when you go back millions of years in time, then take the long way back you get swole
Secret Wars 2.0 was boss.
Doom's Day Has Come! (Let's Read Marvel's Doctor Doom)
- Thread starter Roarian
- Start date
- Comics
when you go back millions of years in time, then take the long way back you get swole
Secret Wars 2.0 was boss.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This thread is the most wonderful, incredible thing I have seen in years. Doctor Doom is my favorite comic book character, and I REALLY hope this lets read keeps going, at least until the Doomwar storyline (if not all the way to the end, PLEASE)
149: Infinity War (Part 3) - Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #4-5
- Location
- Netherlands
Infinity War (Part 3) - Silver Sable and the Wild Pack (September - October 1992)
Covers
This two-part tie-in with Infinity War doesn't actually feature Doctor Doom in anything but a brief cameo, but I think it's very obvious why I'm covering it. While Doom and Kang rocket off into space on their adventure in the main event, Latveria is left without a ruler - and this is where we see how that goes. The covers depict Doom's doppelganger - who seems to be distinguished by pointy eyebrow ridges on his mask - and the titular Silver Sable, who fights off a small army of Doombots. It'll be interesting to see where this goes…
One note: like so many covers featuring female characters, these suffer from weird body proportions. Especially that second cover - exactly how does her lower body connect to her upper body without some weird taffy spine and bizarre hip morphology? It's like someone just drew both separately and figured obscuring the rest would make it sensible. Where are her hips, exactly?
Story Overview
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #4 - My Dinner with Doom?
Picking up from an early scene in Infinity War #2, this comic actually starts when Doom and Kang walk off to the latter's spaceship to go after the mysterious energy source in space, which they picked up on in the previous issue. On the way over there, however, Kang wonders about his planned evening engagement - that Doom presumably told him about for some reason - and Doom just tells him it's no longer of any significance. While the ship blasts off into the sky and into the main Infinity War series, we stay behind on Earth. We see a Doom-like being look after the departing vessel, and he decides that a change in plans is required. This version of Doom has bands on his armor like Colossus does, as well as big spikes on his arms and legs like a certain future incarnation of Doom, plus a much spikier mask with occasional red glowing eyes and a huge skull-shaped codpiece with some sort of apron hanging down from it - I'm not sure what the design on is supposed to signify, but it reminds me of some of the Latverian flags in different colors. Or it could be Klingon, I don't really know.
The demonic-looking Doom is instantly accused of being an impostor by a classic-looking Doom, and said impostor is rather confused since he just saw Doctor Doom leave. Figuring he might as well do what he came here for, though, the impostor attacks and blasts the hell out of his 'prototype' with some yellow-tinted hand blasts to counter Doom's own pink ones. (What? He likes pink, have you ever seen his taste in vehicles?) After handily defeating the original, the impostor Doom reveals himself to be one of the alien tentacle-creatures from the main Infinity War series, a doppelganger. He's unsuccessful in merging with Doom, because he discovers he's only defeated a Doombot - the real Doom was on that spaceship that left! Damn it! In absence of having anything to do, the Doompleganger figures he might as well take over Latveria in Doom's absence and start a reign of chaos of his own devising…
Evening descends on Latveria when a silver carriage drawn by white horses arrives at Castle Doom, bringing with it his evening engagement - a yearly dinner with Silver Sable, considered by most to be a mere diplomatic negotiation. In reality, Silver Sable actually considers Doom something of a friend, and she wonders if Victor might have some light to shed on some issues she's been having with the terrorist organization HYDRA which he also despises. The Doompleganger watches her approach, and knowing she doesn't know of the real Doom's absence, he senses he can cause some havoc tonight. Sable is let inside, and she comments on Doom's changed appearance, telling him that the spikes and skull are most undignified. The doppelganger takes this in stride, and the doors slam closed behind them as they enter the castle.
A host of servo-guards, with their classic appearance now fully restored, approach the driver of the stagecoach in which Silver Sable arrived and demand he surrender himself as a prisoner of war. When he protests, he's promptly vaporized for his trouble while the horses flee wildly into the surrounding area, sending the carriage careening into a ditch. Inside the castle, after a scrumptious fourteen-course meal, Silver Sable says it's a shame that the world can't see Victor with the eyes of Latveria's people - they see him as a hero! Doom wonders what he is to her, and she answers that she views him as a respected friend and ally. She compliments the excellent meal and asks him to convey that to the rest of his staff, before asking for permission to attend to some other matters. Doom takes a sip of the drink he was just handed and doesn't care for the taste, so he tosses it aside and then murders the server on the spot, much to Sable's horror.
Silver Sable turns on the Doompleganger, declaring that Victor has never acted with such inhumanity in her presence before. Perhaps she's simply been blinded by their history - but with her eyes open now, she can finally see he is truly monstrous! The doppelganger hits her across the face for the affront, declaring she is only a guest in his domain, and he will not be reprimanded! The peace between Latveria and her country of Symkaria is a courtesy that goes back decades - but it's one he'll be revoking!
Sable demands to know the meaning of this, and the doppelganger screeches that no one demands from Doom, as he commands all! Silver decides there's more than just a change of armor to this Doom - this is not the man she's known all these years! She decides it must be one of his robots that's blown a circuit - but then where's the real Victor von Doom? In answer, we switch over for a quick update on said Doom, who is in a dimensional corridor with Kang, still following Galactus' ship. To be precise, they are just discussing how to get past Galactus without getting noticed...
Back in Symkaria, the cloudy night sky is not the only ominous thing which lingers. Silver's uncle Morty and the members of Wild Pack are gathered there - those would be Doug Powell, Sandman, Crippler, Raul Quentino, Amy Chen, and Battlestar. They're watching news reports about the recent Gamma bomb attack on Four Freedoms Plaza, as well as various American heroes fighting their doppelgangers and getting injured by them, like Spider-Man and Hawkeye. They try to contact Silver's driver to update him, but only get static. Uncle Morty demands they go get Silver Sable, before hitting Sandman in the… sand… which convinces him to get going.
In Latveria, in the sub-levels of Castle Doom, a bunch of robotic Doom-Knights (previously seen in Fantastic Four vs. X-Men #3 & 4) guide a hostage Silver Sable along towards a cell. She muses that the real Doom would never trust a bunch of robot guards to keep her captive, and she quickly steals one of the robots' gunlances with an athletic jump, then starts blasting them apart with their own firearm. Sable decides that even Doom's Doombots generally show better judgment, which leads her to believe this fraudulent Doom isn't just a defective drone - but what does that make him, really? Stabbing several more Doom-Knights to smithereens, she unfortunately misses one before it can fly away, and she worries that it will go and warn the impostor of her escape. She concludes she'll have to do some fast detective work before any more guards can arrive - nobody threatens her country and survives!
Elsewhere, the Doom-double is doing a dramatic Doom-pose on the battlements while planning his future conquests, declaring that he'll begin his war with Symkaria, then follow that up with attacking nearby Transia. The true Doctor Doom will return to find a ruined land where he will be slain, and then the Doompleganger rules supreme! The flying Doom-Knight arrives to warn him of Sable's escape, and he angrily blasts it out of the sky for incompetence, before deciding Silver Sable is clearly too dangerous to use as a hostage - he will see to her death before the night is through!
Sable, meanwhile, has picked up a sword somewhere to join her gunlance, and has also ripped off most of her clothes because they were getting in the way. Okay. Mostly it's just her fancy dress that gets ripped up. Honestly, I thought her being a badass despite the hindrance of a dress was more impressive...
Now that she's no longer hindered by her attire, Sable dashes out of the way of some servo-guard patrols and heads for the communication room, where she quickly runs into a Doombot who asks if she truly thought she could escape. Sable leapfrogs over it, smashing it in the back of its head with the lance and breaking something inside. It goes all 'Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto' on her.
A second Doombot arrives to back it up, and disarms her with some hand blasts, before declaring nothing escapes Doom! Sable complains these Doombots have got a terribly limited vocabulary. Since there are probably hundreds more replicas around, she decides she needs to avoid fighting more of them going forward.
When the semi-broken Doombot from before approaches to attack the now unarmed Sable, she kicks its head off and when it starts wildly blasting in every direction she redirects its attacks into its brother Doombot, in order to destroy that one as well. While the severed Doombot head screeches about nothing escaping Doom, Sable takes its body on in hand-to-hand combat, but it's stronger and heavier than she's prepared for. She lunges for the discarded gunlance on the floor, even as the body keeps trying to blast her to death while crushing her with its weight. She finally shoves the lance in between them and blows him away, getting rid of the last attacker. She uses the gunlance to finish off the babbling head too, then picks up the Doombot's cloak…
Back in Symkaria, the Wild Pack are about to embark on their rescue mission, arriving at their plane in full attire. Everyone's there except Sandman, but they decide to wait for him, figuring they'll need his power if they run into Doctor Doom.
As he heads out, Sandman muses that technically Sable never told them not to go to Latveria, so they aren't disobeying her, but she's not generally cool with them doing stuff she didn't come up with. Plus, the last time they tried to save her life, she totally docked their salary! Suddenly he is attacked by an impostor of himself, a mohawk-wearing doppelganger Sandman who starts pummeling him with mace-hands, and who can apparently heat himself up. Moments later Sandman walks out of that fight looking none the worse for wear and tells the others he just had to deal with a minor spot of trouble before joining the mission, and they should really get to the boss lady for a major bonus check!
At that moment, the Doompleganger and his small legion of servo-guards arrive at Doom's communications room to find a Doombot already at the controls. The doppelganger demands to know what said drone is doing there, since it has orders to patrol the castle for the escaped prisoner, and he demands an explanation. When the Doombot doesn't answer, the doppelganger repeats himself, louder, declaring it will be destroyed if it doesn't respond. The next panel reveals that what appears to be a Doombot is actually Silver Sable in partial Doctor Doom regalia - she's missing the mask, and the subsequent issue confirms she also skipped the pants. Any excuse to keep drawing those panty shots, I guess...?
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #5 - Double Jeopardy!
Unlike lots of comics I read, this one doesn't bother with flashbacks or recaps - it just goes straight into the next scene as if this is the same issue as the last. Refreshing! Sable blasts a hole in the floor with her gunlance and escapes from the room. The Doppelganger recognizes her as 'the woman' and tells the servo-guards to pursue, while Sable complains out loud that she prefers to be addressed with respect - a trait of Doom that his duplicate appears to be lacking! The Doompleganger declares he will not tolerate such impudence and starts blasting.
As she runs off in her partial Doom getup, Sable does give a brief recap of the main Infinity War event, or at least the part where Doom and Kang went after a mysterious energy source and a bunch of American superheroes were attacked by duplicates of themselves. She connects the latter event with the Doompleganger, and figures there must be some connection she can figure out later. First, however, she has to secure a safer situation for herself. Turning a corner, she runs into a contingent of Doombots, but is relieved to find that they're all still deactivated.
Elsewhere, the Wild Pack and Sandman are on a plane heading to Latveria. One of them asks why Sable even went to Doctor Doom's place at all, and another one of them explains that Sable and Doom have been friends for years, ever since Latveria helped Symkaria regain its independence during World War II. I don't think Doom was in charge at the time, and I'm not sure the oppressive Baron who previously ruled the country would have an interest in helping his neighbors, but I guess there must be a story there. Time travel? Anyway, the group keeps quipping back and forth until Sandman spontaneously lashes out at the pilot, who complains that it's no time for bad jokes - what is he trying to do, make them crash? Sandman's really not been himself since they departed. He really hasn't, has he? Sandman was taken over by his doppelganger and goes on the attack, causing the plane to fly out of control. The team actually assumes Sandman has randomly reverted this villainous ways and they start beating him up, but his powers make that less than effective - they're literally pounding sand.
Meanwhile, Kang and the real Doctor Doom arrive in another dimension to find Magus's main base, leaving their ship to continue tracking a power source. The dialogue is actually a carbon copy of the scene in Infinity War #4, though the art is a little different here, even if the same dorky backpacks are included. Not sure if these asides were really necessary, but I guess they grant us an idea of the timescales involved.
In the bowels of Castle Doom, the Doompleganger and a bunch of Doombots arrive to discover another squadron of Doombots in the basement who ignore his orders to head for the North Wing. They collectively open fire with their hand blasters, and the doppelganger declares that such insubordination will not be tolerated before returning fire, realizing the 'Sable woman' must be responsible somehow. Wow, from just 'the woman' to half a name - she's going up in the world! The doppelganger calls up another squad of Doombots to take care of the mutinous ones, never suspecting that one of his drones is actually Silver Sable in disguise, having completed her Doctor Doom look with parts from the legion she found along the way, including a mask (and some pants!) She uses this full regalia to blend in so she can figure out who the imposter really is. She's using a wrist-mounted device to remote control the other Doombots, which is how she made them mutiny in the first place - not sure if that's a Doomtech thing, or just her own.
The Doompleganger sends four Doombots out to hunt down mutinous ones before resuming their search for Sable, while he keeps two with him for a personal search. He mutters to himself that it's humiliating that he has thus far been outwitted by Silver Sable - full name now - and declares that she will suffer greatly for this indignity! Sable smiles to herself inside her armor and decides it will be her pleasure to continue causing him many more indignities!
The Wild Pack is somehow still fighting Sandman on board the crashing airplane, because space is warped and time is bendable. They're heading straight for a mountainside, but the pilot narrowly manages to avoid the thing, and they careen back into the sky at an acute angle. One of the Pack tries to use a flamethrower against Sandman, but one of the others realizes that's a bad idea in close quarters and takes it away from him.
Battlestar comes flying in like knockoff Captain America - and considering the shield he's carrying, I think that's not far off - to save the day by rescuing Powell and finally taking out Sandman. They briefly think he's dead, but Amy Chen points out that Sandman normally turns into sand when unconscious, so he's probably fine, She isn't sure this is really him, though, since the real Sandman could have turned hard as a rock and crushed some skulls, but this guy never did.
Powell wanders off in a huff, apparently angry at Battlestar for the earlier save. Considering Powell once bragged about being the bodyguard of a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Battlestar is black, you can guess what his reasons are. Battlestar isn't entirely sure why Silver Sable would put a racist bigot on her A-team, and is told that Powell has been given a chance to redeem himself from past indiscretions like the rest of them - he'll come around, or he'll be let go. Suddenly the group discussion is interrupted when they come under fire from Castle Doom below, as servo-guards operate the anti-air defenses and Doombots shoot them with hand blasts. Already pretty beat up and damaged from the earlier fight with Sandman, the plane comes crashing down into the fortress below…
Back in said castle, the Doompleganger orders his Doombot companions to patrol the area while he tries to use the motion sensors to find Silver Sable, unaware that one of those very Doombots is her. The doppelganger suddenly notices there are more things than his robots wandering around the castle, and when he hears gauntlet blasts in the distance, he decides some of his minions must have found Sable over there. He rushes towards the noise and discovers one Doombot disabled on the floor with another standing over it and declaring that the woman surprised them, and that she went over there! The Doombot points to the side, but an angry Doppelganger is incensed that the Doombot allowed her to escape at all - so he will pay for his incompetence!
Silver Sable doesn't see it like that, taking the opportunity to sneak up behind the doppelganger, shooting him in the back with both of her armor's gauntlets dialed to full blast, which launches him into the sky.
It doesn't take him out, so Silver Sable keeps blasting, tearing a hole in the castle's wall in the process. She demands to know the true identity of the Doompleganger, but he just replies that Doom is the only one who demands anything, dislodging her Doom-mask. Sable makes a quick getaway through the nearby breach in the walls that she created with her blasts while the doppelganger sneers that she should have taken him out when she had the chance. Slipping out of the confines of the castle, Sable figures this is not the ideal escape plan - but she's running out of options. Below her, a Doombot proclaims that nobody escapes from Doom - it's becoming a familiar refrain.
The Wild Pack make their way through the Castle after surviving their plane crash, though some are rather trigger-happy and look forward to some target-shooting against Doom's robots. Sure enough a host of servo-guards and Doombots arrive to bother them, announcing that they're surrounded, and they should surrender without incident. A berserk Battlestar declares that surrender is for cowards and throws himself into battle, tackling half the robot menace at the same time. Soon enough the rest of the team also rushes in, and it turns out the Wild Pack is pretty much just a 90's action comic cliché brought to life, complete with ludicrously oversized guns, multi-coloured costumes filled with pouches, random pointless ammo belts, shoulder pads, armored bracers and shinguards, and a lot of squinting. Amy Chen pulls out a crossbow and reveals it's armed with diamond-tipped lightning-arrows that electrocute things to death. Neat!
Meanwhile, in another dimension, Kang and Doom find the five cosmic cubes, which I kind of thought happened shortly after they first ran into that ceiling vault, but I guess this comic suggests it took them a long-ass time to get through those defenses that Kang claimed he could get through in moments. It all seemed a lot faster in the Infinity War comics. Or maybe time is variable between dimensions? Everyone raise your hands, show me you're not carrying a Time Gem in your back pocket!
Back with Silver Sable, we find her still dangling from the same ledge as before, but this time the Doom below her is no longer a random Doombot chanting the same phrase as before, but the Doompleganger himself. Did they just make a mistake in that previous panel, or retcon themselves halfway through this story? Or did Sable randomly climb to a near-identical ledge above her in between pages? It's a bit strange, since it makes no sense for the Doompleganger to be so far below her after Sable literally just went through a hole in the wall and then moved downwards from there. Shouldn't he be above her? Anyway, Sable starts blasting down with her gauntlet, figuring a fall from this height would kill either of them (presuming they weren't both wielding armors that can fly, I guess.)
She grabs onto a nearby gargoyle to steady herself, and in a confusing series of panels she's apparently blasted sideways away from there before landing in a safe place. She then spots her Wild Pack fighting some robots nearby. She's rather surprised, but at this point not a lot can faze her, so she decides to use her remote control to disable the Doombots fighting her allies.
The Doompleganger interrupts her before she can manage this, however, by crushing the remote and telling her not to discount him before he's buried in the ground! Powell notices Doom fighting Silver Sable through the sight of his gun, but refrains from shooting lest he hits his own boss, though he's a bit too ambivalent about that for comfort. Sable wishes to capture the doppelganger alive, but since he's not willing to extend the same courtesy, she's left little choice but to use the full power of her armor, pouring a pair of hand blasts into her foe until he's down in a rather funny panel.
After she's done, Powell moves in to finish the doppelganger off, but Sable shoots his gun out of his hand before he can do it, telling him she wants to know who he is and what he's doing here, after the robot guards are dealt with. She then uses the remote control on the Doompleganger's armor to shut off the rest of the bots, giving the Wild Pack a much-needed breather.
Silver Pack pulls off the Doompleganger's mask - or tries to. She discovers it's actually a part of the guy's anatomy rather than an actual mask. She's horrified when he suddenly begins to turn back into a mass of freaky tentacles, and Powell says that whatever that is, he's definitely going to kill that. He just hopes his boss won't dock his pay. This time, she reassures him, she won't. Later, the team return to their plane and discover the real Sandman lying under the dead tentacle remains of his doppelganger possessor. Sable suspects this phenomenon is probably going on worldwide, and it's most definitely out of their league - they'll leave it for Earth's super-powered heroes to solve. Which they won't. Crippler idly wonders if Doom will be mad when he gets back and sees what they did to his house...
The final stinger depicts the moment Galactus used a cerebral scan halfway through Infinity War #4, telling the reader to get the main series for the details on what happened to the real Doctor Doom...
Rating & Comments
This story was surprisingly entertaining, though I'm glad it's a cat-and-mouse game between Silver Sable and a Doom doppelganger rather than the real thing, since I feel like it'd be a bit of a downgrade portrayal of the good Doctor. That is mostly because Sable isn't as daunting a combatant as most of the people Doom tends to face - she's more of an asskicking femme fatale along the lines of Black Widow than a superpowered bruiser or technological genius (though she has her moments.)
Silver Sable is the star of these issues, as befitting her status as protagonist - while a few other characters show up, we see most of these events from her eyes. It's interesting what they reveal - notably her fairly amiable relationship with Doctor Doom, calling him by name and having regular dinners with him representing their neighboring nations. Latveria and Symkaria appear to have a good accord, which is pretty neat - I wonder if the events which led to this relationship relate to Latveria staying out of the USSR even as the general area was taken over by Soviets? In any case, Sable has enough of a measure of Doom to recognize a fake, even though she initially assumes it's a broken Doombot. Interestingly, it's not until the doppelganger gets actively aggressive towards her that she pegs him as a complete fake - I perceive this as her recognizing that suddenly treating women poorly isn't really something even his haywire Doombots would stoop to.
Sable is shown throughout these two issues as a very competent fighter with a lot of control of the battlefield and quick reflexes - she manages to divert and defeat several Doombots in direct combat, even though they're individually stronger than her and well-armed. Her combat scenes are particularly good in the first of these two issues, when it's a more direct contest - when things get hectic and the scene changes to the outside of the castle in the subsequent issue, positioning gets confusing and a bit contradictory which makes it hard to figure out how everything interacts. It's too bad - it started so well!
The Doompleganger is honestly closer in character to the real deal than you'd think - Doom really would murder servants if they displeased him, after all. The only difference is that he'd do it behind closed doors, far too caught up in his personal legend to allow people to see him at his most vile. Given his relationship with Sable seems to be one of mutual respect, he wouldn't want to ruin that with overt monstrosity. What the Doom doppelganger is missing most, however, is Doom's sheer intelligence - he's easily tricked into running in circles around the castle chasing ghosts, and he doesn't ever catch on to what Sable is really up to. This allows her to get the drop on him several times, and ultimately gives her the opportunity to take him out. All in all he was a bit of a disappointment - an interesting 90's update to Doom's look, but not really engaging enough to carry a story beyond being a two-bit villain. Also he is way too over the top with the third person speech - even the real Doom doesn't do it all the time.
There are some secondary subplots going on - Sandman gets taken over by an imposter and crashes a plane. It doesn't really make the Wild Pack seem particularly competent, especially since it takes them so long to reach the actual main events of the comics - there's some serious time warping going on where time seems to stand still in between their scenes. There is also some interesting byplay about some terrible people being on the team who are trying to make up for post mistakes, including a hardcore racist, so I presume the Silver Sable series goes into that more than what's covered here. Regardless, the incredibly 90's Wild Pack only barely contribute in the end, and are a bit easy on murdering (as per the 90s.) Sable has to step in to prevent them from annihilating the opposition. Might want to look into that!
