
Thanos and the Infinity Watch are finally ready to leave the relay transmitter site, having re-calibrated their device to get to the energy source location, and ask Warlock if he's coming - the despondent hero wonders what choice he really has. Thanos says he has none, and Warlock sighs and decides that's it, then. Before they can go, however, power levels suddenly surge - they've got incoming! In a brilliant flash of light the entire world lights up around them, and Thanos whispers: 'Damnation.' The expeditionary force materializes around them, dozens of heroes for every one of them, and Pip meekly wonders if they can maybe talk?
Looking on from Kang's cloaked ship, the future villain wonders if the Fates conspire to aid them, while Doom decides it's best not to linger with such good fortune as an ally. He says they should focus on retrofitting their sensor system so they can be off and fetch their cosmic prize. Magus, meanwhile, laughs evilly to himself and declares nothing can stop him now!
Rating & Comments
I like Infinity War, though it's hard to gauge where it stacks up compared to its predecessor largely because its shadow just looms so large. I think no matter which way you slice it, however, it's a pretty worthy followup - if perhaps a bit quick off the draw. Having these ludicrously over-populated events back to back is a great way to start event fatigue early, and things haven't exactly slowed down much since this era of comics. Anyway, the biggest annoyance of Infinity War is easily the almost complete irrelevance of almost all the characters. The story is perfectly well-told with just the core cast, but if you strip out all the ancillary stuff which doesn't actually meaningfully contribute to the way things turn out, you've cut all the tie-ins and a solid half of the actual main issues too!
Now, I should be clear here that the story itself, which centers around Thanos, the Magus, and Warlock and the Infinity Watch in these early issues, is well told and makes sense. There's interesting character interactions there, sensible developments regarding a character previously thought dead who suddenly has access to great power. The Magus is a fun character to bring back from obscurity, and I think his relationship with the duplicate Thanos he keeps by his side is fun and allows him to go full ham with his villain speeches. I just like how the fake Thanos clearly adopted some of the original's attitude and is generally unimpressed and skeptical, much like Thanos himself is when faced with the Magus. It works!
Before I forget, I should comment on the 'duplicates' or doppelgangers. They are a common sight throughout these issues, but it's never quite clear how they are supposed to work. Clearly they can suborn the original person they are based on and control their body - which I guess allows them to mimic that person more accurately. But before that they already had close facsimiles of their powers, or a caricature of them, and a variant of their personality. One wonders how the Magus got access to the information on all these Earth heroes and villains, though presumably it was all part of his comprehensive plan to make them serve as distractions and muddiers of the water. Interestingly, the fact that some of them failed entirely at their chosen task is actually relevant later in the story - but not really in any of these three issues.
The hero side of things here is very reactive, as usual, with the bulk of the issues spent with the heroes trying to figure out what's going on (and not getting far) while gathering everyone together in a rather protracted series of invites and waiting around. This is to serve as tie-in bait, obviously, but it feels like the cosmic characters get shit done while the entire Earth cast is still hanging around doing other things for a while. Even Galactus has time to putter around Earth with Doctor Strange for a bit before getting a move on! And then the Earth cast gets blown up and has to spend another issue gathering resources to finally, finally get started at the tail end of the third out of six issues. Much like in Infinity Gauntlet, it feels like they're rather too little, too late to be of much significance to what's going on.
One downside of these super-crossovers is saturation. There's just too damn many characters. This becomes rather clear once the third issue splits the cast into halves to make things a little more manageable, but both sides of that divide are still enormous groups of random superheroes just sort of existing in the story without having anything to do. Several characters get momentary relevance like Wolverine and Daredevil, but most just stand around and never actually do anything but maybe throw a punch, and even those are relegated largely to tie-in issues rather than this main series. Somehow, even among a cast of characters who are stated by the main villain to be background fodder (and treated as such) these are the inferior type. Special mention to Spidey and Hawkeye, who just sort of sleep things off while the universe nearly ends!
I haven't mentioned Doom yet, so I probably should. Clearly, there's a big moment that these issues are building up to (and yes, there's actually a payoff this time. Looking at you, Acts of Vengeance!) Doom recruits the assistance of Kang here, who he technically met once in the distant past - during Fantastic Four Annual #2, while still in his persona of Rama-Tut. We can assume they've met other times via time travel, since there's a fair few implications that their methods are comparable and Kang based his own on Doom's old machines. We'll get to that a few issues down the line, actually, after Infinity War is over. Anyway, Kang's advanced machinery allows Doom to take shortcuts - presumably he could create the necessary technology with enough time, as he captured cosmic energies before, but he's a bit short on it here. The obvious mistrust between him and Kang makes sense, and is honestly kind of endearing. We'll see how that turns out in the next update…
Doom and Kang spend most of these first three issues just traveling, but they do have a few cool moments like dodging the sight of Galactus, the Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, and evidently even the Magus to some extent. Their dimensional cloaking is potent enough that they only seem to show up vaguely on the sensors of nigh-omnipotent super-beings so credit where credit is due, Kang has the stuff! From these first few issues it's a little unclear why Kang himself doesn't just sort of run away with things, though - he was invited, sure, but Doom is really only contributing ideas and whatnot, all the tech seems to be Kang's own at the moment. I guess he just needs the company? Or maybe just someone competent to serve as a crew. It's hard to judge Doom's actual relevance to events right here, but I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that he and Kang will have more impact on the war than basically any of the terrestrial heroes. Hah!
Some weird moments in these issues include the fact that nobody seemed remotely surprised that Iron Man would start calling Wolverine a 'mutie' to his face - was he an open racist at this time? That seems like an obvious sign that something is quite wrong. I'm also confused why the heroes ever mistake the Magus for Warlock - they are completely different color schemes, it's really hard to notice a similarity in looks even when you know it's supposed to be there. Some enjoyable moments include the appearance by Mistress Death, honestly Thanos being the good guy protecting his reality throughout this entire storyline, and Doom and Kang constantly sniping at each other mentally while they keep civil outwardly. It's just neat!
I'll leave any story-wide thoughts for the end of the next update. Even though the event proper ends there, I will also cover two relevant tie-in issues that overlap with Infinity War #3-4 afterwards. Those don't star Doctor Doom, but they are interesting because they follow Doom's alien doppelganger instead - the freaky tentacle alien who showed up in Latveria only to realize his target had promptly wandered into space with Kang in the most inconvenient way. Oops! Silver Sable shows up, it's neat.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Many would find such circumstances frightening. But my eyes gaze with an altered perspective. I see but opportunity. My visions are of dark dreams ripening, waiting to be harvested. Where there is power, there is power to be gained."
"Today will be mine. Tomorrow, yours. We can do it. What say you, conqueror?"
Kang: 'The prize will soon be ours. And then, Doom, I shall with deeply held satisfaction…' Doom: '...Terminate our partnership. Your technology I envy and covet, Kang, but you…'
"Curse our secret enemy!"
"Best not to linger with such good fortune as an ally."
Doom-Tech of the Week
Not much - most of the stuff is Kang's. But I guess we can include a Time Communicator since he can call up the future!
That doppelganger would turn out to have survive and show up again on multiple occasion to give our wall-crawler some grief, mainly as part of Carnage's group who he gets a sort of owner-pet relationship with. This could be seen as foreshadowing that Spidey will have trouble getting rid of copies of himself.
That doppelganger would turn out to have survive and show up again on multiple occasion to give our wall-crawler some grief, mainly as part of Carnage's group who he gets a sort of owner-pet relationship with. This could be seen as foreshadowing that Spidey will have trouble getting rid of copies of himself.
No shit, he shows up more than forty times in later comics! Huh. To be fair, he does have one of the better designs among the doppelgangers, with the creepy bug eyes, Venom-style mouth and excess of limbs...
No shit, he shows up more than forty times in later comics! Huh. To be fair, he does have one of the better designs among the doppelgangers, with the creepy bug eyes, Venom-style mouth and excess of limbs...
His design changes a bit also, gaining four eyes, his toothy mouth becoming more insectile looking, and loosing the claws on his feet (though that doesn't matter much once he gets bisected).
Doom recruits the assistance of Kang here, who he technically met once in the distant past - during Fantastic Four Annual #2, while still in his persona of Rama-Tut. We can assume they've met other times via time travel, since there's a fair few implications that their methods are comparable and Kang actually based his own on Doom's old machines.
Actually, yes, I'd forgotten all about that! As did Doom, actually. I'm not entirely sure if Doom actually got his memory of that back, though I presume the Doom in Secret Wars III was him (even though he was kind of pathetic.) I'm guessing their relative camaraderie here is built on something else than Doom murdering Kang after the guy attempted to betray him, though, or later resurrecting him with god-powers just cos he could.
I'll get to finishing up the next update, that one should elaborate on why forgetting his presence in Secret Wars was sort of dumb (if understandable, since he dies pretty ineffectually, early on.)
Infinity War (Part 2) - Infinity War #4-6 (September - November 1992)
Covers
Among the last three covers of this event (or at least its major entries) Doom shows up on only one - but it's a big one! It shows him tag-teaming with Kang in a face-off promised since the earliest pages of this series, so at least that gets a follow-up. Infinity Gauntlet could learn a thing or two about satisfactory resolutions, yeah? Other than that, all the covers are essentially 'let's cram as many characters into the frame as we possibly can' as far as their extended borders go, even if most of them have absolutely no role to play in any of the important events here. Eh.
Story Overview
Infinity War #4 - Mortiferous Artifice
We've arrived at the obligatory fight-fight bit of the event. We've actually got two major battles going on - one's back on Earth, in the remnants of Four Freedoms Plaza, featuring the heroes that remained at home fighting a horde of doppelganger doubles. That battle is pretty much pure filler from beginning to end; it won't impact the plot at all, and the heroes can't possibly win the fight because every time one doppelganger gets destroyed, Magus just sends a new one in to take its place. That entire sequence is watching the team trying to hold out against impossible odds across page after page, but such space could have been better used for character work elsewhere. It doesn't help that some of those pages include a minor character realizing stuff is happening in space and going 'Good lord!' about it in a lame callback. Yea, very meaningful addition there. Even the Magus says that it's of no concern to anyone except the participants, and skips to watching the other fight.
The second battle isn't much better, just more plot-relevant. It's a classic Marvel Misunderstanding battle between the Infinity Watch and the superhero expeditionary force from Earth, where one group of good guys beat up another group of good guys. Still, at least it's one that was set up in a way that makes some amount of sense. The heroes believe that Warlock and Thanos are responsible for the doppelganger attacks and the mysterious energy signature that they've detected, mostly because of getting a glimpse of Magus and Clone Thanos. That Warlock is now back to his golden color instead of still being purple like the one they saw isn't brought up at all. Funnily enough, Thanos' unmanned chair is taking part in the fight, starting off by blasting Professor X and the Thing in the face with energy rays. Useful!
While watching the chaos, Magus asks Dopple-Thanos about Phase 3 of their plan, and is told 'harmonics continue to build' and that the desired levels of concentration are imminent, whatever that means. Nearby, Doom and Kang approach within 'three dimensional sequences' of their target. Kang muses to himself that he might have needed Doom's data at the start, and the dictator's been of some help since, but he just can't stand the man's trite medieval manners. They grate on his nerves! The time to dispose of him can't be soon enough! Personally I'd check with him first on whether he's got any children, since I'm fairly sure Kang is supposed to be a descendant of Doom and he might accidentally annihilate himself. While the ship goes to warp once more, Doom decides that Kang is an overbearing prig who will get what's coming to him soon - on his part, I don't think there's any time travel consequences to worry about. Elsewhere, the Thanos Clone notices the strange signal that betrays the presence of Kang's ship again, but Magus tells him to focus on more relevant things instead of weird energy squiggles.
Magus next checks up on Galactus and crew, since they'll soon be needed. He figures a sudden astral disruption wave probably wasn't too much for Galactus to handle - it was only enough to decimate a star system, nothing more. Sure enough, the debris of Galactus' ship congeals into the original rounded shape, reforming as if nothing happened to it at all, including its occupants somehow.
Magus decided that once Galactus' role in the grand play is complete he'll have to be annihilated for being too powerful - even the most wondrous vipers make poor pets! Inside the planet-eater's ship, the crew are surprised they survived that blast, and Galactus believes he was underestimated - a grave mistake on their foe's part. Still, Magus has shown himself to have great resources and power, and Galactus sees the true reach of his plans and determines they cannot be allowed to continue. He muses that thwarting this plan may be difficult and costly, and eyes the Ultimate Nullifier on his ship, the most destructive weapon in his arsenal - possibly the universe!