As a side note, Doombots are portrayed as pretty mindless in this two-parter - while they can convincingly fake being Doom in other issues, or at least say more than a few trite phrases, they're basically barely sentient automatons in this one. This could be a bit of a retcon of how intelligent these bots really are - they've been depicted as dumb in several recent appearances, after the 'real' Doom returned from whatever other dimension he'd visited. Perhaps it's just a matter of the real Doom being absent and all of them idling until he gets back? We'll see if the trend continues.
In the context of the Infinity War event, this was a pretty pointless adventure - nothing really gets developed which matters going forward except maybe that racism aside for a supporting cast member. Still, the connections drawn between Sable and Doom are interesting and might come up again in the future, and I enjoyed the combat. This is a simple story without much going on - there's not much to it, but nothing particularly negative to say, either. Three stars it is!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
How I could I not nominate the Doomclone who decides to pose like Doom just because he can? It's fitting that even the evil clone of Doom is an egomaniac with a sense of drama, isn't it? Also I presume that gargoyle is the one Silver Sable uses in the end to climb up, so that's a nice bit of continuity.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doompleganger Quotes
"Doom excepts no apologies!" (sic)
"No one demands from Doom! Doom commands all!"
"Doom detests incompetence!"
Doombots: "Nothing Escapes Doom!"
"Doom will not tolerate your impudence!"
Doompleganger's Bad Hair Day
Gotta give this one to chunky mohawk Sandman for being a fashion disaster that's possibly even worse than the original!
Doom-Tech of the Week
I presume that the Doombot Remote Control is a bit of Doomtech that Silver Sable appropriated, since the doppelganger has it too.
Doombot Count: 45
A bunch of relevant Doombots show up here - one faces off with the doppelganger at the start, two fight Silver Sable and get destroyed. The doppelganger Doom also orders around a quartet of Doombots a little while later, but only 3 of them are real, with Silver Sable wearing a costume to fit in. There's also the hurt Doombot they track down, which presumably got that way through Sable's remote control. In total that makes seven.
Covers
This two-part tie-in with Infinity War doesn't actually feature Doctor Doom in anything but a brief cameo, but I think it's very obvious why I'm covering it. While Doom and Kang rocket off into space on their adventure in the main event, Latveria is left without a ruler - and this is where we see how that goes. The covers depict Doom's doppelganger - who seems to be distinguished by pointy eyebrow ridges on his mask - and the titular Silver Sable, who fights off a small army of Doombots. It'll be interesting to see where this goes…
One note: like so many covers featuring female characters, these suffer from weird body proportions. Especially that second cover - exactly how does her lower body connect to her upper body without some weird taffy spine and bizarre hip morphology? It's like someone just drew both separately and figured obscuring the rest would make it sensible. Where are her hips, exactly?
Story Overview
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #4 - My Dinner with Doom?
Picking up from an early scene in Infinity War #2, this comic actually starts when Doom and Kang walk off to the latter's spaceship to go after the mysterious energy source in space, which they picked up on in the previous issue. On the way over there, however, Kang wonders about his planned evening engagement - that Doom presumably told him about for some reason - and Doom just tells him it's no longer of any significance. While the ship blasts off into the sky and into the main Infinity War series, we stay behind on Earth. We see a Doom-like being look after the departing vessel, and he decides that a change in plans is required. This version of Doom has bands on his armor like Colossus does, as well as big spikes on his arms and legs like a certain future incarnation of Doom, plus a much spikier mask with occasional red glowing eyes and a huge skull-shaped codpiece with some sort of apron hanging down from it - I'm not sure what the design on is supposed to signify, but it reminds me of some of the Latverian flags in different colors. Or it could be Klingon, I don't really know.
The demonic-looking Doom is instantly accused of being an impostor by a classic-looking Doom, and said impostor is rather confused since he just saw Doctor Doom leave. Figuring he might as well do what he came here for, though, the impostor attacks and blasts the hell out of his 'prototype' with some yellow-tinted hand blasts to counter Doom's own pink ones. (What? He likes pink, have you ever seen his taste in vehicles?) After handily defeating the original, the impostor Doom reveals himself to be one of the alien tentacle-creatures from the main Infinity War series, a doppelganger. He's unsuccessful in merging with Doom, because he discovers he's only defeated a Doombot - the real Doom was on that spaceship that left! Damn it! In absence of having anything to do, the Doompleganger figures he might as well take over Latveria in Doom's absence and start a reign of chaos of his own devising…
Evening descends on Latveria when a silver carriage drawn by white horses arrives at Castle Doom, bringing with it his evening engagement - a yearly dinner with Silver Sable, considered by most to be a mere diplomatic negotiation. In reality, Silver Sable actually considers Doom something of a friend, and she wonders if Victor might have some light to shed on some issues she's been having with the terrorist organization HYDRA which he also despises. The Doompleganger watches her approach, and knowing she doesn't know of the real Doom's absence, he senses he can cause some havoc tonight. Sable is let inside, and she comments on Doom's changed appearance, telling him that the spikes and skull are most undignified. The doppelganger takes this in stride, and the doors slam closed behind them as they enter the castle.
A host of servo-guards, with their classic appearance now fully restored, approach the driver of the stagecoach in which Silver Sable arrived and demand he surrender himself as a prisoner of war. When he protests, he's promptly vaporized for his trouble while the horses flee wildly into the surrounding area, sending the carriage careening into a ditch. Inside the castle, after a scrumptious fourteen-course meal, Silver Sable says it's a shame that the world can't see Victor with the eyes of Latveria's people - they see him as a hero! Doom wonders what he is to her, and she answers that she views him as a respected friend and ally. She compliments the excellent meal and asks him to convey that to the rest of his staff, before asking for permission to attend to some other matters. Doom takes a sip of the drink he was just handed and doesn't care for the taste, so he tosses it aside and then murders the server on the spot, much to Sable's horror.
Silver Sable turns on the Doompleganger, declaring that Victor has never acted with such inhumanity in her presence before. Perhaps she's simply been blinded by their history - but with her eyes open now, she can finally see he is truly monstrous! The doppelganger hits her across the face for the affront, declaring she is only a guest in his domain, and he will not be reprimanded! The peace between Latveria and her country of Symkaria is a courtesy that goes back decades - but it's one he'll be revoking!
Sable demands to know the meaning of this, and the doppelganger screeches that no one demands from Doom, as he commands all! Silver decides there's more than just a change of armor to this Doom - this is not the man she's known all these years! She decides it must be one of his robots that's blown a circuit - but then where's the real Victor von Doom? In answer, we switch over for a quick update on said Doom, who is in a dimensional corridor with Kang, still following Galactus' ship. To be precise, they are just discussing how to get past Galactus without getting noticed...
Back in Symkaria, the cloudy night sky is not the only ominous thing which lingers. Silver's uncle Morty and the members of Wild Pack are gathered there - those would be Doug Powell, Sandman, Crippler, Raul Quentino, Amy Chen, and Battlestar. They're watching news reports about the recent Gamma bomb attack on Four Freedoms Plaza, as well as various American heroes fighting their doppelgangers and getting injured by them, like Spider-Man and Hawkeye. They try to contact Silver's driver to update him, but only get static. Uncle Morty demands they go get Silver Sable, before hitting Sandman in the… sand… which convinces him to get going.
In Latveria, in the sub-levels of Castle Doom, a bunch of robotic Doom-Knights (previously seen in Fantastic Four vs. X-Men #3 & 4) guide a hostage Silver Sable along towards a cell. She muses that the real Doom would never trust a bunch of robot guards to keep her captive, and she quickly steals one of the robots' gunlances with an athletic jump, then starts blasting them apart with their own firearm. Sable decides that even Doom's Doombots generally show better judgment, which leads her to believe this fraudulent Doom isn't just a defective drone - but what does that make him, really? Stabbing several more Doom-Knights to smithereens, she unfortunately misses one before it can fly away, and she worries that it will go and warn the impostor of her escape. She concludes she'll have to do some fast detective work before any more guards can arrive - nobody threatens her country and survives!
Elsewhere, the Doom-double is doing a dramatic Doom-pose on the battlements while planning his future conquests, declaring that he'll begin his war with Symkaria, then follow that up with attacking nearby Transia. The true Doctor Doom will return to find a ruined land where he will be slain, and then the Doompleganger rules supreme! The flying Doom-Knight arrives to warn him of Sable's escape, and he angrily blasts it out of the sky for incompetence, before deciding Silver Sable is clearly too dangerous to use as a hostage - he will see to her death before the night is through!
Sable, meanwhile, has picked up a sword somewhere to join her gunlance, and has also ripped off most of her clothes because they were getting in the way. Okay. Mostly it's just her fancy dress that gets ripped up. Honestly, I thought her being a badass despite the hindrance of a dress was more impressive...
Now that she's no longer hindered by her attire, Sable dashes out of the way of some servo-guard patrols and heads for the communication room, where she quickly runs into a Doombot who asks if she truly thought she could escape. Sable leapfrogs over it, smashing it in the back of its head with the lance and breaking something inside. It goes all 'Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto' on her.
A second Doombot arrives to back it up, and disarms her with some hand blasts, before declaring nothing escapes Doom! Sable complains these Doombots have got a terribly limited vocabulary. Since there are probably hundreds more replicas around, she decides she needs to avoid fighting more of them going forward.
When the semi-broken Doombot from before approaches to attack the now unarmed Sable, she kicks its head off and when it starts wildly blasting in every direction she redirects its attacks into its brother Doombot, in order to destroy that one as well. While the severed Doombot head screeches about nothing escaping Doom, Sable takes its body on in hand-to-hand combat, but it's stronger and heavier than she's prepared for. She lunges for the discarded gunlance on the floor, even as the body keeps trying to blast her to death while crushing her with its weight. She finally shoves the lance in between them and blows him away, getting rid of the last attacker. She uses the gunlance to finish off the babbling head too, then picks up the Doombot's cloak…
Back in Symkaria, the Wild Pack are about to embark on their rescue mission, arriving at their plane in full attire. Everyone's there except Sandman, but they decide to wait for him, figuring they'll need his power if they run into Doctor Doom.
As he heads out, Sandman muses that technically Sable never told them not to go to Latveria, so they aren't disobeying her, but she's not generally cool with them doing stuff she didn't come up with. Plus, the last time they tried to save her life, she totally docked their salary! Suddenly he is attacked by an impostor of himself, a mohawk-wearing doppelganger Sandman who starts pummeling him with mace-hands, and who can apparently heat himself up. Moments later Sandman walks out of that fight looking none the worse for wear and tells the others he just had to deal with a minor spot of trouble before joining the mission, and they should really get to the boss lady for a major bonus check!
At that moment, the Doompleganger and his small legion of servo-guards arrive at Doom's communications room to find a Doombot already at the controls. The doppelganger demands to know what said drone is doing there, since it has orders to patrol the castle for the escaped prisoner, and he demands an explanation. When the Doombot doesn't answer, the doppelganger repeats himself, louder, declaring it will be destroyed if it doesn't respond. The next panel reveals that what appears to be a Doombot is actually Silver Sable in partial Doctor Doom regalia - she's missing the mask, and the subsequent issue confirms she also skipped the pants. Any excuse to keep drawing those panty shots, I guess...?
Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #5 - Double Jeopardy!
Unlike lots of comics I read, this one doesn't bother with flashbacks or recaps - it just goes straight into the next scene as if this is the same issue as the last. Refreshing! Sable blasts a hole in the floor with her gunlance and escapes from the room. The Doppelganger recognizes her as 'the woman' and tells the servo-guards to pursue, while Sable complains out loud that she prefers to be addressed with respect - a trait of Doom that his duplicate appears to be lacking! The Doompleganger declares he will not tolerate such impudence and starts blasting.
As she runs off in her partial Doom getup, Sable does give a brief recap of the main Infinity War event, or at least the part where Doom and Kang went after a mysterious energy source and a bunch of American superheroes were attacked by duplicates of themselves. She connects the latter event with the Doompleganger, and figures there must be some connection she can figure out later. First, however, she has to secure a safer situation for herself. Turning a corner, she runs into a contingent of Doombots, but is relieved to find that they're all still deactivated.
Elsewhere, the Wild Pack and Sandman are on a plane heading to Latveria. One of them asks why Sable even went to Doctor Doom's place at all, and another one of them explains that Sable and Doom have been friends for years, ever since Latveria helped Symkaria regain its independence during World War II. I don't think Doom was in charge at the time, and I'm not sure the oppressive Baron who previously ruled the country would have an interest in helping his neighbors, but I guess there must be a story there. Time travel? Anyway, the group keeps quipping back and forth until Sandman spontaneously lashes out at the pilot, who complains that it's no time for bad jokes - what is he trying to do, make them crash? Sandman's really not been himself since they departed. He really hasn't, has he? Sandman was taken over by his doppelganger and goes on the attack, causing the plane to fly out of control. The team actually assumes Sandman has randomly reverted this villainous ways and they start beating him up, but his powers make that less than effective - they're literally pounding sand.
Meanwhile, Kang and the real Doctor Doom arrive in another dimension to find Magus's main base, leaving their ship to continue tracking a power source. The dialogue is actually a carbon copy of the scene in Infinity War #4, though the art is a little different here, even if the same dorky backpacks are included. Not sure if these asides were really necessary, but I guess they grant us an idea of the timescales involved.
In the bowels of Castle Doom, the Doompleganger and a bunch of Doombots arrive to discover another squadron of Doombots in the basement who ignore his orders to head for the North Wing. They collectively open fire with their hand blasters, and the doppelganger declares that such insubordination will not be tolerated before returning fire, realizing the 'Sable woman' must be responsible somehow. Wow, from just 'the woman' to half a name - she's going up in the world! The doppelganger calls up another squad of Doombots to take care of the mutinous ones, never suspecting that one of his drones is actually Silver Sable in disguise, having completed her Doctor Doom look with parts from the legion she found along the way, including a mask (and some pants!) She uses this full regalia to blend in so she can figure out who the imposter really is. She's using a wrist-mounted device to remote control the other Doombots, which is how she made them mutiny in the first place - not sure if that's a Doomtech thing, or just her own.
The Doompleganger sends four Doombots out to hunt down mutinous ones before resuming their search for Sable, while he keeps two with him for a personal search. He mutters to himself that it's humiliating that he has thus far been outwitted by Silver Sable - full name now - and declares that she will suffer greatly for this indignity! Sable smiles to herself inside her armor and decides it will be her pleasure to continue causing him many more indignities!
The Wild Pack is somehow still fighting Sandman on board the crashing airplane, because space is warped and time is bendable. They're heading straight for a mountainside, but the pilot narrowly manages to avoid the thing, and they careen back into the sky at an acute angle. One of the Pack tries to use a flamethrower against Sandman, but one of the others realizes that's a bad idea in close quarters and takes it away from him.
Battlestar comes flying in like knockoff Captain America - and considering the shield he's carrying, I think that's not far off - to save the day by rescuing Powell and finally taking out Sandman. They briefly think he's dead, but Amy Chen points out that Sandman normally turns into sand when unconscious, so he's probably fine, She isn't sure this is really him, though, since the real Sandman could have turned hard as a rock and crushed some skulls, but this guy never did.
Powell wanders off in a huff, apparently angry at Battlestar for the earlier save. Considering Powell once bragged about being the bodyguard of a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Battlestar is black, you can guess what his reasons are. Battlestar isn't entirely sure why Silver Sable would put a racist bigot on her A-team, and is told that Powell has been given a chance to redeem himself from past indiscretions like the rest of them - he'll come around, or he'll be let go. Suddenly the group discussion is interrupted when they come under fire from Castle Doom below, as servo-guards operate the anti-air defenses and Doombots shoot them with hand blasts. Already pretty beat up and damaged from the earlier fight with Sandman, the plane comes crashing down into the fortress below…
Back in said castle, the Doompleganger orders his Doombot companions to patrol the area while he tries to use the motion sensors to find Silver Sable, unaware that one of those very Doombots is her. The doppelganger suddenly notices there are more things than his robots wandering around the castle, and when he hears gauntlet blasts in the distance, he decides some of his minions must have found Sable over there. He rushes towards the noise and discovers one Doombot disabled on the floor with another standing over it and declaring that the woman surprised them, and that she went over there! The Doombot points to the side, but an angry Doppelganger is incensed that the Doombot allowed her to escape at all - so he will pay for his incompetence!
Silver Sable doesn't see it like that, taking the opportunity to sneak up behind the doppelganger, shooting him in the back with both of her armor's gauntlets dialed to full blast, which launches him into the sky.
It doesn't take him out, so Silver Sable keeps blasting, tearing a hole in the castle's wall in the process. She demands to know the true identity of the Doompleganger, but he just replies that Doom is the only one who demands anything, dislodging her Doom-mask. Sable makes a quick getaway through the nearby breach in the walls that she created with her blasts while the doppelganger sneers that she should have taken him out when she had the chance. Slipping out of the confines of the castle, Sable figures this is not the ideal escape plan - but she's running out of options. Below her, a Doombot proclaims that nobody escapes from Doom - it's becoming a familiar refrain.
The Wild Pack make their way through the Castle after surviving their plane crash, though some are rather trigger-happy and look forward to some target-shooting against Doom's robots. Sure enough a host of servo-guards and Doombots arrive to bother them, announcing that they're surrounded, and they should surrender without incident. A berserk Battlestar declares that surrender is for cowards and throws himself into battle, tackling half the robot menace at the same time. Soon enough the rest of the team also rushes in, and it turns out the Wild Pack is pretty much just a 90's action comic cliché brought to life, complete with ludicrously oversized guns, multi-coloured costumes filled with pouches, random pointless ammo belts, shoulder pads, armored bracers and shinguards, and a lot of squinting. Amy Chen pulls out a crossbow and reveals it's armed with diamond-tipped lightning-arrows that electrocute things to death. Neat!
Meanwhile, in another dimension, Kang and Doom find the five cosmic cubes, which I kind of thought happened shortly after they first ran into that ceiling vault, but I guess this comic suggests it took them a long-ass time to get through those defenses that Kang claimed he could get through in moments. It all seemed a lot faster in the Infinity War comics. Or maybe time is variable between dimensions? Everyone raise your hands, show me you're not carrying a Time Gem in your back pocket!
Back with Silver Sable, we find her still dangling from the same ledge as before, but this time the Doom below her is no longer a random Doombot chanting the same phrase as before, but the Doompleganger himself. Did they just make a mistake in that previous panel, or retcon themselves halfway through this story? Or did Sable randomly climb to a near-identical ledge above her in between pages? It's a bit strange, since it makes no sense for the Doompleganger to be so far below her after Sable literally just went through a hole in the wall and then moved downwards from there. Shouldn't he be above her? Anyway, Sable starts blasting down with her gauntlet, figuring a fall from this height would kill either of them (presuming they weren't both wielding armors that can fly, I guess.)
She grabs onto a nearby gargoyle to steady herself, and in a confusing series of panels she's apparently blasted sideways away from there before landing in a safe place. She then spots her Wild Pack fighting some robots nearby. She's rather surprised, but at this point not a lot can faze her, so she decides to use her remote control to disable the Doombots fighting her allies.
The Doompleganger interrupts her before she can manage this, however, by crushing the remote and telling her not to discount him before he's buried in the ground! Powell notices Doom fighting Silver Sable through the sight of his gun, but refrains from shooting lest he hits his own boss, though he's a bit too ambivalent about that for comfort. Sable wishes to capture the doppelganger alive, but since he's not willing to extend the same courtesy, she's left little choice but to use the full power of her armor, pouring a pair of hand blasts into her foe until he's down in a rather funny panel.
After she's done, Powell moves in to finish the doppelganger off, but Sable shoots his gun out of his hand before he can do it, telling him she wants to know who he is and what he's doing here, after the robot guards are dealt with. She then uses the remote control on the Doompleganger's armor to shut off the rest of the bots, giving the Wild Pack a much-needed breather.
Silver Pack pulls off the Doompleganger's mask - or tries to. She discovers it's actually a part of the guy's anatomy rather than an actual mask. She's horrified when he suddenly begins to turn back into a mass of freaky tentacles, and Powell says that whatever that is, he's definitely going to kill that. He just hopes his boss won't dock his pay. This time, she reassures him, she won't. Later, the team return to their plane and discover the real Sandman lying under the dead tentacle remains of his doppelganger possessor. Sable suspects this phenomenon is probably going on worldwide, and it's most definitely out of their league - they'll leave it for Earth's super-powered heroes to solve. Which they won't. Crippler idly wonders if Doom will be mad when he gets back and sees what they did to his house...
The final stinger depicts the moment Galactus used a cerebral scan halfway through Infinity War #4, telling the reader to get the main series for the details on what happened to the real Doctor Doom...
Rating & Comments
This story was surprisingly entertaining, though I'm glad it's a cat-and-mouse game between Silver Sable and a Doom doppelganger rather than the real thing, since I feel like it'd be a bit of a downgrade portrayal of the good Doctor. That is mostly because Sable isn't as daunting a combatant as most of the people Doom tends to face - she's more of an asskicking femme fatale along the lines of Black Widow than a superpowered bruiser or technological genius (though she has her moments.)
Silver Sable is the star of these issues, as befitting her status as protagonist - while a few other characters show up, we see most of these events from her eyes. It's interesting what they reveal - notably her fairly amiable relationship with Doctor Doom, calling him by name and having regular dinners with him representing their neighboring nations. Latveria and Symkaria appear to have a good accord, which is pretty neat - I wonder if the events which led to this relationship relate to Latveria staying out of the USSR even as the general area was taken over by Soviets? In any case, Sable has enough of a measure of Doom to recognize a fake, even though she initially assumes it's a broken Doombot. Interestingly, it's not until the doppelganger gets actively aggressive towards her that she pegs him as a complete fake - I perceive this as her recognizing that suddenly treating women poorly isn't really something even his haywire Doombots would stoop to.
Sable is shown throughout these two issues as a very competent fighter with a lot of control of the battlefield and quick reflexes - she manages to divert and defeat several Doombots in direct combat, even though they're individually stronger than her and well-armed. Her combat scenes are particularly good in the first of these two issues, when it's a more direct contest - when things get hectic and the scene changes to the outside of the castle in the subsequent issue, positioning gets confusing and a bit contradictory which makes it hard to figure out how everything interacts. It's too bad - it started so well!
The Doompleganger is honestly closer in character to the real deal than you'd think - Doom really would murder servants if they displeased him, after all. The only difference is that he'd do it behind closed doors, far too caught up in his personal legend to allow people to see him at his most vile. Given his relationship with Sable seems to be one of mutual respect, he wouldn't want to ruin that with overt monstrosity. What the Doom doppelganger is missing most, however, is Doom's sheer intelligence - he's easily tricked into running in circles around the castle chasing ghosts, and he doesn't ever catch on to what Sable is really up to. This allows her to get the drop on him several times, and ultimately gives her the opportunity to take him out. All in all he was a bit of a disappointment - an interesting 90's update to Doom's look, but not really engaging enough to carry a story beyond being a two-bit villain. Also he is way too over the top with the third person speech - even the real Doom doesn't do it all the time.
There are some secondary subplots going on - Sandman gets taken over by an imposter and crashes a plane. It doesn't really make the Wild Pack seem particularly competent, especially since it takes them so long to reach the actual main events of the comics - there's some serious time warping going on where time seems to stand still in between their scenes. There is also some interesting byplay about some terrible people being on the team who are trying to make up for post mistakes, including a hardcore racist, so I presume the Silver Sable series goes into that more than what's covered here. Regardless, the incredibly 90's Wild Pack only barely contribute in the end, and are a bit easy on murdering (as per the 90s.) Sable has to step in to prevent them from annihilating the opposition. Might want to look into that!
As a side note, Doombots are portrayed as pretty mindless in this two-parter - while they can convincingly fake being Doom in other issues, or at least say more than a few trite phrases, they're basically barely sentient automatons in this one. This could be a bit of a retcon of how intelligent these bots really are - they've been depicted as dumb in several recent appearances, after the 'real' Doom returned from whatever other dimension he'd visited. Perhaps it's just a matter of the real Doom being absent and all of them idling until he gets back? We'll see if the trend continues.
In the context of the Infinity War event, this was a pretty pointless adventure - nothing really gets developed which matters going forward except maybe that racism aside for a supporting cast member. Still, the connections drawn between Sable and Doom are interesting and might come up again in the future, and I enjoyed the combat. This is a simple story without much going on - there's not much to it, but nothing particularly negative to say, either. Three stars it is!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
How I could I not nominate the Doomclone who decides to pose like Doom just because he can? It's fitting that even the evil clone of Doom is an egomaniac with a sense of drama, isn't it? Also I presume that gargoyle is the one Silver Sable uses in the end to climb up, so that's a nice bit of continuity.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doompleganger Quotes
"Doom excepts no apologies!" (sic)
"No one demands from Doom! Doom commands all!"
"Doom detests incompetence!"
Doombots: "Nothing Escapes Doom!"
"Doom will not tolerate your impudence!"
Doompleganger's Bad Hair Day
Gotta give this one to chunky mohawk Sandman for being a fashion disaster that's possibly even worse than the original!
Doom-Tech of the Week
I presume that the Doombot Remote Control is a bit of Doomtech that Silver Sable appropriated, since the doppelganger has it too.
Doombot Count: 45
A bunch of relevant Doombots show up here - one faces off with the doppelganger at the start, two fight Silver Sable and get destroyed. The doppelganger Doom also orders around a quartet of Doombots a little while later, but only 3 of them are real, with Silver Sable wearing a costume to fit in. There's also the hurt Doombot they track down, which presumably got that way through Sable's remote control. In total that makes seven.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
IIRC, he used to be Captain America's sidekick.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
He's also got big fangs, but they kind of blend in due to poor color choices.
150: Namor the Sub-Mariner v1 #30-31
- Location
- Netherlands
Namor the Sub-Mariner #30-31 (September - October 1992)
Cover
Welcome, one and all… to the 1990's. Oh, I know that I've technically been covering comics from that decade for a while now, but while the last few issues were on the cusp of being quintessentially 'nineties', here we actually enter into the stygian abyss. Still, this comic doesn't just throw you in immediately - it pretends, for a while, to be normal. Granted, Namor's crazy long hairstyle isn't really helping here, but at least he kind of looks like himself, and the Doom behind him is mostly sensible in silhouette, aside from the black squiggly lines everywhere… Plus, with a title like 'Terror on the High Seas' you would expect a classic 60's-style romp, wouldn't you? Swashbuckling and all that? The second cover is more on-brand, with Namor and Doom actually clashing - one wonders where he found those golden bracers, and what is up with Doom's contorted right hand. How is it showing up through the solid metal gauntlet like that?
Story Overview
#30 - Black Harvest
We open to a bunch of hands reaching out to fish - they've been caught in the net of a crew of fishermen, who quickly drag them on board the deck of their great dark vessel. Actually it looks pretty cool, like a classic wooden sailing ship that's been mechanically augmented with spiky silver adornments which look almost organic in design, especially towards the prow. A great big 'D' is stenciled on the side of the ship, and triangular green flags with the same letter on them fly overhead. Overhead, a great mechanical arm lifts the net on board, and the men below quickly dump the haul of fish into the gaping maw of the hold. Nothing seems to be different from normal, from a hundred previous hauls. Until one person suddenly sees movement where none should be, and cries out in a language from the heart of Europe, a cousin of German and Polish - Latverian!
The crew rush in to look at whatever the fisherman is pointing out, and they conclude that they fished up someone along with their fish, and dumped him into the hold with the catch! Several people run up with huge hooks to try and lift the man out, and after some strain they manage to unceremoniously dunk an apparent dead body onto the deck of the ship, just as swiftly as when they dumped it into the hold in the first place. Actually, it turns out there were two people down there! They're a man and a woman - if she is a woman, since her skin is a strange blue color that the men have never seen before.
She's alive, but the men worry she won't be for long, since she's barely able to draw a breath. One of the men goes in to give her mouth-to-mouth to get her breathing back to normal, but while his intentions are for the best, the woman reacts by grabbing him by the neck and promptly pitching him overboard. What a bitch!
'Man overboard!' resounds around the ship, and it's a more feared cry on this ship than it would be on others. The men surge to the side and pitch lifebuoys after their lost crew member, but nobody dives in after the hapless sailor - and it's soon shown why. The man has plenty of friends aboard, but none who would risk their lives trying to fight against the incredible suction of their ship's mechanical propellers.
Within moments they draw in the fallen sailor and rend him limb from limb, reducing him to a bright pink foam on the waves. It's not the first time the men have seen a colleague consigned to this fate, nor is it likely to be the last, and they all share a moment of silent reflection as each of them considers how easily it could have been their own death that day. The moment of grief doesn't last long, as their moods soon boil over into anger, focused on the woman who caused this terrible tragedy. It's at that moment that the woman's male companion throws off unconsciousness and surges to his feet in a bestial fury, tearing off his own shirt as he bellows into the air.
The sound is designed to reach far underwater, so up on the surface it's shrill and piercing enough that the people closest to the man feel their ears burst and bleed, while everyone else is frozen in place in terror. The words from the cry and the language spoken are utterly alien, but the actions of the stranger make their meaning pretty clear - he immediately lashes out, punching one of the fishermen clean off his feet. Everyone else is briefly transfixed by what they see - but then their recently sparked anger turns into rage and fury. Like a wave the fishermen fall upon the stranger, and he disappears beneath a mass of seething bodies. Not for long, though - within moments he bowls his way out of their midst, punching and kicking so quickly and powerfully that the men are terrified by the onslaught, likening him to some monstrous whale. It's an utterly one-sided battle.
For half a dozen minutes the fight rages while the stranger carves a path through the men and leaves scattered and torn limbs in his wake. Then finally his eyes fall on the azure form of his female companion, and a single soft word escapes the man's lips: 'Mother?' The fight ends suddenly when the stranger cries out in horror, grasping his head as though demons are tearing at his brain, and then fleeing is all that matters to him. This sudden change in behaviour allows the fishermen to get the drop on him, and while the stranger attempts to get away, they entangle him in their net and then dump a heavy load of equipment right on top of him with the grasping crane. He finally falls unconscious in the aftermath, a single hand feebly peeking out from beneath the rubble and debris.
While all that is happening, we switch to a place half a world away, in the darkened halls of the Oracle Inc highrise, where a tall broad-shouldered figure strides through the halls. Their gait and bearing make a passing security guard mistake them for a man who's up to no good, but they prove to be a woman instead - Miss Phoebe Marrs. She's there to collect some files for work, she claims - not that that's any business of the guard! The guard apologizes, and Marrs contemptuously says she doesn't care what he thinks, noting that she has the Oracle / Marrs corporation merger to be concerned about. The guard is under the impression that such a merger had happened months before, but Marrs says it's not finished - it's far from finished, in fact!
Back on the ship, we catch up with the ship's captain - who is dressed in a green trench coat with the 'D' on it and has an eyepatch because of course he would have one. He's shackled the male stranger with some heavy duty chains, while the blue woman is tied to a nearby mast next to some piping. The captain addresses the man by saying he's a catch the likes of which his vessel has never made before. He apologizes for his poor English, but admits that he is even worse at Atlantean. Yes, you see, he recognizes who he's captured, and he even knows why his companion is so sickly, revealing that the piping is there to pump up some water from the sea to keep her hydrated. Still, he doesn't give her too much of the water of life, lest she regain her fabled strength and rip herself free from captivity.
The captain walks around his captive and concludes that he must be Namor, the Sub-Mariner, and the woman must be his cousin Namorita - he hadn't heard she was blue, but what other woman would be keeping company with him? His atlantean wife, after all, is dead! Ouch. He then instructs Namor to save what strength he has left, since the chains holding him are well up to the task of keeping him restrained. He should also save his voice, since his shouts have little meaning now that he's a prisoner.
A voice from off-panel adds that Namor will need that voice later to answer questions, and he'll be the one to ask them! The captain nervously looks over his shoulder to find his Master, and is about to apologize for his presumption when a shadowed Doctor Doom declares that he did well in subduing their… guest… and he shouldn't let his idle tongue undo such small successes. Doom states there are forces abroad this night, and wonders if the captain can feel them - strange, arcane energies beyond the petty comprehension of people like him. The Fates are playing their games again, for how else could he explain the happenstance of the vanquished Namor falling into the hands of his most bitter enemy? Into the hands of Doctor Doom? In response, Namor lets out another bestial roar to close out the issue…
#31 - Plunder
This issue opens with a full-page image of Doom's face, and the bizarre art choices of the comic really become clear here. They were present before, of course, with the giant overly elaborate hairdo on Namor, but most of the characters were one-offs that you can't really compare to their mainstream counterparts. Doom can be, however, and not only does he have numerous unexplained cracks in his metal mask, as if it was made of stone instead of steel, but his eyes don't even seem human. They're kind of creepy doll eyes almost, it's bizarre. Doom will not be the only character who gets this odd treatment, nor is it even the weirdest image of Doom in this book! His skin is an inflamed sort of red too, though I guess we could assume that's representing his facial scarring. Suffice to say the 90's have arrived in force, now.
Doom looms over the shackled Namor and states that he's often seen naked fear one the faces of people who first spot him, but this is something new and fascinating - it's almost like Namor experienced pure agony when laying his eyes on Doom, his old ally! That was a quick turn-around, by the way, going from 'most bitter enemy' to 'old ally' in like three text boxes. Doom gets in real close with Namor, wondering what's going on with him. That he would struggle against his shackles was expected, as Doom would do no less, but there's something in his eyes that goes far beyond mere rage against captivity. He wonders out loud what so distresses the Sub-Mariner, and is surprised when hearing his own moniker is enough to wrest a horrified cry from his erstwhile partner. He thinks it's a ridiculous conclusion to draw, but there's nothing else Doom can detect which might have caused the outburst - and what Doom cannot detect, is surely of no consequence!
Namor's madness finds sudden focus, and instead of screeching futilely against his fate, he puts all his fabled strength to bear against the chains forged in the forges of Latveria which are his most immediate source of discomfort. They shatter, no match for the might of the world's most powerful mutant (according to this comic book, at least.) Doom commends the 'halfling' for freeing himself, like a dark specter looming behind a bunch of sailors with advanced Youngblood's disease, squinting ferociously. Namor's agony has not abated, how lamentable!
Namor instantly lashes out against the sailors, who quickly go down in several page-filling action scenes of little consequence. Doom comments that Namor may fight and slay a force forty times his number, and wash the decks with human blood, but all will be for naught. For though he may look unbeatable, and his rage is like an unleashed hurricane, there remains upon the ship one power he can never overcome.
But that's for later.
Turning to the second harvest of the sea, the blue woman that was fished up alongside Namor, Doom muses that she's definitely Atlantean, and Namor called her 'mother' before, but Doom is certain that Namor's mom is quite dead. So who is she, really? The woman answers Doom, declaring she is no less or more than she appears to be - but what about him? He clothes himself in the attire and attitudes of Doctor Doom, but one would not expect the Monarch of Latveria to hang out on a common fishing trawler. Doom admits that's true - but then, this is a most uncommon vessel, as she must surely have deduced. The woman wonders what use Doom has for a ship - what's his goal in plundering the oceans? Doom responds that he seeks here what he seeks in all things… power!
Over in New York, we see Jim Hammond - the original Human Torch - in a video chat with a few other heroes. He complains to Namorita that he's barely been back a week and everything's come unravelled - on the basis of previous communications it seemed she was within hours of tracking down Namor, maybe less! Namorita says she did find him, but his response on seeing her was to punch her and flee, which rather hampered things. Jim muses she's lucky to be alive, as back in the day Namor was tough, and everything he's seen suggests he'd only gotten stronger since World War II. Iron Fist concurs that Namor is a formidable warrior, and calls Jim 'Torch' in the process. Jim objects, noting that his android form no longer has the instability which caused him to burst into flames - he's just Jim now, the head of security for Oracle Inc. And his only present concern is finding Prince Namor.
Namorita notes it's also her principal concern, and her recent failure in ensuring his return has not helped matters. Colleen Wing and Misty Knight pitch in to say she had no way of knowing he'd react the way he did, while Iron Fist mentions that 'Master Khan's enchantment' clearly has more going on than they thought, and if anyone should have anticipated that, it should have been him. He's the one who's fought Khan before, after all. He should have expected something beyond the mere banishing of Namor.
Namorita wonders if they're all vying for the 'biggest screw-up award' and suggests it's not getting them any closer to finding Namor, so they should just move on from recriminations. She asks how long it'll take Iron Fist to get to her location, and Jim notes he's about twenty minutes out - which is his cue to check up on a few other pots he put to boil. He'll check back in three hours. Oracle out!
With the video connection cut, Jim muses to himself that they got themselves into a right old mess, reflecting that Namor first got the magic whammy put on him by Master Khan back in Namor the Sub-Mariner #25, and they all thought it just spirited him off to some hidden location. Now, six months of searching later, it's clear there's more going on. Jim is surprised when someone suddenly rushes into the doors, and he recognizes them as Desmond Marrs - a dead man who committed suicide a handful of issues ago to escape a prison sentence. A moment later he realizes that he's not dealing with Desmond, but someone who apparently pulls off a good impression of her brother from a distance - his sister Phoebe Marrs. Jim is baffled, noting that her tone, the way she stands, they all remind him very strongly of Desmond. Phoebe promptly starts to try and seduce the android, undressing more and more as she mentions knowing he's no longer in a relationship, so maybe she can dispel some of his lingering doubts about her being a woman…? Inside her mind, 'Phoebe' identifies herself as Desmond. Scandalous!
Back on the ship, Doom asks 'Princess Fen' if she can feel the power of the vessel they're on, how she breasts the surging sea (phrasing!) and rises no more than a dinghy on a placid pond? This is the genius of Doom, the mastery he holds over all of nature. And she would attempt to defy him?
The woman says she does not mean to be defiant, but to keep certain small secrets to herself. If she is Fen or not is surely of no great concern to him? Doom admits that it might not be - there is much else to occupy his intellect at present. He draws her attention to the ship again, noting she herself was almost victim to its devices already.
Within its prow, he explains, is hidden a machine unlike any seen on Earth - a sonic ram, for lack of a better name. It projects into the water concentric rings of concussive force which pulverize the nervous system of anything smaller than a man. With that weapon the ship can harvest a bounty of fish greater than whole fleets have previously achieved. Thus this one vessel is Doom's fleet, replacing a hundred other vessels which were part of the Latverian merchant marine. Ships which cost almost as much as they earned, since due to the landlocked status of Latveria those ships had to go to port in other nations. Lands which, naturally, were all too happy to demand docking fees which were positively usurious. With this one ship, however, and with its sister ships he intends to build, the Latverian fleet will gain dominion over the oceans of the world. They shall control the shipping lanes, the fishing industry, the very blood of the Earth. And then it shall be Doom who dictates to the petty tyrants who sought to become rich from the royal Latverian coffers!
Fen is horrified by the prospect of a fleet of ships equipped as this one, since the present fleets of fishing vessels were already stretching ecosystems to their limits. If he unleashes a fleet of monsters like this… Doom wonders if she believes he's missed the impact of his ideas, if she really thinks Victor von Doom embarks on the least of his plans without calculating the smallest detail? He knows exactly where his scheme will lead, and it's absolute power.
Fen notes that her own race cannot survive in a depleted ocean as he describes, and they already stand on the brink of extinction to begin with. Doom advises her that it's perhaps it's time to step off that brink - for it is Doom's unshakeable intent to make himself the Master of the surface world! He says this in a ghastly panel of his red-eyed self, his mask's eye holes little more than two ghoulish bloody holes in darkness. Doom declares it matters not at all to him if a few million freaks were to die perish on the sacrificial altar of his plans. Yeouch!
The conversation is rudely interrupted when Namor appears out of nowhere by tossing a guy straight through the ship's deck and far into the sky, while he himself claws up from beneath, lashing out in Doom's direction with bestial fury. He throws a punch directly at the villain's face, but the instant he gets near he's violently thrown away by the monarch's electrical discharge - or a hand blast, it's kind of unclear. Either way, he gets blasted off his feet and right into the next issue…
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
Why do Namor and Doom keep meeting while the former is out of his damn mind? It really isn't helping his image! In this one he's gone full hair-metal in a comic book that gets progressively more heavy metal as we continue, attacking random fishermen with lethal force and straight up murdering a whole bunch of them. For a comic book hero - most of whom generally keep the body count low - he's gone full tilt murderer here, and he's not the only one so affected by the decade. Unfortunately, besides being really violent he's also basically nonverbal here - he really doesn't get to have a character in his own book.
The actual story of these two issues is pretty thin, actually - Namor gets fished up, kills some people, and is then captured. Doom shows up, Namor escapes, kills a bunch more people, and attacks Doom who was expounding on his plan to 'Fen', his supposed mother. And that's it. That's all the development the main story actually gets here, just several connected fight scenes of a mindless Namor in combat with random Latverian goons interspersed with captivity. It's incredibly underwhelming, and the only reason it's worth anything at all is that the art style is… unique. The artist is Jae Lee, who delivers some of his earliest work here, and it's certainly evocative and interesting, if a bit overly grimy. It's interesting how it seems like the style gets more exaggerated as the pages turn - maybe an intentional choice?
Side-plots galore in this one, though they're mostly irrelevant for the moment. There's a thing with a questionably transgender and/or possessed woman that's trying to seduce the Human Torch (with some apparent success), as well as the Namor supporting crew trying to find their leader after he got punted into his latest bout of amnesia a few issues before. He does keep running into that, doesn't he? Anyway, none of that material seems terribly related to the main plot, and I'm not sure we'll get enough development to meaningfully deal with any of it within the pages of this four-parter. The only relevant part, I think, is the fact that it identifies the villain 'Master Khan' as the one responsible for Namor's present state. Insert that one Captain Kirk meme here.
Doom is by far the most verbose character in these two comics, but that's mostly due to lack of real competition - the first issue barely has him in it, It mostly just has the crew of his ship, who actually act entirely reasonably - when they catch someone in their nets they immediately go to save them, and they understandably mourn when one of their own is senselessly slain by the rescued people, before they try to get revenge for the attack. Since 'Fen' and Namor are the one to start the murdering, I can't really fault the Latverians for their actions - they're acting in actual self-defense there, they weren't out and about to attack people. Namor has a long history of being a villain as well as a hero, and they seem to be leaning in the former direction here after a long stay as a hero.
Doom becomes more prominent in the second issue, where he quickly adjusts the cliffhanger ending of the first one, where he called Namor a bitter enemy. While Namor and Doom have had their differences, their most recent encounters were at worst bittersweet - Doom might've attempted to enslave Namor, but he also went out of his way to rescue the fishman's people from extinction. They've been allies more often than foes at this point. After reestablishing this, the rest of the issue involves Doom speaking to the far more talkative Fen, largely ignoring Namor in the process because he's not in a particularly coherent mood. It's too bad, really.
Here I find one of the main downsides of this really stretched out story structure - these two issues have a minimum of real story, but events get dragged out so much that they cease to make sense. For some reason Namor just kind of hangs out without doing anything for several pages while Doom explains his diabolical master plan to 'Fen' - I suppose we are to interpret that his fighting and the conversation happened at the same time, but that's not how it's depicted. It just ends up feeling like time stops moving when the panel isn't depicting certain characters, instead of it just being a virtual camera shift. Since the comic takes so long with its fight scenes so the art has more room to pop, it seems like they could have used a more creative way of showing concurrent events than what they went with. Maybe a bar along the bottom with the speech while the top is dominated by the Namor fight? Whatever.
Doom's plan is kind of ridiculous, as befitting him, and I'm still not sure what his actual goal is. He seems to have built a device which decimates the ecosystem, but unless his boat can retrieve a hundred times as much cargo as a normal ship, I'm not sure how that helps. You'd just have tons of dead fish floating on the surface everywhere. Also the device doesn't affect humans for some reason, but every other part of his operation is casually lethal to them - that seems weird. Maybe he nicked the thing off Ocean Master or some other aquatic villain?
One thing to note - towards the end here, Doom is rather casually racist towards Atlanteans, which is rather weird to me. Like, sure, he'd be dismissive of them like he is of everyone - but why would he start calling them all freaks when he's regularly an ally to Namor, saved their race, and has a history of prejudice himself? It's not the last time writers randomly decide to make Doom a bigot, and I keep coming back to Emperor Doom, where one of the first things Doom does with ultimate power is cancelling racism. I would say there's plenty of negatives you can attach to his character, but I've never really thought that mindless prejudice based on race was one of them.
For the dearth of movement in these two issues, I am ditching one star from the average 3. Nothing really happens, and the main character is barely coherent! I'll let the rest stand, since the art is pretty special, even if it's not the type I prefer. Too crazy-looking!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
Look, I don't really care for the art style - but you can't say it's not technically proficient at what it's trying to be. This fight panel in particular stood out as some impressive stuff, with Namor just singlehandedly going through these guys like a wrecking ball.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"There are forces abroad this night, Captain. Can you feel them? Strange, arcane forces much beyond the petty comprehension of such as you. The Fates are at their games again…"
"That you should struggle against your shackles is only to be expected. Doom himself would do no less."