Kang and Doom arrive in their target reality at last, having tracked the signal from the asteroid where the heroes and Infinity Watch are still fighting all the way to Magus' space fortress. They don't have to search for the enemy's base since it's so obvious, but Kang figures they still need to use stealth - they maintain the ship's cloak and strap on some personal cloaks on their Personal Survival Units, which appear to be spacesuit adaptations for their respective armors. Doom ditches his snazzy cloak for a bulky backpack and declares he can almost feel the power already! Kang thinks to himself that Doom is becoming blinded by grand ambition, and maybe it's time to eliminate him now, but decides he could still be useful. The monarch leads him towards the energy sources' signal across the surface of the alien base, noting the readings are going off the scale. Did he not say this venture was worth any risk?
They arrive at a ceiling module which crackles with energy (and Kirby Krackles, naturally.) Kang proposes to investigate, and Doom considers setting up a fatal accident for his fellow villain now since he's served his purpose - the man's patronizing manner bothers him. They find a 'cellular lock' which Kang can easily override, declaring it a rather insignificant safeguard for such a prize! Their foe, apparently, didn't think anyone could breach his fortress' dimensional defenses and skimped on the rest of his defenses. A conceit that will cost him omnipotence! Doom wonders why Magus uses technology and instrumentation to control the power sources rather than a more direct method like others before him, and Kang concludes from his readings that the sources are putting out subliminal disruptive harmonics and radiation - prolonged direct use would cause brain damage. They open up the compartment to reveal what's inside, and they both shout: 'Amazing!' in tandem.
Back at the space battle, Galactus arrives and interrupts the battle against the Infinity Watch, freezing everyone with a stasis field and bringing them aboard his ship with his transporter - which acts more like a tractor beam, really. He doesn't care for the heroes' petty squabbles, but they might have relevant information he can use. Magus observes this and admits out loud that he'd wondered how Galactus would end that little uprising. The Thanos Clone shrewdly observes that he is evidently not all-knowing, and Magus acknowledges this, but warns the doppelganger not to get any clever ideas.
Elsewhere in the base, an incredulous Doom asks Kang if he knows what they're looking at, and Kang acknowledges that he does - these are incredibly concentrated Astral Energy Containment Units. Five of them! They don't exist in his time period, and he thought them only a legend, a story about a wondrous device called the Cosmic Cube! Well, these aren't all cubes - only two of them are cubical, while the other three are more intricate shapes, no doubt reflecting aspects of the other dimensions they were taken from. Unfortunately the Units are protected by powerful explosives which will ignite if any tampering occurs, and this safeguard cannot be overridden from where they are.
Doom concludes they must seize the enemy's control center, and Kang figures that will be a difficult challenge - one they may fail at. As such, they'll leave a timed explosive of their own behind. If this prize is denied to Kang, let no man possess it! 'Except Doom,' the second villain petulantly adds in his private thoughts.
Back with Galactus, at the Silver Surfer's urging, the giant purple planet eater transmits an ion beam to Four Freedoms Plaza and destroys all the attacking doppelgangers there, ending the fight. Nobody back home has any idea what happened - all the aliens just sort of turned into dead tentacle monstrosities. Anyway, back with the important cast, in order to quickly share information on the current situation, Galactus subjects everyone to a cerebral scan which downloads a bunch of information from everyone else into their mind. The heroes are surprised to learn that Thanos is on their side this time. Wolverine wonders how it feels to be on the side of the angels, and Thanos says it's distasteful - but it's his universe as well! Thanos then walks over to Galactus and notes that he's picking up some bizarre readings - the Magus has upped his ante in this game. The Earth folk are going to be upset when they find out!
Nearby, the heroes figure things will be alright with Galactus on the job, since he can kick pretty much everyone's ass without breaking much of a sweat. Warlock notes that power alone will not win the day, while Thanos says that they can't actually get a read on their home reality due to all the dimensional rifts, so he has no way to confirm what the Magus' latest acts have done to the place. Galactus asks Thor to travel back there to obtain updated data, sending the information back to Galactus through the mystical wavelength of Mjolnir, which he can pick up on with his instruments.
Warlock meanwhile takes a stroll outside the ship onto the asteroid below, and he is followed by Thanos, who once more spots his evil clone nearby. He mutters that they all seem to be haunted by an unwanted destiny that day, and Gamora surmises that Warlock's 'dire fate' is close at hand. Thanos agrees, and sees no reason to wait any longer. Gamora wonders if he'll be able to handle it - when he gained omnipotence the last time, Warlock expelled all the good and evil within him, so would he be capable of handling reabsorbing it? It would defeat the Magus, but without good to counterbalance his evil, what would Warlock be like afterwards? Perhaps they would create an even worse monster! Magus looks on and concludes that Thanos will move on with his plan regardless of these doubts, because that is the only path he has left open...
Thor arrives at Earth's Moon in the company of the Watcher. To his shock, he observes that there are now two Earths and two moons in space, very near each other, even overlapping. He shouts 'Good Lord!' in case you were curious about that gag returning again. The Watcher explains he wasn't aware this would happen, only that some grand cosmic event was about to unfold. Thor wonders if anyone on Earth is even aware of what's going on and tries to communicate with the Avengers using his ID card - those things have some range! Nobody answers, as the heroes at Four Freedoms Plaza appear to be in a trance, standing over the remains of their fallen alien enemies.
Magus observes that both Galactus and Thanos are making important decisions, but he already knows the outcome because he knows their psychological profiles, and suspects Thanos will announce his decision first. Sure enough, Thanos and Warlock convene the members of the Infinity Watch, and they all agree to reassemble the Infinity Gauntlet. Everyone coughs up their gems - Drax literally, since he swallowed it - and they soon rebuild the thing. That was easy! Thanos is a bit confused that all the gems are present when only five were gathered - where did the reality gem come from? Curious. Pip wonders if Warlock had it all along and his talk of giving it to a 'secret protector' was bull, while Moondragon wonders if it means the protector was among Earth's heroes. Warlock says it's irrelevant, and announces he's about to try and control the Gauntlet. Magus looks on and muses that if he's correct, control is the last thing Adam should worry about.
Much to Warlock's shock, the Gauntlet does nothing in his hands. Thanos determines that the Living Tribunal's prior verdict which ordered the dispersal of the Gauntlet renders the gems powerless when they are together, by what amounts to divine fiat. Galactus predicted this eventuality, and arranged to meet with the Living Tribunal and appeal the decision - without any divine power, however, Warlock has no standing before that being. Still, Galactus will need to bring someone to represent the legal possessors of the gems, one of the Infinity Watch. Rejecting Warlock for the risk that Eternity might think to get a bit of revenge, he takes Gamora with him as a representative instead. Right after they depart, the Magus and Thanos' doppelganger teleport in and quickly abduct Warlock and the Infinity Gauntlet. The real Thanos jumps after them but fails to get a grip, and is left fuming in the aftermath.
While the heroes discuss amongst themselves how everything is doomed, how the last hope of the universe has faded away and Galactus' mission is suddenly rendered moot, Thanos quietly announces that if they had any sense, they'd realize he might well be their last chance for salvation. Cap thanks him for the offer, but says his kind of help is the sort they can do without. Thanos concludes they can have it their way - but they may be interested to know Magus is busy taking over the entire galaxy. You see, he has used his vast power to duplicate reality, and he is now merging his personally tailored duplicate with the original. When that is complete, the entire place will be in his thrall, like the doppelgangers they defeated. Oh, and by the way, everyone on Earth is entranced - they can do nothing to stop it! Makes the takeover smooth and simple, you see? Cap wonders where he's getting all this, and Thanos just points to the telemetry coming in from Thor's Hammer and streaming into Galactus' computers. Oh, yeah. That.
Convinced at last, Captain America tries to quickly plan strategy and response. He asks Nova to figure out if she can use the energy of Galactus' ship somehow. He figures they might be able to - if they get access to Galactus' equipment and transmitters. Cap also asks Professor X and Moondragon if they can use their psychic powers to awaken Earth's population to mentally resist Magus' takeover, and when they agree to give it a try, he commands the mystics to head back to normal reality, stating that the rest of them will get along fine until they get back. Naturally these are connections to various tie-in issues that bear various levels of utter irrelevancy. All the other heroes are told to gather below the view screen to discuss strategy. As for Adam Warlock…? Well, Thanos imagines he's dead already, since it seems painfully obvious that's a major part of Magus's goals. Thanos concludes Magus has finally overplayed his hand, however, and he's realized what the villain truly wants, what his goal is. And he shall yet thwart the Magus' dreams!
Thanos approaches Susan Storm and inquires after the potent weapon that Galactus allegedly stores on his ship, and her eyes stray towards the Ultimate Nullifier that innocently hangs on the wall nearby, tiny and insignificant unless you knew what you were looking at. Thanos thanks her for her help, noting it's clever to conceal it in plain sight, then grabs it off the wall against her protests. Taking it back to the gathering of heroes, he explains that the stories say it has only one drawback - it is too powerful, and if not used with precision, the bearer is destroyed along with the target. Extremely inconvenient. It could easily destroy the Magus - but to use it would require a nobler soul than his own.
Walking over to the expeditionary force, Thanos suspects such a soul could be found among the present company - someone who would sacrifice their own life for the universe. A hero with power to match his courage, for this knight would have to fire the weapon within the Magus' dimension to avoid dragging his comrades into oblivion. Thanos has someone in mind already, of course, and zeroes in on Quasar, asking about his resolve. How steely is it? 'Finely tempered,' Quasar replies and takes the weapon from Thanos' hand. Cap tells him not to do it, but Quasar tells him it might well be their only out. In space, meanwhile, Galactus and Gamora face the Living Tribunal, who is ready to consider their case, stating their dimension and very existence may depend on the result of this hearing!
Infinity War #5 - Psychomachia!
We open with Quasar holding the Ultimate Nullifier, while Captain America and Hercules try to dissuade him from trusting Thanos's plan and using it to try and end the threat of Magus, at possible risk to his own life. In their home dimension, Sleepwalker observes that everyone on Earth is locked in a trance, recapping the situation over there for readers who pick up the fifth issue of a miniseries as a starter comic, I guess. It's also to get the reader to pick up another weird tie-in. Who even is Sleepwalker? Anyway, Thor and the Watcher continue to monitor the two Earths and two Moons merging. Mjolnir continues to transmit complex data to Galactus, which is why he hasn't been zapped back to the other dimension yet, though Thor figures they could probably use his power on the other side.
At his space fortress, Magus takes the Infinity Gauntlet from Adam Warlock's hand. Warlock declares that the Gauntlet is useless because the Living Tribunal has ruled that the gems can't be used again in unison. Evidently Magus is powerful enough thanks to his Cosmic Containment Units that just getting access to the gems themselves isn't that big a deal anymore, I suppose.
Of course Galactus, unaware that the Gauntlet has fallen into Magus' hands, has gone to the Living Tribunal to get that pesky ruling overturned. Magus is aware of this - and announces that all one needs to do is set up the right series of events, and all things are possible. If clever enough, one can get their enemies to do the legwork for them. All that is required is patience. It's only a matter of time now before power is restored to the Gauntlet…
Hiding behind some nearby machinery, still hidden due to their cloaking technology, Doom and Kang watch this conversation and plot. Kang figures they just need to ensure that the Gauntlet is theirs before its power returns! Well, not theirs, just Kang's. Or just Doom's. It depends which one you ask. Doom declares they must hurry - the time act is limited!
Back at Galactus' ship, Captain America checks in on Professor X, Moondragon, Psylocke, Jean Grey (using the short-lived codename Marvel Woman), and Nova. With the help of Sleepwalker, these psychics are trying to stimulate the minds of everyone on Earth to resist their trance. Apparently it's a technique Professor X has used before, presumably referring to him stopping an alien invasion way back in Uncanny X-Men v1 #65. We also get a reference to a tie-in again - and it's the same Sleepwalker issue already mentioned earlier. Did we really need two reminders to that in half a dozen pages? The group figures the psychic plan is a longshot, since they're up against some crazy powerful forces here, so they might want to look in other places for a solution.