"Anything which is undetectable by Doom, is surely of no measurable consequence."
"Doom seeks here that which he always seeks in all things - power!"
"This is the genius of Doom! This is the power I hold over all of nature!"
"Do you truly believe Victor von Doom embarks upon the least of his plans without calculating the smallest detail? I know exactly where my scheme will lead. It will lead to absolute power!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
This epidemic of squinting and grimacing is the 90's in a single panel, and the excessive hair doesn't help. This is gonna be a thing in the next entries, isn't it?
Doom-Tech of the Week
Well, there is the Doomtrawler, equipped to overfish the oceans and do the work of a hundred fishing vessels. Devious!
Cover
Welcome, one and all… to the 1990's. Oh, I know that I've technically been covering comics from that decade for a while now, but while the last few issues were on the cusp of being quintessentially 'nineties', here we actually enter into the stygian abyss. Still, this comic doesn't just throw you in immediately - it pretends, for a while, to be normal. Granted, Namor's crazy long hairstyle isn't really helping here, but at least he kind of looks like himself, and the Doom behind him is mostly sensible in silhouette, aside from the black squiggly lines everywhere… Plus, with a title like 'Terror on the High Seas' you would expect a classic 60's-style romp, wouldn't you? Swashbuckling and all that? The second cover is more on-brand, with Namor and Doom actually clashing - one wonders where he found those golden bracers, and what is up with Doom's contorted right hand. How is it showing up through the solid metal gauntlet like that?
Story Overview
#30 - Black Harvest
We open to a bunch of hands reaching out to fish - they've been caught in the net of a crew of fishermen, who quickly drag them on board the deck of their great dark vessel. Actually it looks pretty cool, like a classic wooden sailing ship that's been mechanically augmented with spiky silver adornments which look almost organic in design, especially towards the prow. A great big 'D' is stenciled on the side of the ship, and triangular green flags with the same letter on them fly overhead. Overhead, a great mechanical arm lifts the net on board, and the men below quickly dump the haul of fish into the gaping maw of the hold. Nothing seems to be different from normal, from a hundred previous hauls. Until one person suddenly sees movement where none should be, and cries out in a language from the heart of Europe, a cousin of German and Polish - Latverian!
The crew rush in to look at whatever the fisherman is pointing out, and they conclude that they fished up someone along with their fish, and dumped him into the hold with the catch! Several people run up with huge hooks to try and lift the man out, and after some strain they manage to unceremoniously dunk an apparent dead body onto the deck of the ship, just as swiftly as when they dumped it into the hold in the first place. Actually, it turns out there were two people down there! They're a man and a woman - if she is a woman, since her skin is a strange blue color that the men have never seen before.
She's alive, but the men worry she won't be for long, since she's barely able to draw a breath. One of the men goes in to give her mouth-to-mouth to get her breathing back to normal, but while his intentions are for the best, the woman reacts by grabbing him by the neck and promptly pitching him overboard. What a bitch!
'Man overboard!' resounds around the ship, and it's a more feared cry on this ship than it would be on others. The men surge to the side and pitch lifebuoys after their lost crew member, but nobody dives in after the hapless sailor - and it's soon shown why. The man has plenty of friends aboard, but none who would risk their lives trying to fight against the incredible suction of their ship's mechanical propellers.
Within moments they draw in the fallen sailor and rend him limb from limb, reducing him to a bright pink foam on the waves. It's not the first time the men have seen a colleague consigned to this fate, nor is it likely to be the last, and they all share a moment of silent reflection as each of them considers how easily it could have been their own death that day. The moment of grief doesn't last long, as their moods soon boil over into anger, focused on the woman who caused this terrible tragedy. It's at that moment that the woman's male companion throws off unconsciousness and surges to his feet in a bestial fury, tearing off his own shirt as he bellows into the air.
The sound is designed to reach far underwater, so up on the surface it's shrill and piercing enough that the people closest to the man feel their ears burst and bleed, while everyone else is frozen in place in terror. The words from the cry and the language spoken are utterly alien, but the actions of the stranger make their meaning pretty clear - he immediately lashes out, punching one of the fishermen clean off his feet. Everyone else is briefly transfixed by what they see - but then their recently sparked anger turns into rage and fury. Like a wave the fishermen fall upon the stranger, and he disappears beneath a mass of seething bodies. Not for long, though - within moments he bowls his way out of their midst, punching and kicking so quickly and powerfully that the men are terrified by the onslaught, likening him to some monstrous whale. It's an utterly one-sided battle.
For half a dozen minutes the fight rages while the stranger carves a path through the men and leaves scattered and torn limbs in his wake. Then finally his eyes fall on the azure form of his female companion, and a single soft word escapes the man's lips: 'Mother?' The fight ends suddenly when the stranger cries out in horror, grasping his head as though demons are tearing at his brain, and then fleeing is all that matters to him. This sudden change in behaviour allows the fishermen to get the drop on him, and while the stranger attempts to get away, they entangle him in their net and then dump a heavy load of equipment right on top of him with the grasping crane. He finally falls unconscious in the aftermath, a single hand feebly peeking out from beneath the rubble and debris.
While all that is happening, we switch to a place half a world away, in the darkened halls of the Oracle Inc highrise, where a tall broad-shouldered figure strides through the halls. Their gait and bearing make a passing security guard mistake them for a man who's up to no good, but they prove to be a woman instead - Miss Phoebe Marrs. She's there to collect some files for work, she claims - not that that's any business of the guard! The guard apologizes, and Marrs contemptuously says she doesn't care what he thinks, noting that she has the Oracle / Marrs corporation merger to be concerned about. The guard is under the impression that such a merger had happened months before, but Marrs says it's not finished - it's far from finished, in fact!
Back on the ship, we catch up with the ship's captain - who is dressed in a green trench coat with the 'D' on it and has an eyepatch because of course he would have one. He's shackled the male stranger with some heavy duty chains, while the blue woman is tied to a nearby mast next to some piping. The captain addresses the man by saying he's a catch the likes of which his vessel has never made before. He apologizes for his poor English, but admits that he is even worse at Atlantean. Yes, you see, he recognizes who he's captured, and he even knows why his companion is so sickly, revealing that the piping is there to pump up some water from the sea to keep her hydrated. Still, he doesn't give her too much of the water of life, lest she regain her fabled strength and rip herself free from captivity.
The captain walks around his captive and concludes that he must be Namor, the Sub-Mariner, and the woman must be his cousin Namorita - he hadn't heard she was blue, but what other woman would be keeping company with him? His atlantean wife, after all, is dead! Ouch. He then instructs Namor to save what strength he has left, since the chains holding him are well up to the task of keeping him restrained. He should also save his voice, since his shouts have little meaning now that he's a prisoner.
A voice from off-panel adds that Namor will need that voice later to answer questions, and he'll be the one to ask them! The captain nervously looks over his shoulder to find his Master, and is about to apologize for his presumption when a shadowed Doctor Doom declares that he did well in subduing their… guest… and he shouldn't let his idle tongue undo such small successes. Doom states there are forces abroad this night, and wonders if the captain can feel them - strange, arcane energies beyond the petty comprehension of people like him. The Fates are playing their games again, for how else could he explain the happenstance of the vanquished Namor falling into the hands of his most bitter enemy? Into the hands of Doctor Doom? In response, Namor lets out another bestial roar to close out the issue…
#31 - Plunder
This issue opens with a full-page image of Doom's face, and the bizarre art choices of the comic really become clear here. They were present before, of course, with the giant overly elaborate hairdo on Namor, but most of the characters were one-offs that you can't really compare to their mainstream counterparts. Doom can be, however, and not only does he have numerous unexplained cracks in his metal mask, as if it was made of stone instead of steel, but his eyes don't even seem human. They're kind of creepy doll eyes almost, it's bizarre. Doom will not be the only character who gets this odd treatment, nor is it even the weirdest image of Doom in this book! His skin is an inflamed sort of red too, though I guess we could assume that's representing his facial scarring. Suffice to say the 90's have arrived in force, now.
Doom looms over the shackled Namor and states that he's often seen naked fear one the faces of people who first spot him, but this is something new and fascinating - it's almost like Namor experienced pure agony when laying his eyes on Doom, his old ally! That was a quick turn-around, by the way, going from 'most bitter enemy' to 'old ally' in like three text boxes. Doom gets in real close with Namor, wondering what's going on with him. That he would struggle against his shackles was expected, as Doom would do no less, but there's something in his eyes that goes far beyond mere rage against captivity. He wonders out loud what so distresses the Sub-Mariner, and is surprised when hearing his own moniker is enough to wrest a horrified cry from his erstwhile partner. He thinks it's a ridiculous conclusion to draw, but there's nothing else Doom can detect which might have caused the outburst - and what Doom cannot detect, is surely of no consequence!
Namor's madness finds sudden focus, and instead of screeching futilely against his fate, he puts all his fabled strength to bear against the chains forged in the forges of Latveria which are his most immediate source of discomfort. They shatter, no match for the might of the world's most powerful mutant (according to this comic book, at least.) Doom commends the 'halfling' for freeing himself, like a dark specter looming behind a bunch of sailors with advanced Youngblood's disease, squinting ferociously. Namor's agony has not abated, how lamentable!
Namor instantly lashes out against the sailors, who quickly go down in several page-filling action scenes of little consequence. Doom comments that Namor may fight and slay a force forty times his number, and wash the decks with human blood, but all will be for naught. For though he may look unbeatable, and his rage is like an unleashed hurricane, there remains upon the ship one power he can never overcome.
But that's for later.
Turning to the second harvest of the sea, the blue woman that was fished up alongside Namor, Doom muses that she's definitely Atlantean, and Namor called her 'mother' before, but Doom is certain that Namor's mom is quite dead. So who is she, really? The woman answers Doom, declaring she is no less or more than she appears to be - but what about him? He clothes himself in the attire and attitudes of Doctor Doom, but one would not expect the Monarch of Latveria to hang out on a common fishing trawler. Doom admits that's true - but then, this is a most uncommon vessel, as she must surely have deduced. The woman wonders what use Doom has for a ship - what's his goal in plundering the oceans? Doom responds that he seeks here what he seeks in all things… power!
Over in New York, we see Jim Hammond - the original Human Torch - in a video chat with a few other heroes. He complains to Namorita that he's barely been back a week and everything's come unravelled - on the basis of previous communications it seemed she was within hours of tracking down Namor, maybe less! Namorita says she did find him, but his response on seeing her was to punch her and flee, which rather hampered things. Jim muses she's lucky to be alive, as back in the day Namor was tough, and everything he's seen suggests he'd only gotten stronger since World War II. Iron Fist concurs that Namor is a formidable warrior, and calls Jim 'Torch' in the process. Jim objects, noting that his android form no longer has the instability which caused him to burst into flames - he's just Jim now, the head of security for Oracle Inc. And his only present concern is finding Prince Namor.
Namorita notes it's also her principal concern, and her recent failure in ensuring his return has not helped matters. Colleen Wing and Misty Knight pitch in to say she had no way of knowing he'd react the way he did, while Iron Fist mentions that 'Master Khan's enchantment' clearly has more going on than they thought, and if anyone should have anticipated that, it should have been him. He's the one who's fought Khan before, after all. He should have expected something beyond the mere banishing of Namor.
Namorita wonders if they're all vying for the 'biggest screw-up award' and suggests it's not getting them any closer to finding Namor, so they should just move on from recriminations. She asks how long it'll take Iron Fist to get to her location, and Jim notes he's about twenty minutes out - which is his cue to check up on a few other pots he put to boil. He'll check back in three hours. Oracle out!
With the video connection cut, Jim muses to himself that they got themselves into a right old mess, reflecting that Namor first got the magic whammy put on him by Master Khan back in Namor the Sub-Mariner #25, and they all thought it just spirited him off to some hidden location. Now, six months of searching later, it's clear there's more going on. Jim is surprised when someone suddenly rushes into the doors, and he recognizes them as Desmond Marrs - a dead man who committed suicide a handful of issues ago to escape a prison sentence. A moment later he realizes that he's not dealing with Desmond, but someone who apparently pulls off a good impression of her brother from a distance - his sister Phoebe Marrs. Jim is baffled, noting that her tone, the way she stands, they all remind him very strongly of Desmond. Phoebe promptly starts to try and seduce the android, undressing more and more as she mentions knowing he's no longer in a relationship, so maybe she can dispel some of his lingering doubts about her being a woman…? Inside her mind, 'Phoebe' identifies herself as Desmond. Scandalous!
Back on the ship, Doom asks 'Princess Fen' if she can feel the power of the vessel they're on, how she breasts the surging sea (phrasing!) and rises no more than a dinghy on a placid pond? This is the genius of Doom, the mastery he holds over all of nature. And she would attempt to defy him?
The woman says she does not mean to be defiant, but to keep certain small secrets to herself. If she is Fen or not is surely of no great concern to him? Doom admits that it might not be - there is much else to occupy his intellect at present. He draws her attention to the ship again, noting she herself was almost victim to its devices already.
Within its prow, he explains, is hidden a machine unlike any seen on Earth - a sonic ram, for lack of a better name. It projects into the water concentric rings of concussive force which pulverize the nervous system of anything smaller than a man. With that weapon the ship can harvest a bounty of fish greater than whole fleets have previously achieved. Thus this one vessel is Doom's fleet, replacing a hundred other vessels which were part of the Latverian merchant marine. Ships which cost almost as much as they earned, since due to the landlocked status of Latveria those ships had to go to port in other nations. Lands which, naturally, were all too happy to demand docking fees which were positively usurious. With this one ship, however, and with its sister ships he intends to build, the Latverian fleet will gain dominion over the oceans of the world. They shall control the shipping lanes, the fishing industry, the very blood of the Earth. And then it shall be Doom who dictates to the petty tyrants who sought to become rich from the royal Latverian coffers!
Fen is horrified by the prospect of a fleet of ships equipped as this one, since the present fleets of fishing vessels were already stretching ecosystems to their limits. If he unleashes a fleet of monsters like this… Doom wonders if she believes he's missed the impact of his ideas, if she really thinks Victor von Doom embarks on the least of his plans without calculating the smallest detail? He knows exactly where his scheme will lead, and it's absolute power.
Fen notes that her own race cannot survive in a depleted ocean as he describes, and they already stand on the brink of extinction to begin with. Doom advises her that it's perhaps it's time to step off that brink - for it is Doom's unshakeable intent to make himself the Master of the surface world! He says this in a ghastly panel of his red-eyed self, his mask's eye holes little more than two ghoulish bloody holes in darkness. Doom declares it matters not at all to him if a few million freaks were to die perish on the sacrificial altar of his plans. Yeouch!
The conversation is rudely interrupted when Namor appears out of nowhere by tossing a guy straight through the ship's deck and far into the sky, while he himself claws up from beneath, lashing out in Doom's direction with bestial fury. He throws a punch directly at the villain's face, but the instant he gets near he's violently thrown away by the monarch's electrical discharge - or a hand blast, it's kind of unclear. Either way, he gets blasted off his feet and right into the next issue…
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
Why do Namor and Doom keep meeting while the former is out of his damn mind? It really isn't helping his image! In this one he's gone full hair-metal in a comic book that gets progressively more heavy metal as we continue, attacking random fishermen with lethal force and straight up murdering a whole bunch of them. For a comic book hero - most of whom generally keep the body count low - he's gone full tilt murderer here, and he's not the only one so affected by the decade. Unfortunately, besides being really violent he's also basically nonverbal here - he really doesn't get to have a character in his own book.
The actual story of these two issues is pretty thin, actually - Namor gets fished up, kills some people, and is then captured. Doom shows up, Namor escapes, kills a bunch more people, and attacks Doom who was expounding on his plan to 'Fen', his supposed mother. And that's it. That's all the development the main story actually gets here, just several connected fight scenes of a mindless Namor in combat with random Latverian goons interspersed with captivity. It's incredibly underwhelming, and the only reason it's worth anything at all is that the art style is… unique. The artist is Jae Lee, who delivers some of his earliest work here, and it's certainly evocative and interesting, if a bit overly grimy. It's interesting how it seems like the style gets more exaggerated as the pages turn - maybe an intentional choice?
Side-plots galore in this one, though they're mostly irrelevant for the moment. There's a thing with a questionably transgender and/or possessed woman that's trying to seduce the Human Torch (with some apparent success), as well as the Namor supporting crew trying to find their leader after he got punted into his latest bout of amnesia a few issues before. He does keep running into that, doesn't he? Anyway, none of that material seems terribly related to the main plot, and I'm not sure we'll get enough development to meaningfully deal with any of it within the pages of this four-parter. The only relevant part, I think, is the fact that it identifies the villain 'Master Khan' as the one responsible for Namor's present state. Insert that one Captain Kirk meme here.
Doom is by far the most verbose character in these two comics, but that's mostly due to lack of real competition - the first issue barely has him in it, It mostly just has the crew of his ship, who actually act entirely reasonably - when they catch someone in their nets they immediately go to save them, and they understandably mourn when one of their own is senselessly slain by the rescued people, before they try to get revenge for the attack. Since 'Fen' and Namor are the one to start the murdering, I can't really fault the Latverians for their actions - they're acting in actual self-defense there, they weren't out and about to attack people. Namor has a long history of being a villain as well as a hero, and they seem to be leaning in the former direction here after a long stay as a hero.
Doom becomes more prominent in the second issue, where he quickly adjusts the cliffhanger ending of the first one, where he called Namor a bitter enemy. While Namor and Doom have had their differences, their most recent encounters were at worst bittersweet - Doom might've attempted to enslave Namor, but he also went out of his way to rescue the fishman's people from extinction. They've been allies more often than foes at this point. After reestablishing this, the rest of the issue involves Doom speaking to the far more talkative Fen, largely ignoring Namor in the process because he's not in a particularly coherent mood. It's too bad, really.
Here I find one of the main downsides of this really stretched out story structure - these two issues have a minimum of real story, but events get dragged out so much that they cease to make sense. For some reason Namor just kind of hangs out without doing anything for several pages while Doom explains his diabolical master plan to 'Fen' - I suppose we are to interpret that his fighting and the conversation happened at the same time, but that's not how it's depicted. It just ends up feeling like time stops moving when the panel isn't depicting certain characters, instead of it just being a virtual camera shift. Since the comic takes so long with its fight scenes so the art has more room to pop, it seems like they could have used a more creative way of showing concurrent events than what they went with. Maybe a bar along the bottom with the speech while the top is dominated by the Namor fight? Whatever.
Doom's plan is kind of ridiculous, as befitting him, and I'm still not sure what his actual goal is. He seems to have built a device which decimates the ecosystem, but unless his boat can retrieve a hundred times as much cargo as a normal ship, I'm not sure how that helps. You'd just have tons of dead fish floating on the surface everywhere. Also the device doesn't affect humans for some reason, but every other part of his operation is casually lethal to them - that seems weird. Maybe he nicked the thing off Ocean Master or some other aquatic villain?
One thing to note - towards the end here, Doom is rather casually racist towards Atlanteans, which is rather weird to me. Like, sure, he'd be dismissive of them like he is of everyone - but why would he start calling them all freaks when he's regularly an ally to Namor, saved their race, and has a history of prejudice himself? It's not the last time writers randomly decide to make Doom a bigot, and I keep coming back to Emperor Doom, where one of the first things Doom does with ultimate power is cancelling racism. I would say there's plenty of negatives you can attach to his character, but I've never really thought that mindless prejudice based on race was one of them.
For the dearth of movement in these two issues, I am ditching one star from the average 3. Nothing really happens, and the main character is barely coherent! I'll let the rest stand, since the art is pretty special, even if it's not the type I prefer. Too crazy-looking!
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
Look, I don't really care for the art style - but you can't say it's not technically proficient at what it's trying to be. This fight panel in particular stood out as some impressive stuff, with Namor just singlehandedly going through these guys like a wrecking ball.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"There are forces abroad this night, Captain. Can you feel them? Strange, arcane forces much beyond the petty comprehension of such as you. The Fates are at their games again…"
"That you should struggle against your shackles is only to be expected. Doom himself would do no less."
"Anything which is undetectable by Doom, is surely of no measurable consequence."
"Doom seeks here that which he always seeks in all things - power!"
"This is the genius of Doom! This is the power I hold over all of nature!"
"Do you truly believe Victor von Doom embarks upon the least of his plans without calculating the smallest detail? I know exactly where my scheme will lead. It will lead to absolute power!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
This epidemic of squinting and grimacing is the 90's in a single panel, and the excessive hair doesn't help. This is gonna be a thing in the next entries, isn't it?
Doom-Tech of the Week
Well, there is the Doomtrawler, equipped to overfish the oceans and do the work of a hundred fishing vessels. Devious!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think it has been established elsewhere that the corrupt kings of Latveria collaborated with the Nazis. However, Victor von Doom would have been leading his resistance movment at the time, at least in some variants of the Marvel Timeline. Possibly, his resistance group worked with the resistance group of Silver's father, and that was when they met. Back then, Victor was still very much the dashing hero, brilliant, hansom, and blooming with self-confidence. He probably made a great impression on Symkarians
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
It's a weird story. Like... Why is Doom's flagship fishing vessel made of wood and using sails? I'd think he'd want to use slightly more advanced technology. It also makes Namor breaking those chains rather ridiculous as they're clearly set in a wooden hull, which should break first.
Also, like you said, him calling Atlanteans freaks feels out of character. The comic itself even mentions he's allied with Namor to save them in the past and alienating one of the few countries in the world willing to regularly ally themselves with him just for extra fish is unusual even for Doom.
Also, like you said, him calling Atlanteans freaks feels out of character. The comic itself even mentions he's allied with Namor to save them in the past and alienating one of the few countries in the world willing to regularly ally themselves with him just for extra fish is unusual even for Doom.
No. By the time Victor Von Doom was leading a Laverian resistance movement the country was ruled by Soviet puppets, regardless of whether or not the Nazis controlled the place first. Remember FF#1 came out in the sixties with Doom having only recently assumed power.
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151: Namor the Sub-Mariner v1 #32-33
- Location
- Netherlands
Namor the Sub-Mariner #32-33 (November - December 1992)
Cover
The covers are getting more 90's as we go, clearly. This time around we've got a pretty gnarly-looking image of Doom without his mask - the first time since Secret Wars that it's happened, and the first time it actually depicts his scarred face - sort of. It's still in shadows and contorted into a standard nineties grimace here, so there's not much to say. I wonder if this means Doom will actually lose his mask in this one? That'd be pretty refreshing, I don't think Namor's ever seen Doom's actual face and if the cover is anything to go by, we might actually get a hint at what the current artists imagine the extent of his injuries are.