Cap wonders if those 'other places' include Thanos, who he still doesn't trust the slightest bit. Which is when Wonder Man notifies him that Quasar is leaving to use the Ultimate Nullifier at the villain's suggestion. Thanos says that Cap should pray his friend succeeds - he has rarely met a braver soul, or a bigger fool! But he may yet save the day, where a more competent intellect would fail. Quasar floats outside the Magus' fortress and takes aim. He hesitates too long, however, prompting Thanos to plan a direct assault instead. He intends for a commando raid comprising only Drax and himself, which the rest of the people there don't particularly mind, including Drax. Cap isn't so sure, but Thanos isn't concerned with his approval. The rest of the heroes conclude that if Thanos succeeds, he will take Drax out afterwards and have control over the energy sources - he'd be unstoppable. Thus they sign themselves up to join the assault, and it's not open to debate.
The Magus instructs Thanos' Doppelganger to leave and prepare an ambush for the heroes, having watched the entire lead-up to their assault from his command base. Nearby, the hidden Doctor Doom and Kang comment that the Magus has incredible power at his fingertips, but constantly overlooks them despite this, and fails to notice even obvious signs of their presence because they were never part of his grand plan. It seems they've stumbled into the middle of a complex maze of schemes and plots, but the craftsman got so absorbed in his work that the outside world no longer mattered to him, to the point of rendering him blind to unforeseen angles. He hasn't spotted Doom and Kang because he's not looking for them. A fatal flaw in his design, and one they are fully willing to exploit!
The Magus decides to monologue, as he is wont to do, and explains his manipulations to a captive Warlock. He used Thanos to get the ball rolling, and through him most of the secondary players were set in motion, and he needed Galactus for his might and cosmic prestige. Earth's heroes, meanwhile, were brought in to muddle the waters enough that nobody would figure out his true goals in time for it to matter. And Warlock's task was to bring the completed Infinity Gauntlet to him, so he might right a grievous wrong done to him! Warlock wonders what wrong that is, and Warlock declares that vengeance is only moments away - Galactus is seeing to that! He looks in on the extra-dimensional court case between the cosmic giants (and Gamora) with a smile.
We enter at the tail end of that hearing. The Tribunal explains that his previous ruling prevents the Infinity Gems from functioning together, and because that verdict was rendered in favor of Eternity, only Eternity himself can reverse it. However, that entity remains catatonic, so he can't actually contribute. With little warning, Galactus forms a bond with Gamora as his herald and sends her into Eternity's body to heal him. Today he will be the surgeon, he says, and she the scalpel - and their patient is all reality! Tie-in issue? Probably. Magus celebrates that even cosmic entities dance to his tune, as they are still unaware of his existence - a massive amount of energy from his cosmic containment units was used to insure that anonymity. He's also used that power to make sure the Ultimate Nullifier won't work, which Quasar will soon discover. Quasar won't be Warlock's salvation - he's already old news. Magus is about to encase the hero in a block of solid light, figuring that's a fitting punishment when… the inevitable finally happens.
In a complete contravention to any of his plans, Magus is shocked that Doctor Doom and Kang the Conqueror suddenly attack. Adam Warlock immediately recognizes the former from the Infinity Gauntlet affair, but the latter is only a vague story he's heard at some point. Still, he reasons they're clearly not heroes who have come to save the day, and decides it's better to deal with the devil you know. He comes to Magus' aid, protecting him from the two villains who are both going after the Gauntlet. He rips Doom's laser gun away from him, but the villain just switches to his hand blasters instead. Magus, meanwhile, uppercuts Kang and smashes his face into a computer, only to realize that one of Doom's blasts destroyed the computer which kept up the jamming field that kept the Ultimate Nullifier from working. And Quasar is still free!
Terrified at the prospect of being destroyed, Magus is sufficiently distracted that he gets shot in the back by Kang, but Magus just calls him a fool and smacks him for the affront while Doom gets kicked in the face in the background. Outside, Quasar hypes himself up for pulling the trigger, repeating 'do or die' to himself. He has to be careful, as the destructive force in the little doohickey is enough that he could flush the entire universe down the tubes. Inside, Magus punches Kang across the room with the inactive Gauntlet, then flees the battle to go find the Cosmic Containment Units so he can directly use their wish-granting powers. Doom, meanwhile, takes down Adam Warlock with his hand blasts and stands victoriously over him with smoking gauntlets. Score!
A concussed Kang orders Doom to go after the 'purple guy', but Doom figures there's another thing to take care of first. That, of course, would be sudden and inevitable betrayal! Doom declares Kang has barked his last order his way, and Doctor Doom owes him for his assistance in making him king of all reality. Unlike certain monarchs, however, he always pays his debts promptly! With that he unleashes his hand blast directly into Kang's face. I wonder if they're both having Secret Wars flashbacks at this point? I sure am!
The Magus, meanwhile, desperately tries to reach his collection of Cosmic Containment Units before Quasar can fire the Ultimate Nullifier and fry his ass - he can't worry about the side-effects of the radiation right now! He soon discovers that someone has already stolen his precious energy sources, breaking open the storage and tearing them out. Doom flies into the room and decides that such questions can be answered later - right now Magus, the would-be-conqueror of Doom, must pay for the error of his ways! He opens fire again and sends Magus crumpling to his knees. Outside the station, Quasar feels that the Nullifier is activating and building power, and tries to keep focus. He can't let any extraneous thought intrude, lest the sphere of nullification grow and take everything else with it! Elsewhere in some other reality, Galactus and Gamora awaken Eternity - Gamora isn't happy with whatever happened, but we get no details here. Eternity asks the Living Tribunal to allow the Infinity Gems to work together again, before collapsing into catatonia once more.
Still in the control room, Warlock wakes up from unconsciousness and wonders where Doom and the Magus went. He spots the remains of Kang nearby, then hears gunfire in the distance and quickly flies over, discovering Doom standing over the prone Magus. The moment Warlock enters Doom turns and blasts him too, and he flops down to the ground unconscious - again! Okay, that's fucking hilarious. Magus wakes up to find Doctor Doom standing over him, demanding him to hand over the Infinity Gauntlet.
A reluctant Magus removes it from his hand and offers it up, with Doom ready to accept it. At that moment, the Living Tribunal restores power to the Infinity Gauntlet, just before the Magus can release it into the Doctor's control. So close! In an instant Magus becomes omnipotent, and as he quickly adjusts to the surge of power, he seemingly turns the Ultimate Nullifier against Doom and Quasar, apparently erasing them from existence.