Note that Namor is wielding the same big yellow gauntlets in both these covers, though he doesn't seem to be wearing anything like them in the actual story. I guess it's more of a branding thing than to accurately reflect the story? In any case, that second cover kind of gives the game away as to the twist to this story. Honestly, I kind of like both these covers? Yes, their style is a bit silly, but they at least make me want to check out what's going on in these comics, which is what covers are supposed to do!
Story Overview
#32 - Blood of the Warrior
What's happening to the art? I mentioned it last time, but the art has gotten more exaggerated and intense with time, and the opening shot of Doom's trawler is a lot less 'tech-augmented sailing ship' and a lot more 'horrifying toothy demon-vessel from the abyss.' Seriously, the ship has turned into a monstrosity! The captions describe it as a great predator of the seas - but the greater predator is on board it, his heart as cold and hard as the armor within it is held. Gotta say, a lot more on-brand than the wooden sailing vessel from a few issues ago!
The next page is a two-page shot featuring Doom (or Spawn with vaguely Doom-like features) overlooking the sprawling scantily clad form of Fen, while a horde of ghoulish red-eyed people look from beyond - they were regular fishermen two issues ago, but I'm not sure what's going on there now. The whole storyline is becoming a bit… extra.
Fen curses Doom for slaying her son Namor, and thus destroying the last best hope for humanity. Doom responds that he has to quibble with a few points there - firstly he's still not convinced she is truly Namor's mother, since he's well aware she died years before. Secondly, the best hope for humanity is him, thank you very much! Still, Doom pauses for a moment to give a small confession. After so many years, and so much glorious combat, he feels at least a pang of sweet remorse at the passing of one who was at once an enemy and worthy ally. Namor stood with him against the Fantastic Four - those were the days! Those were moments which got his blood pumping! This, naturally, is a reference to Fantastic Four v1 #6.
The Atlantean suddenly surges up to attack Doom, declaring that he has puny plans to conquer the surface world, acting as if that is all there is on Earth - but there are matters brewing beneath the oceans which he knows nothing about - can know nothing about! Doom grabs her and calls her an insolent freak for daring to speak to him like that, before noting that her assault is not some grand display of bravery - it's just gross stupidity. He warns her he could scald the skin from her bones with a touch, and is about to continue with more threats when the ship they're on suddenly rocks back and forth in the water - something has hit them!
The captain exclaims that the vessel is fighting against the controls, which means something must have fouled the port screw. He yells for someone to get to the scanners and report the damage. The scanner can't make out much beyond churning water for a bit, until the image clears up - and reveals the culprit to be Namor, who survived getting blasted at the end of the last issue!
Under water, Namor grabs hold of the Doomship's gigantic propeller and wrestles with his superhuman might against the full force of the engines which previously mulched a man in moments. After a mighty struggle he comes out victorious, and rips the entire assemblage apart. He lets the propeller sink into the depths below before moving on. The captions briefly describe the stabilizers of the ship, which are of unique design, and the reason the huge vessel can make its way through a hurricane without trembling so much as a teacup - or so its designer told himself. Despite those, Namor's superior strength still rocks the huge ship back and forth, and with all of that metal moving the water has to follow suit, and a wave flashes over the surface of the deck which sweeps both Fen and Doom into the waters below. Deprived for hours from her element, Fen is instantly refreshed by the sudden deluge, and effortlessly rips herself free from the chains which previously held her trapped.
Below them, unseen, Doctor Doom sinks down into the waters, weighed down by his heavy metal armor. Automatic systems sense the danger and respond, venting the encroaching water from the helmet before Doom can drown, while his waterlogged cloak is abandoned. Crystalline lenses snap closed over his eyes to prevent any more water from flooding in there, and in seconds Doom is transformed from a clumsy piece of flotsam into a living torpedo which pierces the depths at speed. The method by which he moves is a secret closely held by him alone - but move he does, cutting through the water and closing in on his target, which is reflected in the lenses of his eyes - Namor! With eyes blazing red Doom rushes into Namor with a vicious punch, and the ocean boils as he delivers a laser-enhanced follow-up blast directly to the prince's stomach. The living fury of Doom, unleashed!
Meanwhile, in the sky overhead, a sleek airplane cuts through the air - and it now also looks like a hell-spawned monstrosity, for all that it holds the heroes. I think it's just the art style at work here - everything that looked normal a few issues ago is now an eldritch abomination. On board are Namorita, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, and the immortal Iron Fist himself. It seems they're tracking Namor by following a mental link Namorita is maintaining, and they're fast closing in. If they go straight ahead, they'll find him. Iron Fist, meanwhile, worries that he senses more than just Namor ahead - he also senses a darkness hovering over them, a black malignancy that poisons all it touches. Surprisingly it's not Doctor Doom - it's actually the corrupting influence of Master Khan, the villain who cursed Namor with his current bestial nature.
Doom is still doing battle with Namor, smashing the mutant in the face with an iron fist, when Fen swims in to back up her supposed son. Doom does not expect this, but he counters by smashing his head backwards into her face, which stuns her. He then follows up with the full force of his armor, and the arcane mechanisms are said to be as powerful as those of the Invincible Iron Man himself - against such violence not even Atlantean strength can prevail. Namor sees the form of his 'mother' almost bent double from Doom's assault and hears her choked cries in the seething waters - he witnesses the light beginning to dim in her eyes as Namor's name slips from her swollen tongue. It's a name that so recently pained him, which would have made him flee due to the strange magics that grasped him - but no more. No more!
This time the name rips away the cobwebs from his mind, and the Avening Son is unleashed once more upon the world. He rushes in smashing Doom away from 'Fen' as he declares none may lay hands on his mother! Imperious Rex!
Faster than almost the eye can see he begins landing titanic blows on Doom, who is forced down into the sea floor. Fen pitches in as well, and between the two of them Doom is driven back, for while his armor was designed to withstand the cruelest of tests, it was never meant to survive the likes of this. Sensing that his enemy is weakening, Namor performs an almost impossible feat and attacks even faster, redoubling his attack, and it's clear in his burning eyes that the mightiest of mutants has still not tapped into the full potential of his hybrid might…
The last blow, when it comes, is borne on a shockwave of such rage that Doom has no chance, or means, to stop it. He's sent hurdling like a torpedo through the water, but this time it's not through his own methods, and he cuts through the darkness into the vulnerable underbelly of his own ship. Into it, and through it. Doom does not return to the battle, but Namor knows that the villain wouldn't call an end to this fight until Namor was properly dead, so he goes looking for his foe. He finds Doom crumpled on top of his ship, surrounded by sailors, and he lifts the man up by his neck, wondering if they should begin their fight anew. He demands that Doom speak - he wouldn't want their long association to end like this. He expects at least one more phrase, one more foolish boast, before he crushes the life out of Doom forever!
'Bold words!' states a voice from behind him, and Namor turns to discover the looming shape... of Master Khan! In fighting Doom Namor broke the spell which the ancient sorcerer placed upon him, which impressed Khan - enough so that he thinks it's time to try another tack in their little game. While the airplane carrying Iron Fist and the others flies overhead, Master Khan opens an enormous interdimensional portal which swallows it up, alongside the entirety of Doom's ship and everyone on it. No words of mortal man can describe what follows, the captions declare, as the sea and the world itself turn inside out, consume themselves, and in their light a pure bright light erupts. And then it ends, the impossible light recedes, and only pure silence remains.
Everyone is thrown by the abrupt change of scenery, both victorious and vanquished alike, groping for an explanation of their new condition. Namor is the first to act, declaring that there's something wrong with the sea - he rips a piece of Doom's ship and tosses it into the waters, and the broken piece of railing shatters on rock-hard, frozen waves. Master Khan's laughter resounds around them, growing every louder, until it's all that they can hear. It's revealed that Doom's ship, and everything on it, is now a miniature ship-in-a-bottle held in the hands of Master Khan himself…
Okay, that is a pretty great cliffhanger image.
#33 - Time in a Bottle
In the executive boardroom of Oracle Inc, we see what appears to be a well-dressed and cleaned up Namor address his board, announcing that all holdings in Falsworth Enterprises are to be sold by the end of the business day. One of his people declares that's insane - Oracle can't sustain that kind of reorganization! He's selling all their profit centers, cutting out the bulk of their operational income - he can't do this! Namor wonders if he really can't, since he is the majority stockholder. That gives him the power to do as he wishes, and in corporate politics - and in life - power is all! Rising up from his chair he smiles smugly, assuming he's made himself clear. Yes? Excellent. Turning next to selling land-holdings to Roxxon oil, it's revealed that behind on a desk sits a curious decoration - a ship in a bottle…
Inside that bottle, we catch up with Namor, Fen, and Doom, who have tracked down the crew of the aircraft that was dumped into this alternate dimension with the rest of them. It seems that the members of the crew were captured in the frozen waters of the seas around them, with three of them entirely engulfed in the stuff like flies in amber, while Colleen Wing is the only one with her face free, desperate to know if her colleagues are alive - they have to be! Doom declares they must make their move to free themselves, for he is nobody's prisoner, and Namor agrees that he's been the pawn of others for too long - vengeance will be his! Doom is getting impatient, however, claiming the people down below are probably dead already so he should get a move on, while Fen tries to tell her 'son' that she'll need water soon to sustain herself again. Also everyone is JoJo posing all over the place. (Note that Namor has randomly gotten the yellow gauntlets from the cover, despite not having them in any of the three previous issues...)
The fake Namor closes the business meeting, with his board members musing that they've just witnessed the death of Oracle Inc. 'Namor' looks out a window and reveals himself to be Master Khan wearing the shape of the Atlantean as a disguise. He smiles as he drinks in the fears of the people who just left, as their dreams of economic success die due to one of Khan's idle whims - he really has no reason to wreck Oracle except that he fancied a bit of a distraction. It's intoxicating how easy it was, really. Almost as seductive as the allure of magic which brought him here - for in matters of the mystic arts, Master Khan knows no equal! Oh, I'm sorry, make that 'Kahn.' For the entire remainder of this issue, his name will be misspelled just about every time. Shitty editors, I swear. I'll stick to his actual name.
We switch to a radically different location for a quick aside. Deep in the ocean a kelp farmer is working on the outskirts of Atlantis, a hard life which might buy his family a way to the gleaming capital in the next year, to experience the festival. His wife would enjoy that! The farmer is interrupted in his work by a sudden trumpet in the distance, and when he turns he spots them - purple creatures from fable, humanoid in shape but monsters from bed-time stories nonetheless. These are faceless ones, evil dwellers of the deep, dark places in the sea. A plea to his gods escapes him moments before they pounce on him. There will be no trip to the city this year - or the next, or any other. And in the distance another trumpet sounds…
Back at Oracle Tower, Master Khan has discovered a stash of hidden lore that Namor hid, books written millennia ago beneath the waves about Atlantean mystics and prophets who never once saw the sky, sun, or stars. He's found the very religion of a hidden race, their legends and beliefs. It's a scholar's dream - but he's no scholar. He's looking for other things. He opens a scroll and reads it, stating in surprise that it's impossible - but it's also already begun! Whatever might he have discovered…?
Back inside the bottle, Fen reminds Namor that he promised her salvation, but wonders what his plan is. Namor finally cracks, declaring that he's borne her madness long enough. She is not his mother - Namor saw the real Fen die with his own eyes, crushed beneath the ruins of the royal palace. She is dead, and Namor is sick of the dead coming back. All he has left is… Namorita. Nita. He bends down to reach out to her frozen form beneath the glass-like seas, and he distantly feels her approval through their emotional bond, though he can't be sure if it's real. He wonders if perhaps he's fooling himself into gaining their forgiveness before he risks killing them all, and the nearby trapped Colleen tells him anything is better than this continued existence of being caught in amber. Namor then turns to Doom, and agrees that it's time to pull off their plan. Doom responds by saying 'this is a pathetic gesture, but I will acquiesce.' He raises his hand and releases a high-pitched signal from it...
As alarms suddenly resound in the Oracle Inc building, Namor reveals that he asked Doom to activate them, so that the personnel of his company could evacuate before they made their escape attempt. Khan is also alerted by the alarms, and immediately concludes Namor must be trying something. The Avenging Son begins slamming his fists into the glass sides of the bottle, punching ever harder with every blow as he's driven beyond the brink by his hatred for the sorcerer.
Finally he manages to get a small crack to form in the glass, and he warns Doom to step back, for they will be held hostage no more! With one final blow he manages to knock the entire bottle off its perch from the inside, and Khan is too late to catch the thing before it smashes to smithereens upon the floor, disgorging its contents. Electricity and magic circle in the air as Namor regrows to normal size, and declares that no man or wizard will ever order him to his death again and live to see the day after! The Oracle boardroom is filled with a deafening roar as thousands of tons of water are unleashed from its frozen state in the bottle prison and burst forth like a hundred tidal waves, gushing out of the sides of the skyscraper in huge waterfalls.
Returning to the previous irrelevant aside, we see Atlantis. Just beyond the fabled iron gates, a patrol group returned with their results - they've discovered a spy! Well, not quite - more like a nomad, it seems, a pilgrim. Asked what he might be doing near the city, the patrol is shocked to recognize the spy as a supposed dead man - Warlord Seth! The blue nomad hesitantly wonders if he's finally reached Atlantis, and says he must warn Prince Namor of something. The patrol rush back to the city, ordering some of their own to warn Lord Vashti that Seth of Atlantis lives! Even as they leave, however, the mournful cry of a distant trumpet can be heard…
Back in New York, the Oracle tower has gained a brand new decoration. Stunned pedestrians look up to discover that where before was a simple skyscraper, now a gigantic spiky ship sticks out of the side of the building, as the prow of a proud Latverian fishing vessel has reemerged from another dimension directly inside the building! In her time she sailed all the seven seas, but her sailing days are over now.
Inside, Iron Fist and Misty Knight recover, coughing, from their confinement while they make their way through the ruined building that's now been merged with a ship. They discover a wounded Colleen, and when Iron Fist gives her mouth-to-mouth she quickly revives, assuring him she doesn't die that easily.
Master Khan shows himself, declaring that they've only put off the inevitable by escaping - he has toyed with them quite long enough. Twice now his spells have been broken by Iron Fists's fellows - or Namor in particular - and he figures he's been far too lenient and kind. He has always learned from his mistakes, and thus he must now kill them all! Iron Fist figures it doesn't matter when he tries to kill them - he'll ensure Master Khan will go with them into death. Uh, mildly suicidal there, Danny? Khan declares that you can't kill what has lived a thousand lifetimes, and Iron Fist figures there's always a first time. Both of them unleash their inner power, with the Iron Fist's hand glowing with energy just as the sorcerer's does the same.
That's when their bout is interrupted, and before either can make even the slightest move the waters between them begin to seethe and boil with incandescent fury. From the deep Victor von Doom emerges, the name Khan on his lips (or 'Kahn.') He doesn't speak it with any emotion, but he doesn't need to - it's the voice of Doom, after all. The sorcerer has angered him, and that happens at others' peril. A petty necromancer, a mewling magician like Khan dares to involve Doom in his wretched little games? That was a terrible mistake.
To show it, Doom unleashes his magic on the sorcerer as punishment, wondering if the villain is surprised to discover a colleague in magic facing off with him. He mastered the mystic arts years ago in Tibet, he explains, for he swore that no man or mage would ever be his better - and he made it so. Khan replies that while Doom's arrogance is amusing, Khan could still crush the monarch with a thought - but he senses a certain kinship between them, a similar thirst for glory. That's why he bids for peace with the Latverian despite this misunderstanding between them. Khan's quarrel, he states, is not with Doom.
'It is with me,' Namor announces as he rejoins the fight, appearing from the waters behind Khan.
The sorcerer did wonder what had become of him, and muses at the enraged look on Namor's face - how other men must tremble under that royal, disdainful glare! But he is not like other men. He is Khan of the House of Thysslia, Master of the Sacred Arts, Lost Lord of K'un-L'un! Namor is no more nuisance than a midge, and just as easily disposed of! He unleashes beams of energy from his eyes, but Namor rushes in and declares that Khan's power has faded, grasping the sorcerer before he can start a new spell. He reminds Khan that he'd stolen Namor's identity, his very soul and dignity, and set him on the road like a beggar without even his memories. Now he's also destroyed Oracle Inc, his attempt to redeem himself in this life!
Khan wonders what he's going to do about it, and Namor says he already informed him before that in Atlantis he is considering the earthly successor to Neptune. His word can mean life… or death! With that Namor suddenly and violently wrenches Khan's head off his shoulders, killing him on the spot. Decapitatioooon!
Namorita stares in horror and surprise, while Doom muses that he is impressed, noting that his trials have made Namor a harder man than he'd have ever imagined. Still, it seems that Khan is not quite done. Sure enough, the severed head of Khan starts talking, declaring that Namor is a fool who cannot escape his fate, and his true ruin and cruel destiny waits for him beneath waves. In Atlantis!
As an epilogue, we switch back to the bottom of the ocean, where we see a red-skinned woman who has lived in these desolate tides for ages. She's a stranger to this world, and she's found this ascetic life more to her liking than the royal court of Atlantis. She is Tamara Rahn, last daughter of a forgotten race, and she stands outside a cavern that has been both home and refuge. She knows now that it's time to seek out the man she once loved… Prince Namor the First! Somewhere near, a trumpet sounds...
Rating & Comments
After the rather lame first two issues, I wasn't expecting much of the follow-up - and I was pleasantly surprised. Whereas those two previous issues were almost entirely filled with Namor mindlessly beating up random fishermen while Doom stood around looking menacing, they actually fight each other in this one, and there's a larger storyline which has future implications for Namor, if not for Doom. The bait-and-switch of introducing the true big bad three-quarters into a supposed Doom vs. Namor conflict wasn't bad, and made things more interesting than they probably would have otherwise been. The fact that Namor and Doom basically kiss and make up instantly when a bigger threat is around is great, and it fits their friend-foe dynamic pretty well. Clearly for all their animosity, there's some respect there too.
The first issue is the more action-packed of the two, featuring a lot more snarling dudes punching each other - but this time Doom gets to participate personally, pulling out all the stops as he does so. The art style really lends itself to some epic battle shots, and we get several. It's clear that Doom upgraded his suit since the last time he went swimming, since he's now very agile and powerful beneath the waves, no longer confined to a submarine to get around. He also amped up his suit's power enough that he can match Iron Man blow to blow, which is probably in response to their recent encounters, though the most relevant one was erased from his memory. In any case, for all that it's a mindless beat-em-up romp, the Doom vs. Namor clash is fun even when the latter is basically a brainwashed berserker. It's a bit unfortunate that Fen joins in the fight after Namor's mind gets clear - I would have liked to know if Namor could defeat Doom without the assist. I assume he would have, since this is his book, and no matter the changes to his armor, Doom is still out of his element in the water.
On the whole, the first of these two issues suffers from many of the same faults that the first two did - that being that it's mostly just dudes punching rather than telling any sort of larger story. Still, it's rescued by the inclusion of Namor shaking off his mind-control spell and bringing the hurt to Doom. And that last part is no joke - Doom truly seems harmed enough that he is seen in a weakened state by his subordinates, at Namor's mercy - something he would never voluntarily allow. I'm curious if Namor would have followed through on his promise to kill Doom - it's certainly a very 90's attitude to take, but at the same time he is rather quick to forgive and forget Doom just a few minutes later. Maybe he's still confused from Khan's spell?
Anyway, while most of the issue here deals with Namor's personal journey back to sanity, we do get some glimpses from the outside world - we get some understanding of the group of heroes hunting after Namor before they get caught up in the evil wizard's spell, and some coverage of Khan himself ruining Namor's personal finances for shits and giggles. This is clearly an attempt to retcon Namor's corporate and ecological protection stuff out of existence - and it does seem a bit weird for an aquatic superhero to be the CEO of some big shot company on land. This issue thus explains why the tower gets levelled, where all the money went, and why everyone shuns him. Expect Namor to be destitute and alone again within a few weeks. It works, I suppose - but it's hardly elegant.
While Namor is the main character, Khan is the connective tissue which glues the three prequel issues to the big final one. For reasons that are opaque to me, the writers of this comic series decided that three issues of basically dialogue-less combat were necessary to set up a finale which had nothing to do with any of that, introduced a new villain, and then had said villain die an inglorious death in a final battle which had basically no fighting at all. Okay? It feels extremely rushed, especially the part where the frozen ship in a bottle is introduced, explained, and then resolves within only a few pages. What a waste! Why could this not have happened at the end of the first issue, setting the stage for a fun Doom battle in the interim ones within this unusual environment of glass seas? You could have had an entire subplot about freeing the trapped people from underneath instead of just handwaving it a few panels after raising it as a problem. Weird.
Master Khan meets his final end in this issue, which is interesting in itself - not a ton of comics characters actually get a finale and then just stay dead afterwards, especially ones that had been around for forty years at the time. As far as I am aware, Master Khan doesn't ever return - he's murdered by Namor via decapitation, and the post-mortem talking is just a bit of freaky prophecy or the like, a spooky postscript. His head doesn't stick around. I assume his 'yellow peril' origins may have something to do with his cancellation. Since Namor had already murdered a bunch of people during the last few issues, this development isn't exactly new, but it's still jarring to see him go full 90's try-hard, and his allies seem to agree. Dude, can you please control your shit? Doom is positively calm and collected in this issue compared to the supposed hero of the story!
Doom gets relatively little to do in these issues, honestly. He only gets a few lines in the first, after which he's silent for the rest of the time, as the fight underwater occurs in silence. His only real moment of character there is admitting a pang of remorse for ostensibly killing Namor at the end of the last issue. The final issue has him getting along with Namor again, which is fun - and in the end he browbeats Master Khan for underestimating him, giving a brief reference to his origin story, which includes a magical education that can measure up to this upstart necromancer. Beyond that, though, he's mostly just there to look cool. And, admittedly, he does come off as a pretty physically imposing enemy in these issues - the art style really brings out the JoJo in everyone. That's the second time I've referenced that today, isn't it? Huh.