He then uses the power to make himself a fancy Cthulhu throne, and strings up Warlock on a cross nearby, because the Garden of Gethsemane moment on the asteroid wasn't blatant imagery enough. He spends some time getting used to all the aspects of the gems, seeing ghosts of the pasts, shredding physical limitations, playing with atoms, skipping through the continuum. He holds off on using the reality gem, feeling he's not up to the awesome variety of abilities involved with that particular can of worms. Warlock is shocked that Magus can apparently control the Gauntlet much more easily than he or Thanos ever did…
The Earth's heroes observe a build-up of energy in Magus's dimension, which can only mean that Galactus was successful in reactivating the Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos concludes they only have a short time before the villain grasps how to use the Gauntlet, and they can't afford to wait. He proposes to lead the attacking force, but Cap isn't so sure. He points out that the heroes nearly took Thanos down before while he was using the Gauntlet. Thanos reminds him that he was not used to the power, and also he had deliberately dialed down his ability to only using a single gem at the time. Cap doesn't buy that (though it's true) and the other heroes stand with him. Thanos relents and opens a portal into Magus' fortress which the heroes rush through, but they arrive in the courtyard instead and are promptly ambushed by doppelgangers. Thanos teleports inside the fortress by himself, but is also confronted by a doppelganger - his own! The clone had a pretty good idea what the original would be doing right about now, so he just waited it out…
The two Thanoses actually have a semi-civil conversation, with both agreeing the other knows things they would find useful, and the copy admits that he feels no actual loyalty for the Magus, and plans to betray him at the first opportunity. He inherited the real Thanos' dreams of universal domination, after all! The real Thanos concludes they must act before Magus adjusts to his might, but the clone wonders how teamwork is supposed to work when they both know there's only one Infinity Gauntlet to share between them. With that, the two fly into a rage and attack each other. Meanwhile Magus uses the Infinity Gauntlet to torment Warlock some more, elaborately quoting Nietzsche like a self-important douche would, and he declares that the moment has come to eliminate his personal abyss, once and for all!
Infinity War #6 - The Animus Engagement
Doctor Doom has had his shining moment in the sun during the last issue, and won't be appearing in this series again - but I'll finish up the summary so you know how things shake down. The situation is dire - Magus is now omnipotent, Warlock was captured, and most of the Earth's superheroes are engaged in a pointless battle with a bunch of doppelgangers. Still, a few groups of heroes were out on individual quests, and not involved in any of the above. The psychics were trying to wake up everyone on Earth, the mystics were on Earth for unspecified reasons that nobody quite explained, Thor was with the Watcher on the Moon, and Galactus and Gamora were with Eternity. So that scattered group is still around to launch a last-ditch attack on Magus.
Or so you'd think.
The ongoing plot regarding the Earth merging with its duplicate? Yeah, that's resolved in an instant when Magus gets impatient and uses his new all-powerful might to merge the worlds in an instant, dissolving whatever plan the mystical heroes were planning from a nearby asteroid and rendering the inhabitants of the planet essentially unrecognizable. Thor wonders if there's anything they can do, but the Watcher says there isn't - not in this dimension. Thor gets whisked back to the other dimension at last, and the Watcher prays he can yet alter this dark fate. All the uncommitted heroes regroup at Galactus's ship, just as Galactus and Gamora return and learn that their mission was a bit of a colossal misfire. Galactus offers to join the rest for a suicidal final assault, but Magus intervenes and dumps the whole group in the middle of the fight with the doppelgangers with the rest of the heroes, until he gets bored even of that.
Deciding he's had his fun, Magus figures it's time to tidy up the board. He snaps his fingers and makes all the doppelgangers disappear. He snaps again, and freezes all the heroes in a stasis field, creating for himself God's trophy room, with Galactus and all of Earth's mightiest arrayed like superhero toys on a child's shelves. The Magus declares himself unique, and Warlock opines he's just a boastful shadow. Magus decides that's about to change and moves to touch Warlock with the Gauntlet to erase him from existence, preventing him from ever existing in the first place, retconning him from history. Then he will know what it's like! Then who will be the shadow, huh? At that moment the door is battered down, and Thanos enters in a rage. 'He who has always been such!' he declares, his fists smoking. Magus recognizes him as the original - the clone has fallen before Thanos's might!
Thanos announces that Magus' fate is already sealed, but the omnipotent villain wonders whether Thanos has kept up with current events. He's omnipotent. Thanos taunts him with the statement that appearances can be deceiving, and it's all over for him now. Magus laughs it off, wondering if he should surrender supreme power and throw himself upon his tender mercies on Thanos' word alone. Thanos acknowledges that's the wisest course open to him. Magus calls him an impudent dolt, then wields the Infinity Gauntlet and declares himself God, demanding and then forcing Thanos to bow to him.
The Titan declares that reality is not what he perceives, and his eyes suddenly burn red with fiery rage. Magus repeats the word 'reality' to himself as Thanos attacks, declaring reality is a thread that's escaped Magus's grasp, and so the weave of his tapestry unravels! Magus slaps him aside and accuses him of lying, but he seems rattled.
Because of the distraction, Warlock is able to free himself and take hold of the Infinity Gauntlet on Magus's hand. He and the Magus then engage in a battle of wills to control it. Blasts of energy ripple out from them, and soon consume the entire fortress in a huge expanding explosion. Thanos reappears with the heroes and when they ask him what happened, he explains that what's happening now is a clash between would-be-gods, leading to either salvation or Armageddon! 'Good Lord!' says Cap. Galactus refers to it as 'a disruption of the reality flow,' declaring that they've lost control of that aspect of everything without the… Well, you can fill in the blank. He teleports the heroes back onto his ship, and they try to outrun the effects. Those effects, by the way, turn them all into Salvador Dali paintings, melty and misshapen.
Warlock and the Magus continue to struggle against each other, with Magus trying to take advantage of the concern Warlock has for the reality they are tearing apart in their fight. Warlock suddenly erupts with energy, fire pouring from his eyes as cosmic forces toy with him. Magus can barely keep up even with his godly senses. Reality, voices from within Warlock's chest state, is playing tricks on the Magus - shifting and altering faster than he can perceive. He should learn the folly of his ambitions, and behold the truth! With that, Eternity and Infinity suddenly emerge from within Warlock's body, united in a single body that's split exactly vertically down the middle. In his ignorance, Magus thought he had imprisoned a single cosmic entity and bound it to his will, but did he really think that the aspect of all there is would be divided into manageable sections for his convenience, to be rendered catatonic when needed? Did he not realize Eternity and Infinity are two sides of the same coin? His plans were doomed from the start.