In the end, the second half of this four-parter turned out to be better than the first, with actual dialogue and plot development towards the end, rather than meaningless fights with underlings. There's even some large status quo changes for Namor (though they are rather ham-fisted, and I don't know enough about Namor to be sure whether they stuck.) Doom becomes a bit of a sideshow, but he gets a few cool panels and moments, so I can't complain too much. Honestly, in a weird way it feels like the first three issues had way too much action without moving parts, and the last issue has the reverse issue, with supposedly dramatic things happening while everyone just kind of stands around and poses. Three stars for the improvements over the last issues, but I'm not gonna label this some great achievement in writing. Jae Lee is cool, though.
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
This is the cover page of a metal album and dark fantasy novel rolled into one, so it's kind of awesome and ridiculous. Also gotta love Doom in a Spawn cloak!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"As to the best hope of humanity... it is he who now addresses you."
"Let me now allow a small confession. After so many years, so much glorious combat... I feel at least a pang of sweet remorse at the final passing of one who was at once an enemy and a worthy ally."
"Victor von Doom is no man's prisoner!"
"You have angered me, and Victor von Doom is angered at others' peril."
"I mastered the mystic arts years ago in the bleak, windswept mountains of Tibet - for I swore then that no man nor mage would ever be my better, and I made it so."
Doom's Bad Hair Day
There's some weird inconsistency with Namor's equipment in these issues - he arrives with nothing in the first issue, and gets shackled up later with some stuff Doom had laying around on his ship. Clearly, he didn't bring his own stuff, he's basically naked. During the second issue he's wearing what has to be the shackled without the chains attached after he rips himself free, which seems to be echoed by the imagery in the third issue, where they seem partially broken and shattered, either from ripping free or from the fighting. But then in the final issue Namor randomly has fancy, shiny armguards in gold, which he's never shown to have anywhere else in the comic. Did his allies bring him a wardrobe change which he performed off-panel? Why did several issue already show these gauntlets on the cover when he wasn't wearing them yet...?
Comic Trivia
One detail to mention, which helps lift this comic up a bit, is the entire conceit of the 'ship in the bottle' is actually a reference to Master Khan's debut back in Strange Tales #77. In a five-page filler story, the newly introduced Khan puts someone inside a ship in a bottle, complete with frozen sea, and that issue's artwork is echoed here. Since this is where the character dies, that parallel is pretty neat - even if the actual death is kind of lackluster. Above you can see the original story in which Master Khan appears, which is very much in the rather racist 'yellow peril' category of fiction from the early 1950's. His skin is actually colored in bright yellow on other more well-lit panels, it's pretty explicit. Still, the direct reference to his origin within his finale is a pretty neat nod by the authors. (You can find this story in Strange Tales v1 #77)
Doom-Tech of the Week
Doom tricked out his armor with some new underwater features, or maybe he just didn't really bother using them until now. I'm not sure how to classify that, exactly, so I'll just call them Aquatic Upgrades. Also he uses his gauntlet to set off the alarms in the Oracle building, but that's probably nothing special or new.
Cover
The covers are getting more 90's as we go, clearly. This time around we've got a pretty gnarly-looking image of Doom without his mask - the first time since Secret Wars that it's happened, and the first time it actually depicts his scarred face - sort of. It's still in shadows and contorted into a standard nineties grimace here, so there's not much to say. I wonder if this means Doom will actually lose his mask in this one? That'd be pretty refreshing, I don't think Namor's ever seen Doom's actual face and if the cover is anything to go by, we might actually get a hint at what the current artists imagine the extent of his injuries are.
Note that Namor is wielding the same big yellow gauntlets in both these covers, though he doesn't seem to be wearing anything like them in the actual story. I guess it's more of a branding thing than to accurately reflect the story? In any case, that second cover kind of gives the game away as to the twist to this story. Honestly, I kind of like both these covers? Yes, their style is a bit silly, but they at least make me want to check out what's going on in these comics, which is what covers are supposed to do!
Story Overview
#32 - Blood of the Warrior
What's happening to the art? I mentioned it last time, but the art has gotten more exaggerated and intense with time, and the opening shot of Doom's trawler is a lot less 'tech-augmented sailing ship' and a lot more 'horrifying toothy demon-vessel from the abyss.' Seriously, the ship has turned into a monstrosity! The captions describe it as a great predator of the seas - but the greater predator is on board it, his heart as cold and hard as the armor within it is held. Gotta say, a lot more on-brand than the wooden sailing vessel from a few issues ago!
The next page is a two-page shot featuring Doom (or Spawn with vaguely Doom-like features) overlooking the sprawling scantily clad form of Fen, while a horde of ghoulish red-eyed people look from beyond - they were regular fishermen two issues ago, but I'm not sure what's going on there now. The whole storyline is becoming a bit… extra.
Fen curses Doom for slaying her son Namor, and thus destroying the last best hope for humanity. Doom responds that he has to quibble with a few points there - firstly he's still not convinced she is truly Namor's mother, since he's well aware she died years before. Secondly, the best hope for humanity is him, thank you very much! Still, Doom pauses for a moment to give a small confession. After so many years, and so much glorious combat, he feels at least a pang of sweet remorse at the passing of one who was at once an enemy and worthy ally. Namor stood with him against the Fantastic Four - those were the days! Those were moments which got his blood pumping! This, naturally, is a reference to Fantastic Four v1 #6.
The Atlantean suddenly surges up to attack Doom, declaring that he has puny plans to conquer the surface world, acting as if that is all there is on Earth - but there are matters brewing beneath the oceans which he knows nothing about - can know nothing about! Doom grabs her and calls her an insolent freak for daring to speak to him like that, before noting that her assault is not some grand display of bravery - it's just gross stupidity. He warns her he could scald the skin from her bones with a touch, and is about to continue with more threats when the ship they're on suddenly rocks back and forth in the water - something has hit them!
The captain exclaims that the vessel is fighting against the controls, which means something must have fouled the port screw. He yells for someone to get to the scanners and report the damage. The scanner can't make out much beyond churning water for a bit, until the image clears up - and reveals the culprit to be Namor, who survived getting blasted at the end of the last issue!
Under water, Namor grabs hold of the Doomship's gigantic propeller and wrestles with his superhuman might against the full force of the engines which previously mulched a man in moments. After a mighty struggle he comes out victorious, and rips the entire assemblage apart. He lets the propeller sink into the depths below before moving on. The captions briefly describe the stabilizers of the ship, which are of unique design, and the reason the huge vessel can make its way through a hurricane without trembling so much as a teacup - or so its designer told himself. Despite those, Namor's superior strength still rocks the huge ship back and forth, and with all of that metal moving the water has to follow suit, and a wave flashes over the surface of the deck which sweeps both Fen and Doom into the waters below. Deprived for hours from her element, Fen is instantly refreshed by the sudden deluge, and effortlessly rips herself free from the chains which previously held her trapped.
Below them, unseen, Doctor Doom sinks down into the waters, weighed down by his heavy metal armor. Automatic systems sense the danger and respond, venting the encroaching water from the helmet before Doom can drown, while his waterlogged cloak is abandoned. Crystalline lenses snap closed over his eyes to prevent any more water from flooding in there, and in seconds Doom is transformed from a clumsy piece of flotsam into a living torpedo which pierces the depths at speed. The method by which he moves is a secret closely held by him alone - but move he does, cutting through the water and closing in on his target, which is reflected in the lenses of his eyes - Namor! With eyes blazing red Doom rushes into Namor with a vicious punch, and the ocean boils as he delivers a laser-enhanced follow-up blast directly to the prince's stomach. The living fury of Doom, unleashed!
Meanwhile, in the sky overhead, a sleek airplane cuts through the air - and it now also looks like a hell-spawned monstrosity, for all that it holds the heroes. I think it's just the art style at work here - everything that looked normal a few issues ago is now an eldritch abomination. On board are Namorita, Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, and the immortal Iron Fist himself. It seems they're tracking Namor by following a mental link Namorita is maintaining, and they're fast closing in. If they go straight ahead, they'll find him. Iron Fist, meanwhile, worries that he senses more than just Namor ahead - he also senses a darkness hovering over them, a black malignancy that poisons all it touches. Surprisingly it's not Doctor Doom - it's actually the corrupting influence of Master Khan, the villain who cursed Namor with his current bestial nature.
Doom is still doing battle with Namor, smashing the mutant in the face with an iron fist, when Fen swims in to back up her supposed son. Doom does not expect this, but he counters by smashing his head backwards into her face, which stuns her. He then follows up with the full force of his armor, and the arcane mechanisms are said to be as powerful as those of the Invincible Iron Man himself - against such violence not even Atlantean strength can prevail. Namor sees the form of his 'mother' almost bent double from Doom's assault and hears her choked cries in the seething waters - he witnesses the light beginning to dim in her eyes as Namor's name slips from her swollen tongue. It's a name that so recently pained him, which would have made him flee due to the strange magics that grasped him - but no more. No more!
This time the name rips away the cobwebs from his mind, and the Avening Son is unleashed once more upon the world. He rushes in smashing Doom away from 'Fen' as he declares none may lay hands on his mother! Imperious Rex!
Faster than almost the eye can see he begins landing titanic blows on Doom, who is forced down into the sea floor. Fen pitches in as well, and between the two of them Doom is driven back, for while his armor was designed to withstand the cruelest of tests, it was never meant to survive the likes of this. Sensing that his enemy is weakening, Namor performs an almost impossible feat and attacks even faster, redoubling his attack, and it's clear in his burning eyes that the mightiest of mutants has still not tapped into the full potential of his hybrid might…
The last blow, when it comes, is borne on a shockwave of such rage that Doom has no chance, or means, to stop it. He's sent hurdling like a torpedo through the water, but this time it's not through his own methods, and he cuts through the darkness into the vulnerable underbelly of his own ship. Into it, and through it. Doom does not return to the battle, but Namor knows that the villain wouldn't call an end to this fight until Namor was properly dead, so he goes looking for his foe. He finds Doom crumpled on top of his ship, surrounded by sailors, and he lifts the man up by his neck, wondering if they should begin their fight anew. He demands that Doom speak - he wouldn't want their long association to end like this. He expects at least one more phrase, one more foolish boast, before he crushes the life out of Doom forever!
'Bold words!' states a voice from behind him, and Namor turns to discover the looming shape... of Master Khan! In fighting Doom Namor broke the spell which the ancient sorcerer placed upon him, which impressed Khan - enough so that he thinks it's time to try another tack in their little game. While the airplane carrying Iron Fist and the others flies overhead, Master Khan opens an enormous interdimensional portal which swallows it up, alongside the entirety of Doom's ship and everyone on it. No words of mortal man can describe what follows, the captions declare, as the sea and the world itself turn inside out, consume themselves, and in their light a pure bright light erupts. And then it ends, the impossible light recedes, and only pure silence remains.
Everyone is thrown by the abrupt change of scenery, both victorious and vanquished alike, groping for an explanation of their new condition. Namor is the first to act, declaring that there's something wrong with the sea - he rips a piece of Doom's ship and tosses it into the waters, and the broken piece of railing shatters on rock-hard, frozen waves. Master Khan's laughter resounds around them, growing every louder, until it's all that they can hear. It's revealed that Doom's ship, and everything on it, is now a miniature ship-in-a-bottle held in the hands of Master Khan himself…
Okay, that is a pretty great cliffhanger image.
#33 - Time in a Bottle
In the executive boardroom of Oracle Inc, we see what appears to be a well-dressed and cleaned up Namor address his board, announcing that all holdings in Falsworth Enterprises are to be sold by the end of the business day. One of his people declares that's insane - Oracle can't sustain that kind of reorganization! He's selling all their profit centers, cutting out the bulk of their operational income - he can't do this! Namor wonders if he really can't, since he is the majority stockholder. That gives him the power to do as he wishes, and in corporate politics - and in life - power is all! Rising up from his chair he smiles smugly, assuming he's made himself clear. Yes? Excellent. Turning next to selling land-holdings to Roxxon oil, it's revealed that behind on a desk sits a curious decoration - a ship in a bottle…
Inside that bottle, we catch up with Namor, Fen, and Doom, who have tracked down the crew of the aircraft that was dumped into this alternate dimension with the rest of them. It seems that the members of the crew were captured in the frozen waters of the seas around them, with three of them entirely engulfed in the stuff like flies in amber, while Colleen Wing is the only one with her face free, desperate to know if her colleagues are alive - they have to be! Doom declares they must make their move to free themselves, for he is nobody's prisoner, and Namor agrees that he's been the pawn of others for too long - vengeance will be his! Doom is getting impatient, however, claiming the people down below are probably dead already so he should get a move on, while Fen tries to tell her 'son' that she'll need water soon to sustain herself again. Also everyone is JoJo posing all over the place. (Note that Namor has randomly gotten the yellow gauntlets from the cover, despite not having them in any of the three previous issues...)
The fake Namor closes the business meeting, with his board members musing that they've just witnessed the death of Oracle Inc. 'Namor' looks out a window and reveals himself to be Master Khan wearing the shape of the Atlantean as a disguise. He smiles as he drinks in the fears of the people who just left, as their dreams of economic success die due to one of Khan's idle whims - he really has no reason to wreck Oracle except that he fancied a bit of a distraction. It's intoxicating how easy it was, really. Almost as seductive as the allure of magic which brought him here - for in matters of the mystic arts, Master Khan knows no equal! Oh, I'm sorry, make that 'Kahn.' For the entire remainder of this issue, his name will be misspelled just about every time. Shitty editors, I swear. I'll stick to his actual name.
We switch to a radically different location for a quick aside. Deep in the ocean a kelp farmer is working on the outskirts of Atlantis, a hard life which might buy his family a way to the gleaming capital in the next year, to experience the festival. His wife would enjoy that! The farmer is interrupted in his work by a sudden trumpet in the distance, and when he turns he spots them - purple creatures from fable, humanoid in shape but monsters from bed-time stories nonetheless. These are faceless ones, evil dwellers of the deep, dark places in the sea. A plea to his gods escapes him moments before they pounce on him. There will be no trip to the city this year - or the next, or any other. And in the distance another trumpet sounds…
Back at Oracle Tower, Master Khan has discovered a stash of hidden lore that Namor hid, books written millennia ago beneath the waves about Atlantean mystics and prophets who never once saw the sky, sun, or stars. He's found the very religion of a hidden race, their legends and beliefs. It's a scholar's dream - but he's no scholar. He's looking for other things. He opens a scroll and reads it, stating in surprise that it's impossible - but it's also already begun! Whatever might he have discovered…?
Back inside the bottle, Fen reminds Namor that he promised her salvation, but wonders what his plan is. Namor finally cracks, declaring that he's borne her madness long enough. She is not his mother - Namor saw the real Fen die with his own eyes, crushed beneath the ruins of the royal palace. She is dead, and Namor is sick of the dead coming back. All he has left is… Namorita. Nita. He bends down to reach out to her frozen form beneath the glass-like seas, and he distantly feels her approval through their emotional bond, though he can't be sure if it's real. He wonders if perhaps he's fooling himself into gaining their forgiveness before he risks killing them all, and the nearby trapped Colleen tells him anything is better than this continued existence of being caught in amber. Namor then turns to Doom, and agrees that it's time to pull off their plan. Doom responds by saying 'this is a pathetic gesture, but I will acquiesce.' He raises his hand and releases a high-pitched signal from it...
As alarms suddenly resound in the Oracle Inc building, Namor reveals that he asked Doom to activate them, so that the personnel of his company could evacuate before they made their escape attempt. Khan is also alerted by the alarms, and immediately concludes Namor must be trying something. The Avenging Son begins slamming his fists into the glass sides of the bottle, punching ever harder with every blow as he's driven beyond the brink by his hatred for the sorcerer.
Finally he manages to get a small crack to form in the glass, and he warns Doom to step back, for they will be held hostage no more! With one final blow he manages to knock the entire bottle off its perch from the inside, and Khan is too late to catch the thing before it smashes to smithereens upon the floor, disgorging its contents. Electricity and magic circle in the air as Namor regrows to normal size, and declares that no man or wizard will ever order him to his death again and live to see the day after! The Oracle boardroom is filled with a deafening roar as thousands of tons of water are unleashed from its frozen state in the bottle prison and burst forth like a hundred tidal waves, gushing out of the sides of the skyscraper in huge waterfalls.
Returning to the previous irrelevant aside, we see Atlantis. Just beyond the fabled iron gates, a patrol group returned with their results - they've discovered a spy! Well, not quite - more like a nomad, it seems, a pilgrim. Asked what he might be doing near the city, the patrol is shocked to recognize the spy as a supposed dead man - Warlord Seth! The blue nomad hesitantly wonders if he's finally reached Atlantis, and says he must warn Prince Namor of something. The patrol rush back to the city, ordering some of their own to warn Lord Vashti that Seth of Atlantis lives! Even as they leave, however, the mournful cry of a distant trumpet can be heard…
Back in New York, the Oracle tower has gained a brand new decoration. Stunned pedestrians look up to discover that where before was a simple skyscraper, now a gigantic spiky ship sticks out of the side of the building, as the prow of a proud Latverian fishing vessel has reemerged from another dimension directly inside the building! In her time she sailed all the seven seas, but her sailing days are over now.
Inside, Iron Fist and Misty Knight recover, coughing, from their confinement while they make their way through the ruined building that's now been merged with a ship. They discover a wounded Colleen, and when Iron Fist gives her mouth-to-mouth she quickly revives, assuring him she doesn't die that easily.
Master Khan shows himself, declaring that they've only put off the inevitable by escaping - he has toyed with them quite long enough. Twice now his spells have been broken by Iron Fists's fellows - or Namor in particular - and he figures he's been far too lenient and kind. He has always learned from his mistakes, and thus he must now kill them all! Iron Fist figures it doesn't matter when he tries to kill them - he'll ensure Master Khan will go with them into death. Uh, mildly suicidal there, Danny? Khan declares that you can't kill what has lived a thousand lifetimes, and Iron Fist figures there's always a first time. Both of them unleash their inner power, with the Iron Fist's hand glowing with energy just as the sorcerer's does the same.
That's when their bout is interrupted, and before either can make even the slightest move the waters between them begin to seethe and boil with incandescent fury. From the deep Victor von Doom emerges, the name Khan on his lips (or 'Kahn.') He doesn't speak it with any emotion, but he doesn't need to - it's the voice of Doom, after all. The sorcerer has angered him, and that happens at others' peril. A petty necromancer, a mewling magician like Khan dares to involve Doom in his wretched little games? That was a terrible mistake.
To show it, Doom unleashes his magic on the sorcerer as punishment, wondering if the villain is surprised to discover a colleague in magic facing off with him. He mastered the mystic arts years ago in Tibet, he explains, for he swore that no man or mage would ever be his better - and he made it so. Khan replies that while Doom's arrogance is amusing, Khan could still crush the monarch with a thought - but he senses a certain kinship between them, a similar thirst for glory. That's why he bids for peace with the Latverian despite this misunderstanding between them. Khan's quarrel, he states, is not with Doom.
'It is with me,' Namor announces as he rejoins the fight, appearing from the waters behind Khan.
The sorcerer did wonder what had become of him, and muses at the enraged look on Namor's face - how other men must tremble under that royal, disdainful glare! But he is not like other men. He is Khan of the House of Thysslia, Master of the Sacred Arts, Lost Lord of K'un-L'un! Namor is no more nuisance than a midge, and just as easily disposed of! He unleashes beams of energy from his eyes, but Namor rushes in and declares that Khan's power has faded, grasping the sorcerer before he can start a new spell. He reminds Khan that he'd stolen Namor's identity, his very soul and dignity, and set him on the road like a beggar without even his memories. Now he's also destroyed Oracle Inc, his attempt to redeem himself in this life!
Khan wonders what he's going to do about it, and Namor says he already informed him before that in Atlantis he is considering the earthly successor to Neptune. His word can mean life… or death! With that Namor suddenly and violently wrenches Khan's head off his shoulders, killing him on the spot. Decapitatioooon!
Namorita stares in horror and surprise, while Doom muses that he is impressed, noting that his trials have made Namor a harder man than he'd have ever imagined. Still, it seems that Khan is not quite done. Sure enough, the severed head of Khan starts talking, declaring that Namor is a fool who cannot escape his fate, and his true ruin and cruel destiny waits for him beneath waves. In Atlantis!
As an epilogue, we switch back to the bottom of the ocean, where we see a red-skinned woman who has lived in these desolate tides for ages. She's a stranger to this world, and she's found this ascetic life more to her liking than the royal court of Atlantis. She is Tamara Rahn, last daughter of a forgotten race, and she stands outside a cavern that has been both home and refuge. She knows now that it's time to seek out the man she once loved… Prince Namor the First! Somewhere near, a trumpet sounds...
Rating & Comments
After the rather lame first two issues, I wasn't expecting much of the follow-up - and I was pleasantly surprised. Whereas those two previous issues were almost entirely filled with Namor mindlessly beating up random fishermen while Doom stood around looking menacing, they actually fight each other in this one, and there's a larger storyline which has future implications for Namor, if not for Doom. The bait-and-switch of introducing the true big bad three-quarters into a supposed Doom vs. Namor conflict wasn't bad, and made things more interesting than they probably would have otherwise been. The fact that Namor and Doom basically kiss and make up instantly when a bigger threat is around is great, and it fits their friend-foe dynamic pretty well. Clearly for all their animosity, there's some respect there too.
The first issue is the more action-packed of the two, featuring a lot more snarling dudes punching each other - but this time Doom gets to participate personally, pulling out all the stops as he does so. The art style really lends itself to some epic battle shots, and we get several. It's clear that Doom upgraded his suit since the last time he went swimming, since he's now very agile and powerful beneath the waves, no longer confined to a submarine to get around. He also amped up his suit's power enough that he can match Iron Man blow to blow, which is probably in response to their recent encounters, though the most relevant one was erased from his memory. In any case, for all that it's a mindless beat-em-up romp, the Doom vs. Namor clash is fun even when the latter is basically a brainwashed berserker. It's a bit unfortunate that Fen joins in the fight after Namor's mind gets clear - I would have liked to know if Namor could defeat Doom without the assist. I assume he would have, since this is his book, and no matter the changes to his armor, Doom is still out of his element in the water.
On the whole, the first of these two issues suffers from many of the same faults that the first two did - that being that it's mostly just dudes punching rather than telling any sort of larger story. Still, it's rescued by the inclusion of Namor shaking off his mind-control spell and bringing the hurt to Doom. And that last part is no joke - Doom truly seems harmed enough that he is seen in a weakened state by his subordinates, at Namor's mercy - something he would never voluntarily allow. I'm curious if Namor would have followed through on his promise to kill Doom - it's certainly a very 90's attitude to take, but at the same time he is rather quick to forgive and forget Doom just a few minutes later. Maybe he's still confused from Khan's spell?