Elsewhere, the reality disruption wave catches up to Galactus' ship. 'A pity,' Thanos muses. They'll never even know who won in the big fight, Warlock or the Magus - but it doesn't really matter. Reed and Sue embrace, and there is a final explosion. Instead of dying, however, the heroes suddenly find themselves back in their respective headquarters on Earth. Cap decides this must mean Warlock won the battle, and put reality back the way it was supposed to be. Professor X is annoyed that he's once more unclear on what happened in a conflict he was forced to participate in - this is a bit of a trend. Galactus worries that the winner of the conflict retains the Infinity Gauntlet, and thus omnipotence - and while Warlock was willing to give it up once, he might not be so quick to do it the second time around!
On Monster Isle, Thanos and the Infinity Watch observe Warlock in a catatonic state, deciding that while Warlock used all his willpower to set things back as well as he could to their pre-War state, he couldn't wipe memories away as well as did the first time around, which will probably mean trouble down the line. I guess that means Doctor Doom gets to remember!
Thanos reveals the ultimate trick he and Warlock played on the Magus. They planned from the start to play on Magus' ambition, since Thanos figured from the glimpses of the clone Thanos he kept seeing that the Magus didn't have complete control like he thought. Still, since they were being watched, they had to be careful. Thus, they set a surreptitious trap...
Basically, Thanos used his replication system to make a fake, powerless copy of the Reality Gem, which is why it suddenly showed up when assembling the Gauntlet without a clear origin. They played the rest of their plans straight as if it was the genuine article. This prevented the Magus from having complete control of the Infinity Gauntlet and omnipotence in the end, and it was presumably the reason Magus never explored its power in the previous issue. He didn't understand why he wasn't getting any feedback. Devious! Eternity appears, and announces that he's reinstating the Living Tribunal's earlier ruling that blocks the Gems from working together. He then promptly leaves again, so that was short and sweet!
Meanwhile, Gamora figures without the lure of godhood people might be less interested in robbing the gems from the Watch, and Thanos says she shouldn't be so sure. Thanos observes that Warlock probably won't awaken from his evident braindeath, but warns Gamora that even if he did, they might want to be wary. He now carries inside him the darkness of Magus, without the benefit of his good side to cut through that darkness. If Warlock wakes, he might be a worse villain than Thanos was! Pip wonders if Warlock killed Magus, and Thanos wonders if he sees his friend as capable of such an act. Pip decided the circumstances could exist, and Thanos agrees that such might have been the case before the Infinity Gauntlet affair happened - these days, Warlock would never be so wasteful.
Leaving that ominous statement hanging, Thanos moves to leave, and Gamora observes that without Thanos, Magus probably would have succeeded at his scheme. She decides Thanos has changed from the cold and distant creature that raised her. He's different even from the creature that came to them the day before, seeking help! Thanos declares that death has rejected him - like it or not, he is now one of the living, and life is all about change! He then takes his fancy chair and vanishes off to who-knows-where. Probably space.
We soon see that the Magus isn't really back inside Warlock as such - he's actually trapped within the Soul Gem, embedded within Warlock's forehead. Magus discovers that he cannot be touched or noticed by the other inhabitants of this 'soul world', because he does not have a complete soul; he is just a portion of Warlock's. Thanos meanwhile returns to his space farm and stares at his farm clothes hanging on his scarecrow, but keeps his armor on for the moment. He wonders what he is now - hero, villain, or just wiser? He thinks that the Magus would probably have held a solid grip on omnipotence if he'd ever fully grasped it, and wouldn't have let it go subconsciously like he did - or as he would have done in days past. Now? Who knows, even old dogs can learn new tricks.
Thanos suspects he might be able to retain ultimate power now, but wonders if he still wants it. He decides future events will answer that rhetorical question, and for the moment more pressing questions remain. The most important being: who stole the Cosmic Containment Units? In the rush of victory, he doubts many gave the issue any thought. He can think of only one viable suspect, speculating that since Warlock expelled all good and evil from himself, and Magus was the evil side, then they would surely also encounter the good side someday. The final panel of the series reveals the truth of his words - a woman floats in space, shining with white light, and no less than eight cosmic containment units are circling around her. She looks almost like a Goddess.
To find out what happens next, you'll have to pick up Infinity Crusade...
Rating & Comments
Infinity War comes to a pretty decent conclusion, though it remains a very narrow story with a metric ton of irrelevant side-characters - the vast majority of the superheroes are basically two minute cameos, while the cosmic entities have their little spat among themselves with the entire universe feeling the impact. Well, strictly speaking there's one other character who has some impact here. One character in this entire shitshow from outside the cosmic interplay actually has enough impact to nearly tip the entire storyline in a different direction. And that character is, of course, the inestimable Doctor Doom. Woo-hoo!
Before we get to Doom's grand moment of this event, I should go back and cover the Magus and his plot. The first three issues of Infinity War indicate repeatedly that everything that's going on here is in line with his plans, and we get confirmation that Magus is so well-prepared that he has set up an elaborate interlocking pattern of consequences which ultimate leads to one core outcome - Adam Warlock will reassembles the Infinity Gauntlet, after which Magus steals it. He simultaneously ensures that Galactus is away on his bid to reactivate that same Gauntlet when the kidnapping goes down, so he can actually use it when it gets restored. It's ingenious, and Magus even calls out the superheroes on Earth as essentially being a big distraction to keep people from figuring out his intentions - and for the most part the heroes spent their time in this story fighting each other and random doppelgangers rather than making any real progress towards solving the greater problem. Even Quasar is just a prop, despite having a superweapon with him.
The major movers and shakers on the heroic side actually end up being Thanos and Galactus, both of whom are traditional bad guys. Eessentially everyone else from Captain America to the Fantastic Four to fucking Sleepwalker are afterthoughts. The various mystics and psychics that at least got some mention in previous issues are essentially shoved to the side for a while, working on projects that become irrelevant by the final issue, presumably filler-bait for the tie-in issues. There is also Adam Warlock, of course, who plays a major role - but he doesn't really get to coordinate with everyone else much, and the plan he ultimately pulls out of his ass is one he organized with Thanos alone - once again leaving the fate of the universe in the hands of the cosmic crew. Even the heroes are pissed off they're getting tossed around by cosmic gods towards the end, and rightfully so! It's Secret Wars all over again!