Anyway, while most of the issue here deals with Namor's personal journey back to sanity, we do get some glimpses from the outside world - we get some understanding of the group of heroes hunting after Namor before they get caught up in the evil wizard's spell, and some coverage of Khan himself ruining Namor's personal finances for shits and giggles. This is clearly an attempt to retcon Namor's corporate and ecological protection stuff out of existence - and it does seem a bit weird for an aquatic superhero to be the CEO of some big shot company on land. This issue thus explains why the tower gets levelled, where all the money went, and why everyone shuns him. Expect Namor to be destitute and alone again within a few weeks. It works, I suppose - but it's hardly elegant.
While Namor is the main character, Khan is the connective tissue which glues the three prequel issues to the big final one. For reasons that are opaque to me, the writers of this comic series decided that three issues of basically dialogue-less combat were necessary to set up a finale which had nothing to do with any of that, introduced a new villain, and then had said villain die an inglorious death in a final battle which had basically no fighting at all. Okay? It feels extremely rushed, especially the part where the frozen ship in a bottle is introduced, explained, and then resolves within only a few pages. What a waste! Why could this not have happened at the end of the first issue, setting the stage for a fun Doom battle in the interim ones within this unusual environment of glass seas? You could have had an entire subplot about freeing the trapped people from underneath instead of just handwaving it a few panels after raising it as a problem. Weird.
Master Khan meets his final end in this issue, which is interesting in itself - not a ton of comics characters actually get a finale and then just stay dead afterwards, especially ones that had been around for forty years at the time. As far as I am aware, Master Khan doesn't ever return - he's murdered by Namor via decapitation, and the post-mortem talking is just a bit of freaky prophecy or the like, a spooky postscript. His head doesn't stick around. I assume his 'yellow peril' origins may have something to do with his cancellation. Since Namor had already murdered a bunch of people during the last few issues, this development isn't exactly new, but it's still jarring to see him go full 90's try-hard, and his allies seem to agree. Dude, can you please control your shit? Doom is positively calm and collected in this issue compared to the supposed hero of the story!
Doom gets relatively little to do in these issues, honestly. He only gets a few lines in the first, after which he's silent for the rest of the time, as the fight underwater occurs in silence. His only real moment of character there is admitting a pang of remorse for ostensibly killing Namor at the end of the last issue. The final issue has him getting along with Namor again, which is fun - and in the end he browbeats Master Khan for underestimating him, giving a brief reference to his origin story, which includes a magical education that can measure up to this upstart necromancer. Beyond that, though, he's mostly just there to look cool. And, admittedly, he does come off as a pretty physically imposing enemy in these issues - the art style really brings out the JoJo in everyone. That's the second time I've referenced that today, isn't it? Huh.
In the end, the second half of this four-parter turned out to be better than the first, with actual dialogue and plot development towards the end, rather than meaningless fights with underlings. There's even some large status quo changes for Namor (though they are rather ham-fisted, and I don't know enough about Namor to be sure whether they stuck.) Doom becomes a bit of a sideshow, but he gets a few cool panels and moments, so I can't complain too much. Honestly, in a weird way it feels like the first three issues had way too much action without moving parts, and the last issue has the reverse issue, with supposedly dramatic things happening while everyone just kind of stands around and poses. Three stars for the improvements over the last issues, but I'm not gonna label this some great achievement in writing. Jae Lee is cool, though.
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
This is the cover page of a metal album and dark fantasy novel rolled into one, so it's kind of awesome and ridiculous. Also gotta love Doom in a Spawn cloak!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"As to the best hope of humanity... it is he who now addresses you."
"Let me now allow a small confession. After so many years, so much glorious combat... I feel at least a pang of sweet remorse at the final passing of one who was at once an enemy and a worthy ally."
"Victor von Doom is no man's prisoner!"
"You have angered me, and Victor von Doom is angered at others' peril."
"I mastered the mystic arts years ago in the bleak, windswept mountains of Tibet - for I swore then that no man nor mage would ever be my better, and I made it so."
Doom's Bad Hair Day
There's some weird inconsistency with Namor's equipment in these issues - he arrives with nothing in the first issue, and gets shackled up later with some stuff Doom had laying around on his ship. Clearly, he didn't bring his own stuff, he's basically naked. During the second issue he's wearing what has to be the shackled without the chains attached after he rips himself free, which seems to be echoed by the imagery in the third issue, where they seem partially broken and shattered, either from ripping free or from the fighting. But then in the final issue Namor randomly has fancy, shiny armguards in gold, which he's never shown to have anywhere else in the comic. Did his allies bring him a wardrobe change which he performed off-panel? Why did several issue already show these gauntlets on the cover when he wasn't wearing them yet...?
Comic Trivia
One detail to mention, which helps lift this comic up a bit, is the entire conceit of the 'ship in the bottle' is actually a reference to Master Khan's debut back in Strange Tales #77. In a five-page filler story, the newly introduced Khan puts someone inside a ship in a bottle, complete with frozen sea, and that issue's artwork is echoed here. Since this is where the character dies, that parallel is pretty neat - even if the actual death is kind of lackluster. Above you can see the original story in which Master Khan appears, which is very much in the rather racist 'yellow peril' category of fiction from the early 1950's. His skin is actually colored in bright yellow on other more well-lit panels, it's pretty explicit. Still, the direct reference to his origin within his finale is a pretty neat nod by the authors. (You can find this story in Strange Tales v1 #77)
Doom-Tech of the Week
Doom tricked out his armor with some new underwater features, or maybe he just didn't really bother using them until now. I'm not sure how to classify that, exactly, so I'll just call them Aquatic Upgrades. Also he uses his gauntlet to set off the alarms in the Oracle building, but that's probably nothing special or new.
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SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Where's that panel where a decapitated Loki laughs and reattaches his head when you need it?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think this is Doom's longest underwater fight scene since he dueled the Warlord Krang in Super-Villain Team-Up #13
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The next storyline is one of my favorites
- Location
- Netherlands
the Watcher stuff or something else?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Doom saving Latveria from an alien monster
152: Fantastic Four v1 #373-374 - Shattered Lives / Suddenly the... Secret Defenders!
- Location
- Netherlands
Fantastic Four v1 #373-374 (February - March 1993)
Covers
I am covering a bunch of issues here, because Doctor Doom is more of a background threat building up during these issues, while the main cast is doing their usual shenanigans front and center, building up to the confrontation. As a result, Doom doesn't actually appear on any of these covers - because they're far more interested in being gimmicky 90's nonsense, like the completely red embossed cover, and some with foil. It was a thing at the time to make 'collectable' issues when speculators ran amok. It eventually nearly killed the industry. Anyway, the main star in most of these covers is actually the Human Torch for storyline-related reasons, and Malice because boobies. Also there's a a lot of guest stars with guns and pockets - again, it's the 1990's now, expect this to continue.
Story Overview
Jumping directly into the main story could work here, but I think a bunch of prepwork is useful to provide much-needed context for the complex layers of plots and individual situations that tie into the forthcoming issues - we're sticking with the Fantastic Four for something like six to eight issues in a row, after all, though I'll only cover the more Doom-involved ones in full. I'll get you up to speed on the most relevant status quo changes for the team, though, since a lot of stuff is going on. Time for backstory!
#369 - 372 - Backstory Issues
Okay, so back during the Infinity War event, when everyone was subjected to Galactus's mind-probe to update them on what's going on, it apparently caused an unexpected side-effect in Sue of the Fantastic Four - the dark side of her personality, Malice, reappeared from wherever she'd been hiding. She's the one in bondage gear and spikes, you might've seen her before. It's a whole thing. They fight a battle in their mind until Sue pulls a Naruto and absorbs her dark side into herself, which immediately makes her more assertive, as well as more of an asshole.
After the event wraps up and everyone is warped back home to Earth, the Fantastic Four are dumped into the wreckage of the nuked Four Freedoms Plaza. Reed wonders what the hell people did to his place in his absence, and Sue chastises Reed because it was his doppelganger who was responsible, and it was her quick thinking which ensured nobody was killed. Angry at her husband over something he clearly didn't do, Sue storms off and leaves everyone staring after her in confused silence.
The Fantastic Four soon learn that Aron the Rogue Watcher kidnapped Alicia Masters while the entire Earth was in suspended animation (for some reason?) They then run into Sharon Ventura at their home base, a former member of the team and the former She-Thing - we've covered her adventures with the team before. Reed leaves her and Ben to catch up. Sue, meanwhile, has had a drastic wardrobe malfunction - she's trying on a new and quite extremely revealing costume. What are you even doing, Sue? Reed gets uncomfortable and quickly changes the subject to the repairs of their building, which angers Sue enough that she lashes out at him about getting neglected. The two are unaware that their son Franklin is watching their marital spat, and since he hates to see his family fight, Franklin vows to make them stop any way possible, while his eyes crackle with boundless energy.
While Sharon reports back to her mysterious backer who wears a voluminous cloak - who could that possibly be - Reed tries to contact the Watcher on the Moon to talk about the whole Aron kidnapping situation, but Uatu decides not to respond, determined to merely watch rather than interfere. While Reed and Ben are getting ready to leave, they are joined by Sharon, who volunteers to fill in for an absent Johnny and Sue and has created a new Ms. Marvel costume for such an occasion. The trio appear outside the cave entrance of Aron's hideout located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, last seen during that terrible 'dream' episode in Fantastic Four v1 #330. They are confronted by the rogue Watcher, who says they are going to learn first hand what he'd done to Alicia!
Johnny, meanwhile, heads to Empire State University to take some classes, musing that heroes have gotten darker lately to keep up with the times, and maybe he should too. He gets ambushed by aliens Paibok and Devos, and a civilian side-character named Bridget ends up frozen in a block of ice by said bad guys, much to Johnny's horror. Johnny considers firing a Fantasti-Flare into the sky to ask for help in this fight, but decides he can handle it solo like other 90's badasses would. He manages to thaw her out in time, but is blasted from behind by his former wife Lyja, who Johnny thought was quite dead. She also calls herself 'the Lazerfist' now, as if that's not completely ridiculous. Lyja is furious that Johnny left her for dead when they went to rescue Alicia Masters back in Fantastic Four #358, and worse still, he abandoned their unborn child! The shocks just keep coming! Belatedly Johnny calls for help, but he's overpowered facing three foes at once and is at risk of being killed, so he uses his Nova Flame attack, risking the lives of all the nearby students in the process. When Sue arrives to help, she finds a desperate Johnny claiming that he lost control of his powers to explain the devastation: Empire State University is on fire.
Not much later, the NYC's superhuman response police unit, Code: Blue, comes to Four Freedoms Plaza to arrest Johnny. This team includes both Marcus Stone, the cop we saw back in Thor #409 facing Doom's teleport-you-in-front-of-a-dinosaur-gun, and Rigger Ruiz, the elder sister that Rhythm Ruiz of the Yancy Street Gang was so embarrassed about back in Fantastic Four v1 #361. Small world! Anyway, the whole thing quickly devolves into a fight, but before the battle can escalate, Johnny turns himself in.
Meanwhile, tenants of the Fantastic Four's building are unhappy about the recent nuclear attack that took out the upper floors of the place, creating an eyesore - oh, and also risking all their lives. Priorities, people! Not interested in listening to their complaints, Sue tells them that if they don't like the conditions of renting here, they can just up and leave. Insulted, the head of the committee begins chastising Sue for her revealing costume, but this crosses a line for Sue, and she uses her invisibility powers to render everyone else's clothes transparent to mock them. Embarrassed and humiliated, the angry mob realize that their complaints are going nowhere and they storm out, except for one straggler who is awfully interested to know how long Sue's husband will be out of town, and maybe she wants to have a little fun? Ugh.
While Johnny is being led up the stairs of the courthouse in front of a screaming mob, a nearby Peter Parker's Spider-Sense suddenly goes off to warn him of a strange woman in the crowd, but he's not sure why that would be. She turns out to be Lyja in disguise, and briefly shows herself to Johnny while nobody else is looking so that he'll panic. Paibok - disguised as a cop - then tries to take a shot at Johnny, who is forced to flame on when his attackers take down one of the officers guarding him. The people gathered around think he's attacked an innocent police officer, however, and Code: Blue opens fire on him in return, so Johnny decides that things are getting too out of control and flees.
Elsewhere, Ben Grimm wakes up in human form to a happy home with three children and his wife Alicia Masters, who has her eyesight back. This feels oddly familiar, doesn't it? Ben doesn't realize that he is actually living a fabricated life within a tiny pocket universe created by Aron the Rogue Watcher for his own amusement - Liddleville with more steps. As Aron marvels over his creation, and how he can alter events in his pocket universe to anything he wishes, he is interrupted by the arrival of the Molecule Man, who demands that Aron set his prisoners free. He is there under the control of Alicia's father, the villain Puppet Master...
Back in New York City, Peter Parker has changed into his alter ego of Spider-Man and is swinging through the city to try and find Johny. Said hero spots him from a nearby alley, but thinking that Spidey had joined the manhunt against him as well, he feels utterly and completely alone. To make matters worse, J. Jonah Jameson has just hired the services of Silver Sable and the Wild Pack in order to hunt down Johnny as well, and bring him to justice for his crimes...
#373 - Shattered Lives
Well, here we go, we've finally arrived at the actual issue I'm covering, with all the build-up and establishing material for the next arc or two covered. Thankful, we don't have long to wait for Doctor Doom to show up, as he's there on page 1! Silently, majestically, the brooding armor-clad figure of the good Doctor overlooks subtle variations and fluctuations in a highly sensitive device in front of him, while his mind races as quickly as a sophisticated computer, instanting assimilating the raw data. He asks for a report from his technicians, and a minion quickly informs him that a secret agent Doom sent to infiltrate the Fantastic Four appears to have been apprehended by an unidentified source of incredible and unknown energy! Doom crosses his arms and tells his minion not to belabor the obvious, and states that at a glance he's already determined the likely identity of the captor - but he can't figure out what their motive might be for doing so...
Deciding on his next course of action, Doom tells his servant to use his spy's secret beacon to pinpoint her exact location, and to prepare Doom's cruiser for departure. He's going there personally to take care of this situation. The aged, bespectacled minion immediately agrees. As he walks away, Doom declares that if he is correct in his hypothesis, and there is even the slightest opportunity to leech the 'star-spawning power' which he suspects is involved, it shall belong to Doom! Emphasis on the last word is in huge red shuddering block letters, by the way. His minion stares after him and fears that soon all of humanity shall tremble beneath his Master's boot!
Over in the Canadian Rockies, Molecule Man warns Aron that he is the Master of Molecules - well, non-organic ones, anyway - and that's more than enough to rescue Alicia Masters! Aron's only response is to lift a hand and toss an entire mountain's worth of debris at Owen, but he just transforms them into harmless bubbles before they can impact. Owen then drags some clouds out of the sky and transforms them into an avalanche of solid steel which comes raining down on his enemy, but Aron teleports away before he can be killed by the attack. Aron then summons some trees to his aid, and Owen complains that he shouldn't have mentioned the thing about organics - him and his big mouth! Unable to affect organic matter, he's tied up by the trees while Aron turns away.
Oh, if you're a little confused about Molecule Man's limitations here, it's actually the same ones he had when he first got his powers in Fantastic Four #20. He overcame those limitations in Secret Wars #11 by virtue of Doctor Doom granting him enlightenment while nigh-omnipotent, only to have them imposed on him again sometime later in Fantastic Four Annual #24, presumably because having no weaknesses is slightly boring to write about. Just make him vulnerable to Kryptonite and magic guys, you know how this works!
Within Aron's Liddleville, Ben Grimm awakens from a nightmare, and is consoled by his wife Alicia and their children. Ben goes to work at his office at the Grimm & Richards Corporation, where he tells his partner Reed Richards and his secretary Sharon Ventura about the strange dreams of turning into a rock monster and being watched by a massive eye. He's got everything he ever could have wanted here, so why does he keep getting these haunting dreams? Reed admits he's had similar issues and is seeing a psychologist to deal with it, but Ben gets angry at the suggestion, thinking Reed is claiming he's going crazy. When Ben begins to attack Reed with a chair, however, Richards stretches out of the way, much to his own shock. Also, Ben suddenly begins to transform into the Thing, regaining his memories and realizing what's really going on here. Sharon, meanwhile, tries to flee for cover from the rocky monster that's just appeared in the room, but a simple swipe of her hand causes a coat rack to break in two. This really does feel familiar, doesn't it?
As the three try to make sense of these things, Alicia Masters suddenly teleports into the room, begging them all not to ruin the perfect lives she has constructed for them here - Ben has his humanity back, and she has her eyesight! Ben tries to convince Alicia that this fantasy world is not their real life, and they can't stay here. Suddenly their discussion is interrupted by the arrival of the Fabulous Foursome, fabricated heroes based on the original Fantastic Four during the early days of their career. They're wearing elaborate costumes too, with the equivalent of the Thing even having a full-on Superman cape! These are the villains of the hour, I suppose.
Back at Four Freedoms Plaza, repairs on the building have been halted by the Invisible Woman due to the pending legal battle between the Fantastic Four and Empire State University. Also Sue is still dressed like she's forgotten the function of clothing. A 4-shaped boob window, really? Sue tells her financial manager, Ms. Yakaka, to buy the people at ESU off so they drop their charges against Johnny, though she's warned that could run into the millions. She also demands that her lawyer Matt Murdock provide some results in finding her brother while he is on the run from the law. As Murdock and Yakaki leave, they both mention that Sue has visibly changed - and not just in that she's wearing half her usual clothing. Matt figures she's under intense strain, and tells the financial manager that they have to pool their talents to help resolve this current crisis.
At the Symkarian Embassy, Silver Sable and her Wild Pack are gearing up to hunt down the Torch after they have been hired to do so by Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Sable is visited by Spider-Man who tries to appeal to her, but she in turn tries to hire him to help her on her mission. Their discussion is interrupted with reports that the Wild Pack has managed to track Johnny Storm down. Elsewhere in the city, the Torch is being pursued by Battlestar, Chen, Powell, Crippler and Quentino, who are chasing after him with specially designed jet packs and weapons that can disable Johnny's flame powers. During the battle Johnny pleads to them about his innocence in the fire, but it falls on deaf ears - and it's also not strictly true. The Torch finally loses his temper when Crippler tries to hit him with an acid grenade. Having had enough of being hounded, Johnny lashes out and uses his powers to disable the Wild Pack's jet packs and helicopter before fleeing the scene. It's actually a pretty badass sequence in which he goes on a full-on tirade about how they mistake his reticence to hurt them with weakness, then unleashes his power on their equipment, which he is free to mangle - he even takes down their helicopter.
Molecule Man and Aron's battle continues to rage on, with the former realizing that the supposed trees that bound him aren't really that - they're just mineral deposits made to look like trees! What a nasty trick! He turns them to paper and shreds them apart (wait, isn't paper organic since it's made from trees? I guess the limitation is only one way...) Owen makes some boulder-spewing geysers to surround his enemy, while Aron creates a giant hand made of ice to grasp him from behind, but he sees that coming. He mocks Aron for not realizing that he can pretty much convert anything into harmless substances - every single thing! He asks Aron to take his best shot, and he's suddenly surrounded by an airless sphere. Oops. Unable to breathe, Molecule Man soon passes out, much to the frustration of the Puppet Master.
Within Aron's pocket universe, Reed, Ben and Sharon battle against the Fabulous Foursome. During the fight Alicia begs them to stop because this is a perfect world that they can all share together. The three heroes make short work of these Fantastic Four doppelgangers, with Sharon in particular putting in work - she rips out a fire hydrant to douse the Human Torch analogue, then spots the Invisible Woman by dousing the area in water and revealing a void where she's hiding out. She knocks out this sensibly dressed Sue as well, and Sharon decides she must not have access to the real one's invisible force fields, or mimic-Sue would have knocked her out from a long distance away. Reed figures Ben was right as he defeats his own copy - these heroes have similar powers, but none of the experience of the real Fantastic Four - they are really just comic book parodies. In fact, Reed notes they bear a vague resemblance to that famous fictional superhero who recently died with so much media ballyhoo, which must be a direct reference to Death of Superman!
After beating up his own twin, Ben complains that Reed is too long-winded and he prefers the silent alternative, while Sharon arrives with the two remaining superheroes under her arms. Alicia confronts the group, again talking about keeping the lovely fantasy intact, but Ben tells her off for living out a fantasy - there are no real children, none of this is true. When Alicia demands to know if all of it's a lie, if he doesn't really love her either, Ben admits that he does truly love her, much to Sharon's shock. Alicia is now more confused than ever due to all the changes in her life, and she runs away screaming for help, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality anymore. The pocket universe shatters, freeing Alicia, Reed, Ben and Sharon from its confines. Reed determines that the strain of maintaining such a complex fantasy put more strain on Alicia than Aron had anticipated, which is why she was so unstable. Ben figures that even through all that, Alicia came through for them in the end.
The heroes' newfound freedom is detected by Aron, but before the Rogue Watcher can act on it, he is suddenly incapacitated by Doctor Doom, who comes flying into the scene in gloriously abrupt fashion with an extremely familiar device we've seen him use before. He used it, long ago, to steal the power of the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four v1 #57-60! Doom declares that his analysis was correct, and a Watcher did indeed walk this world, but he's surprised to find it's not the one based on the Moon who has watched the Earth from the birth of Man to the rise of Doom. Still, he'll make do, as the identity of this alien interloper is ultimately unimportant, since he has already siphoned off the being's cosmic powers! They are beyond verbal description, and are truly without limit! Doom decides it is fitting Aron lies crumpled at his feet, for soon - very soon - the entire Earth, and perhaps the entire Universe, will lay prostrate before the matchless glory that is Doom!
Aron's former captives recover inside the cave, with Alicia only barely remembering the illusion as flashes of being able to see. Sharon wants to ask Ben about what he said to Alicia in the dream, but he tells her now is really not the time to get into those things. Aron's still out there, and he's not going to let them just waltz away! Rushing outside they find Uatu standing over Aron's unconscious body, and when Reed tries to ask the Watcher what happened, he does not respond at all. Reed is forced to wonder if Uatu is responsible for what happened here. Ben worries that things are about to get a whole lot worse, and beats himself up for Alicia being blind again - a familiar refrain by now.