Warlock's plot is fairly interesting in what it implies - since his trick relies on hiding the reality stone and then using its absence as a weakness in Magus's defenses, he must have been planning to have his evil counterpart gain ultimate power. It means Magus was outdone at his own game - he planned for basically every possible contingency, but didn't recognize his blindspots, like what happens after he wins. Warlock managed to slip into those holes in his plan and basically out-planned him in return, foreseeing everything his dark counterpart would do ahead of time. It's pretty impressive, and it makes sense that Warlock's capabilities would be similar to that of his alternate future counterpart (or a part of his psyche, depending on the canon you pick.) That said, I don't think Warlock predicted exactly what would happen - I doubt he planned on the events of issue 5, for one. I presume hte original plan was simply to wait until Galactus returned from his sojourn and then take down a freshly empowered Magus before he got used to his new cosmic power. He probably didn't expect the interrupt, much like Magus himself didn't.
That interrupt, of course, was built up for several issues - and it stars our favorite tinpot dictator and pal. Doom and Kang finally launch their offensive against the Magus in an attempt to gain his power for themselves, and it goes a lot better than you might expect for a fight against cosmic beings, especially since Warlock joins in on the Magus's side. Not only does Doom take out Adam Warlock using nothing but his normal armaments, but he also overpowers and kills Kang just a few moments later. Not quite done yet with being a badass, Doom then hunts down Magus and guns him down, before giving Warlock a second bitch-slap just minutes after the last and knocking him unconscious once more. Seriously, Doom is ridiculously effective here, he kicks all the available asses.
Doom's finest hour ultimately comes down to the last seconds - if not for that very unfortunately timed legal case, he would have gotten ultimate power right then and there, and achieved what he couldn't manage in Infinity Gauntlet. So close. After the complete humiliation he delivered to Magus, of course, it's no real surprise he's murdered in the aftermath - but since Warlock evidently reset everyone to life, it doesn't stick. This does mean that Doom's exit out of the crossover is sudden, and he goes entirely unmentioned afterwards until a reference in the epilogue - which makes sense, since the Earth heroes didn't even know he was around. For all that Doom very nearly turned the entire series in a new, awesome direction, though, Doom's actual impact on the plot is unfortunately limited - subsequent events happen pretty much as they would have anyway, since Magus captures Warlock again and returns things to the pre-Doom status quo within a few panels using his newfound omnipotence.
The sixth issue resolution is regrettably a huge cop-out, in that it really doesn't resolve any of the subplots and just deus ex machina's the central conflict. Nice art, though. The entire issue of the duplicates back on Earth is rendered pointless when Magus disposes of them, while the merging Earths are dropped as quickly as the concept arrived, stopping the battle there was pointless since everyone was frozen in place a few seconds later anyway. Both the psychics and the mystical characters just spin their wheels until they lose by fiat when Magus gets the Gauntlet - a lot of pointless dead ends. Adam Warlock's ultimate success against the Magus is also rather questionable - while he set up the entire fake reality stone stuff, that doesn't seem to be what finishes the fight - they literally end up wrestling over the Gauntlet and send all of reality into a tailspin in that fight of near-omnipotent beings.
The finale then features the sudden appearance of Eternity and Infinity, the former of which had spent the entire series catatonic, while the latter wasn't there at all. These cosmic gods show up at the last minute to proclaim that the battle was lost from the start, since Eternity was never truly gone - so, what, was he just letting things progress without reason? If he wasn't actually catatonic, why wouldn't the Living Tribunal know that, nor Galactus? Why would there be a huge reality-altering wave of energy from the battle if the reality gem is specifically not in the Gauntlet? Was it all some sort of illusion? I suppose we have to assume Warlock used the reality gem to reset everything in the end, but did he do that before he became a cosmic entity hand-puppet and ended up in a coma for his trouble? Who exactly decided to imprison Magus inside the soul gem? Lots of vague, unanswered questions here.
The retcon at the end was, of course, inevitable. Still, I'm glad that it's not a complete reset where everyone forgets what happened - that's just dumb. I am a little confused on exactly how much was reset, though - since I know one or two of the alien duplicates stay after this whole thing is over, does that mean those things all still happened, but nothing else did? We see that Four Freedoms Plaza is still blown up, so that at least happened. Did Spider-Man and Hawkeye still end up in a hospital? If Doom was reverted back home to his castle, did the events in Latveria still happen, or was that reset too? I doubt we'll get much actual follow-up in the comics that follow, but we can hold out hope. It's kind of interesting, actually, that Warlock would even bother resurrecting dead villains (which presumaby includes Kang.) Maybe Eternity was involved, since he probably doesn't discriminate.
I'll give this event four stars - it starts out pretty strong, and it's got an awesome fifth issue as far as my personal tastes go, naturally, but the plot kind of goes off the rails into convoluted cosmic entity-ville towards the end. Even though there's good set-up for a finale trick, the comic doesn't actually seem to take advantage of it - it gets a bit lost in itself and banks on the pretty art. Which, admittedly, is pretty cool.
Oh, and you might be wondering what exactly went on in Latveria, which I mentioned briefly - well, that's what we'll follow up next time, in the pages of Silver Sable and the Wild Pack!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
Gotta love the crazy reality-distorting art here...
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Our foe apparently thought no one would ever be able to breach his position's dimensional defenses. A conceit that will cost him near omnipotence."
Kang: "If such power be denied to Kang, let no man possess it!"
Doom: "Except Doom."
Kang: "...Doom… Get after the purple one…"
Doom: "I will. But first… I believe you've just barked your last order my way, Kang. Doctor Doom owes you for your assistance making him King of All Reality!Unlike certain monarchs, Doom always pays his debts promptly."
"The Infinity Gauntlet. Hand it over!Now! Slowly. Very slowly."
Doom-Tech of the Week
Doom got a Backpack-Fed Raygun for part of his fight here, though since Kang also uses one, it might just be tech he got from his future era cousin/descendant. Regardless, it's there. All the rest is basically just done using Doom's normal armor, which is pretty impressive...
No, seriously. This, Secret Wars, the aftermath of Heroes Reborn, that thing where he became a god of a smashed together universe recently that I haven't gotten around to reading.