Back in New York City, Matt Murdock has assumed his alter ego of Daredevil and begun his own search for the Human Torch. He soon finds Spider-Man and Silver Sable, who have caught up to the Wild Pack following their defeat at the hands of the Torch earlier in the issue. Johnny's unexpected brutality prompts Spider-Man to consider his loyalties, and he swings off to find some friends who can help him in his quest to find Johnny and get some answers - the ones he calls the big guns. Molecule Man, meanwhile, recovers from his battle with Aron, confused about the reason he came there to fight - he barely even knows this Alicia Masters! He slips away unseen, back to his little shrine to Volcana.
Miles away, Doom's sleek green personal cruiser cuts through the sky, bound for home, for Latveria. On board, Doom thinks it's a pity that his siphoning device was designed to take power from only a single cosmic being at a time - but it's a lucky break for Molecule Man. Doom decides he'll make the appropriate adjustments for the future, in case a situation like this happens again. Owen Reece might be the mightiest mortal of all - save for Doom - but he will eventually have his powers claimed by Doom as well. First, though, Doom has another person to visit with his vessel full of cosmic energy, someone who will enable him to magnify this power and help deliver the entire universe into the hands of Doctor Doom!
#374 - Suddenly the… Secret Defenders!
We continue with the manhunt for the Human Torch in progress. Spider-Man is hanging from a ceiling as he surreptitiously sneaks inside a very conspicuous New York townhouse. He's there to help his friend, of course, by getting help from the 'big guns' he mentioned in the previous issue. If the cover wasn't hint enough, or the mention of a townhouse, then Doctor Strange calling the wallcrawler down before he scuffs it up with footprints on his ceiling should make things clear. Also, Wong hates cleaning those! Spidey is surprised Strange knew he was coming, but the wizard just waves him off by saying that he'd be a crappy sorcerer if he didn't. Spider-Man wonders if that means he also knows why he has come, and Strange assures him he does - even a sorcerer reads the newspapers to keep up with current events - that, and for Calvin and Hobbes!
While this conversation is happening, Strange is busy building a literal house of cards in the air, constructed entirely out of Tarot cards. Spider-Man wonders what he's doing, and Strange explains that it's a device to free his mystical subconscious, while internally he muses that recent events in his own book caused him to lose many of his powers, and he has to rely on these sorts of enchantments. This is related to an 'Emancipation Incantation' in which he renounced the various mystical beings he drew power from (like Agamotto) and which meant he was now mostly casting using his own lifeforce. Anyway, he goes to add one more card and the house collapses, which was unavoidable - but the important part is which card caused the collapse. He turns it over to reveal that the card is of a skull-faced figure in a green hood - the 13th Major Arcana: Death, or Doom! Spider-Man wonders what that means, and Doctor Strange isn't certain himself. Geniuses, these two.
Strange explains that his card construct only confirmed his suspicions that the Human Torch's woes have a far greater cosmic scope than is readily apparent. Thus, Strange will aid Spider-Man in his search! Spidey is happy, if a little creeped out by Strange's behaviour, and asks if the good Doctor can contact a few of his old pals from a while back, when they briefly filled in for the Fantastic Four together. Strange promptly astrally projects out of his body and visits Wolverine, who is busy training on his robot-fighting techniques, Hulk, who is working out while reading nuclear physics textbooks, and Ghost Rider, who is driving his motorcycle through a cemetery - as you do. None of them are pleased at getting contacted, since all of them are suffering various personal torments at the time - this is the 1990's, after all - but as heroes they reluctantly answer the call anyway. I have to say, if you wanted to bring him in peacefully, this is just about the last trio of heroes I'd contact...
Turning to the home base of the Fantastic Four, still in ruins after the events of Infinity War, we see Reed, Ben, and Sharon return from their trek to the arctic to save Alicia. They come home only to discover what happened in their absence - Johnny set a University on fire causing millions in damages, and then fled from the police! A horrified Reed asks what's wrong with Sue that she'd allow something like this to happen, which seems a little harsh when she wasn't even really involved. The still scantily-clad Sue angrily explains that a joint attack by Paibok, Devos and Lyja led to Johnny unleashing his ultimate attack, and they'd have killed him if he didn't - but she supposes that sort of thing doesn't matter to him! She asks what nerve Reed has to go traipsing off with the others to the North Pole on some adventure while he has problems in his own backyard, only to come back and blame her for everything that went wrong in his absence! Reed responds that they were battling a rogue Watcher up there - what was she doing exactly, aside from running around naked in that ridiculous new costume of hers? Ouch!
Sharon worries about Sue's radical personality change, but is distracted by her personal romantic problems. She tries to bring up Ben's love confession to Alicia in the previous issue, but while he understands her problem, he has no idea how to discuss these things. Awkwardly he tells her they'll discuss it after all this is over, but Sharon is getting impatient at the constant delays. While Reed and Sue continue to unleash their pent-up frustrations at ever greater volume, their voices carry to a nearby room where Agatha Harkness watches over little Franklin, who hates it when they fight like this. He hates it a lot. To Agatha's horror his eyes begin to glow red as mystical energy surrounds him, and she tells him to control himself. She uses her magical training to force Franklin to sleep and release his powers, but she worriedly observes that he is growing stronger at a staggering rate - what will happen at his next outburst, or the one after that? She wants to warn the others, but they're beset on all sides by adversaries - too many to deal with at once! She loves Franklin, but she fears him, too…
Shifting over to distant Doomstadt, natives of the city behold a fearful glow around the castle of their Lord, and decide he must be hard at work inside his laboratory - who knows what new dire threat will soon be unleashed upon unsuspecting mankind? Within the palatial abode, Doom has successfully placed most of the cosmic energy he siphoned from the rogue Watcher Aron into a specially constructed battery pack. He commands a robot to pick up the battery pack and follow him - to the place where destiny awaits! He calls it a Mechadrone, by the way, but it's clearly a bog standard servo-guard of the original design - maybe he just felt like changing their name.
In the next room, a small legion of Doctor Doom's technical staff, all dressed in green leotards, are busy finishing up work on a brand new armor, constructed to his most exacting specifications. He tolerates nothing but absolute perfection! The suit in question, at first blush, appears to share a number of key features with both the recent 'futuristic' armor which appeared in Fantastic Four v1 #350 as well as the armor of a future incarnation of Doom we'll be seeing in Doom 2099, so I like to read this as a bit of a stealth prequel. At the very least it gives us a natural connection between the two versions of the character - clearly there is common ground there. Most notably this armor is silver in color, has sculpted abs, and bears a distinct row of spikes around the collar which extends onto the shoulder pads. In other words, it's from the 90's. Doom compliments his support crew for their work, but commands them out of the room - he wishes to be alone!
With all the humans gone, Doom has several servo-guards help him out of his cloak, an apparent reference to Fantastic Four v1 #258. Humans aren't allowed to see Doom's face, but the robots don't count - their unseeing eyes rove without really seeing. In this comic, by the way, Doom once more has his full head of hair. and though the extent of his scarring is unclear, it's at least not sufficient to extend to his cheeks or ears as in some later depictions. The robots disrobe Doom, remove his armor, and start putting on the new pieces one by one, all while Doom narrates to himself that the Watcher on the Moon must surely already know that Doom took the power of his colleague. As the robots attach the cosmic battery to his armor like a backpack, Doom declares he can already feel the power flowing through this armor - power far beyond the dreams of most humans, which has given him a thirst for more!
Back in New York, the Four have briefly set aside their internal quarrels to go look for Johnny in their little flying bumper cars, each of them carrying a signal to warn the others if they spot him. I'd like to take a brief moment to mention their costumes. Since the writers decided to dress Sue in an extremely revealing outfit without a back, or anything covering her arms or legs or boobs, the issue of her getting cold would obviously come up. Travelling at high speeds in the air would be pretty drafty. Thus the solution here is to give her a bomber jacket. An ugly, brown, bomber jacket - and that's it. No pants. Reed also has an ugly brown vest, but it's literally just a few dozen pouches stitched together - he's had that since Fantastic Four v1 #371, but during most of the intervening period he was stuck in a simulated world so it didn't really come up. During one of those issues it was even discolored from beginning to end, but it probably looked better in white anyway! At least Sharon made herself a more sensible costume than Sue.
As he flies off, Reed notes that Sue ignored him when they set off, and he can't blame her after the way they'd been snapping at each other. What's wrong between them lately? It is the tension of their hectic lives, the mounting pressure of all these threats at the same time, or something worse? Reed loves Susan, but he can't deny that there's something unsettling about her recently, and he wonders if he's feeling threatened by the fact that she's taken charge of leading the team quite effectively when he was away, supplanting his traditional position. Reed is so caught up in his vaguely sexist, vaguely self-aware thoughts that he flies by Johnny, who wants to come in from the cold but doesn't know how to face Reed after the way he screwed up. He wanders off, complaining about the way he could use a shower and a shave...
Elsewhere, the four 'Secret Defenders' have gathered, with a ghostly Doctor Strange hovering over Spidey, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, and Hulk. Wolverine can smell Johnny from a mile away due to him not having washed in ages, and Ghost Rider figures that means they can take him down quickly before any innocent blood is shed. Hulk concurs, figuring the only blood that will be shed is Johnny's. Spider-Man is a bit freaked out by such talk and reminds them that they're here to get Torch to surrender, not hurt him! Wolverine wonders who appointed him leader, and when Doctor Strange says he backs Spidey, Hulk figures a guy who isn't even really there doesn't get a say. Incidentally, going back to costumes for a moment, what is up with the Hulk's getup here? Why is everyone wearing ugly brown? Evidently the 90's and early 2000's FPS games have a lot in common. Anyway, Spider-Man worriedly wonders if his choice of allies was really all that wise…
Meanwhile, in space, Paibok, Devos, and Lyja are keeping an eye on Johnny. They're happy he's suffering as a result of their actions, but Devos admits he'd have preferred a more personal form of punishment than this. Lyja wonders why she isn't enjoying Johnny's suffering like the others, since her former husband did abandon her and their unborn child. Shouldn't she hate him? And yet…?
The Secret Defenders catch up with Johnny Storm on a random rooftop, and show themselves out in the open. Wolverine asks if he's burned down any more schools lately, while Hulk just tells him he's coming with them, while Spider-Man tries to calm things down and explain that they're supposed to give him a choice in the matter. Johnny figures he's no match for all these bruisers put together, but neither will he just let himself get muscled to the ground. Time to put the pride on hold - and call for backup. He blasts the Fantastic Four flare into the sky with his fire powers, then gets ready for a rumble!
Combat almost immediately erupts, with Johnny narrowly avoiding Wolverine and Ghost Rider while Spider-Man tries once again to calm everyone down and say that fighting isn't necessary. Johnny wonders how Spidey of all people could betray him, and when the hero tries to say he's trying to help Johnny, he's told he's got a funny way of showing it. Hulk uses an almighty clap of his hands to douse the Torch for a moment and declares that he's already spent too much of his life engaged in mindless fisticuffs. He won't waste any more! Which is when a big rocky fist taps him on the shoulder and wonders if he's got one more romp in him. The Fantastic Four have arrived! Ben knocks Hulk off his feet with one blow, and everything threatens to spiral out of control.
Doctor Strange, still hovering nearby in his astral form, muses that his card trick from before indicated that this encounter would be resolved by some unexpected Doom - so perhaps someone is fated to die here? Spidey wonders if it's finally time to talk, but Wolverine declares the time for negotiation is over, and he tells Reed that Johnny is theirs. Reed tells him that the Fantastic Four would never abandon one of their own, and Johnny will voluntarily give himself up! Wolverine complains that maybe they don't want to wait for him to do the right thing, then threatens him with his adamantium claws, reminding Reed that they'll cut through even his super-stretchy hide! Nearby, Ghost Rider warns Wolverine that Sue is raising her hands to lash out at him, but she's only forming a shield around himself - and around Wolverine's hands, so he can't actually cut her husband. They then share a few passive-aggressive names of endearment back and forth, very mature.
Johnny isn't too pleased with the way Ghost Rider tries to tag his sister with his chain, even if she deflected it, and opens fire on him. Ghost Rider assures him it would only have stunned her on contact - though it would still have been more effective than regular fire on someone who is perpetually wreathed in hellfire. Sharon, meanwhile, goes after Spider-Man and asks if he and Johnny weren't supposed to be friends. Spidey agrees, but says things got a little out of hand, before avoiding her blow and webbing her up.
Ben and Hulk slug it out, meanwhile, with Hulk pointing out that he's the poster child for unthinking violence, but he's learned since his rampaging days, and while he can't undo everything he's done, he can prevent others from taking the same path. He then punches Ben on top of his head hard enough to send him through two solid floors of the building below them. Ouch! Meanwhile, Mister Fantastic has completely wrapped up Wolverine, revealing that even though adamantium is super-sharp, Reed's body is malleable enough he can just sort of bend around the cutting force and avoid getting hurt anyway. Hulk approaches and says that they're all very impressed that the mutant's greatest trick can't hurt him, then tosses him aside like he's weightless - time for a new tactic!
Even as the battle goes on back on Earth, we switch over to the blue area of the Moon, to the ancient city of Attilan, ancestral home of the Inhumans. It's a city which is currently preparing for an attack! It seems a missile was launched from Earth, and it's on a collision course with the Moon, due to impact nearby! Some inhumans are about to inform the royal family, but they're already aware - Black Bolt and Medusa arrive, with the latter observing that her husband seems oddly at ease about the situation. Gorgon, meanwhile, observes that perhaps he's already calculated the trajectory of the missile and concluded, as he himself just did, that it isn't aimed at them - but at the home of Uatu the Watcher!
Deep inside his citadel, Uatu is doing what he does best over the body of the rogue Aron, whom he captured at the end of the previous issue - watching! The comic recounts that Aron violated his vow of non-interference, and he's already paid a great price for such treachery - namely getting stuffed into a big glass stasis cylinder! Horror of horrors! The morose moment is interrupted when a wall suddenly violently blows up to reveal a new arrival - Doctor Doom himself, dressed in his brand new armor, and blazing with the pink light of Aron's power. Doom names himself, then tells Uatu that he knew it was pointless to try and conceal his plans from someone who has been watching humanity for millennia - so he has come, he explains, to see if the vow of non-interference extends to one who would invade this citadel and claim the power which lies within Uatu himself!
Back on Earth, the petty hero dust-up is still ongoing. Sue comments that there's something hauntingly noble about Wolverine, but he's got too many rough edges for her tastes, then bounces him away from her shield. He could use some tenderizing! Wolverine decides to stress-test her force fields and she just eggs him on, much to Ben's annoyance. He comes over to tell Wolverine off for treating a lady so ungraciously and plants him face-first into the floor. An enraged Wolverine declares nobody gets in the way of him when he has his mad on - nobody! With that he lashes out with his claws and viciously maims Ben's face with his adamantium claws, and an inhuman cry of agony sears through the air. Wolverine is immediately apologetic about going too far, but Ben just punches him so hard that he gets blasted through an entire building before he comes to a stop.
The Fantastic Four converge on Ben , with Reed worriedly telling him that he needs immediate medical attention while Sue cries in horror at the damage that was done, calling his face horrible. Ben tries to play it off, figuring it can't be much worse than it already was. Johnny decides he'll never forgive himself if all this led to Ben being permanently disfigured, and Ghost Rider takes advantage to lasso him down from the sky with his chain, then declares that his carelessness caused this confrontation, and his thoughtless actions caused a University to burn and shed innocent blood. The time has come for punishment, for vengeance! His body, mind, soul, will suffer under the Penance Stare!
Before Ghost Rider can unleash his wrath, however, a blast of energy interrupts the proceedings and Johnny's ex-wife descends from the sky to protect him - or more specifically, to declare that only she gets to beat him up. Yah? She's introduced, by the way, as Lyja the Lazerfist. Yeah, really, she's sticking with that. With the 'z' and everything. Johnny worries whether Lyja really hates him so much she's come to finish him herself, even as the purple-clad green-skinned alien hovers in mid-air in front of him. Up in space, Paibok and Devos realize that their colleague has betrayed them, as she slipped away while they were distracted. Devos reveals himself to be a gigantic racist by immediately concluding that Lyja's actions are an indictment of her entire species, and that it's about time to get rid of the Skrulls, starting with Paibok!
Wolverine rejoins the battle after he got punted away, but Reed warns him to stay away. Lyja then joins the rest of the Four in protecting Johnny, who wonders if he deserves this loyalty after the way he messed up with her. As the Secret Defenders surround them, however, the Fantastic Four are suddenly engulfed in blazing light and vanish into thin air!
Hulk warns that the Invisible Woman may have simply turned them all see-through, which isn't a bad point to make, but Wolverine notes he'd be able to tell if they were still there through his other senses - they're really gone. Spidey says that the moment they disappeared the group looked just as shocked as they did, and the ghostly Strange concludes the power which took them was not of this world! If it was one of the team's countless foes… they might have seen the last of the Fantastic Four!
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
These issues are relatively light on their Doom content, but heavy on the interpersonal drama and interlocking plotlines - basically, it's melodramatic nonsense that doesn't really ever go anywhere. It's honestly more of a soap opera than many storylines in comics already tend to be, so it's hard to excise individual plots from the whole, but it's probably a good way to keep people coming back to see how things progress. The people you don't lose right away, of course. I appreciate messing with the status quo rather than keeping everything identical (though there are limits on that) but I wished I actually liked many of the changes here. As it stands, this is just barely passable because it's not completely terrible at what it's trying to do. When it doesn't shit the bed.
Johnny is the most central character of these issues, and also one of the only ones who has to fully own up to what happened to him. Not only is he kill-happy during Infinity War (which is a topic of contention between Ben and him in the early issues) but he also goes full Nova in the middle of a crowded area after willfully refraining from calling in backup until it's too late. He wasn't forced into that situation - he put himself into a problematic position with his own decisions, then retroactively claims it's either the situation's fault or his powers running amok, instead of owning up to it. Granted, he does eventually give himself up to the police, but only after Sue basically starts a war on his behalf against law enforcement and he realizes it's getting serious. It'll be interesting to see how the courtroom side of this entire affair shakes out after the current storyline is resolved and everyone is back from the Moon. If it gets more than a passing mention, of course. Kudos, though, for Johnny's little speech to the Wild Pack, that was pretty cool.
Sue is the next most changed character here, and her new self is the most… contentious of the bunch, I would say. Her extremely revealing costume with the 4-shaped boob hole is well-known and well-mocked, and it lasts for a bunch of issues - and for all that people claim it's just a storyline thing, it's certainly no coincidence that it's the female member of the team that gets taken over by an exhibitionist spirit who makes her rip most of her clothes off. There's also the fact that it's explicit here that Sue designed this new costume to be sexy in order to gain her man's approval. It's basically the first thing she says to Reed after donning it, no less. She's basically lost all the character growth of several decades, but now she's really angry about it. Sue's personality transplant is actually lot worse for her character than her physical looks - she goes from the positive influence on the team to full-on asshole, comfortable with assaulting people with little pretext, threatening and attacking the police, and she arguably commits sexual assault - I'm not sure how you'd classify forcibly disrobing an entire room full of people and making them to run around naked because they criticized your clothing choices, but it's pretty fucked up regardless.
I've never been a fan of the 'Malice' character and how she's portrayed, so I'm not too fond of seeing her here. The idea behind the original Malice story was that it was a repressed side of Sue that appeared after years of being treated as an inferior by her teammates and the public. The Hate-Monger amplified her hate, sure, but Malice represented a legitimate anger, and after the Hate-Monger's influence was gone, Sue changed her name from Invisible Girl to Invisible Woman to reflect owning her maturity, and all of that dovetailed with John Byrne writing Sue as a much more powerful and empowered character than before. It turned something pretty damn sexist into a message of feminism. The same thing happens here, sort of, but it's written instead like the alleged 'feminism' from writers back in the 70's, when an assertive woman is almost always a crazy violent nutcase who is looked on with doubt by all the male characters. If this entire affair is supposed to be character growth, maybe the writers should have realized that this story has already been told better, and moved on to something less overdone.
Reed and Ben both get their own slight 90's updates, but they're less extreme than the others. Reed is mostly just there to put new gear on everyone, including a dorky new jacket with pockets for himself - he doesn't change much otherwise, at least during these issues. Ben, meanwhile, gets slashed in the face by Wolverine - an ongoing issue which leads to a costume change for him in the near future, and not a particularly well-remembered one either. Honestly it's just kind of dorky, and I'm not sure why he decided to skip out on medical care this time only. Other than the two of them, Alicia and Lyja show up to bring the team to gender parity - which is appreciated, if a bit random. Slightly less appreciated, though, is the fact that all of the women are there to have pointless relationship fights with their respective boyfriends/love interests/exes and it's going to be a headache to deal with all this shit, I can already tell. Soap opera is a good description!
The actual plots of these issues are pretty empty-headed. The entire Aron saga is confusing, in that the rogue Watcher just randomly kidnaps Alicia for no apparent reason, sets up an elaborate illusion world for the Fantastic Four to waste half an issue in, and then gets into an entirely pointless fight with the Molecule Man for yet more page wastage. None of that actually meaningfully contributed to any larger plots - it's just stuff for the team to be doing. Johnny, meanwhile, gets an actual plot - but it's put on pause, and we might get back to finding out how his legal issues turn out later. Sue's plot is literally just being a raging bitch to everyone and assaulting them for several issues while also complaining a lot. Lots of pretty vapid issues quickly getting resolved so a new one can be dropped in. Characters like Doctor Strange, Daredevil and Spider-Man are basically just there to cameo before leaving again without meaningfully changing anything.
Doctor Doom's plot in these issues is almost entirely divorced from the actual story - he builds himself a new armor, goes to tackle Aron and steals his cosmic Watcher powers pretty easily, then launches himself to the Moon to steal the powers of the other Watcher too because he figures the big-headed weirdo is the likeliest to take offense at his thievery. I like Doom's new armor well enough (though it probably won't last long) but he doesn't really get to do all that much here, and what we do see is basically a repeat of the Silver Surfer Saga with a different cosmic target. That said, at least he managed to get into space this time around! We'll be seeing him wield his newfangled pink energy in the next issue, I imagine, which should be a more substantial Doom issue than these glorified preludes. Even a lame rehash of a previous FF vs. Doom fight would be a nice diversion from all this relationship shit. Now if only they didn't bring all that with them to the Moon...
After covering something like six different issues here, it feels like we haven't really gotten anywhere. It's 90% setup, like getting Sharon and Lyja back, introducing Johnny's problems before just kind of dropping them so something else can happen after an issue-long irrelevant side-thing with a random quartet of heroes, introducing Sue's personality change but not really doing much with it except make her an ass, teasing Franklin stuff but never pulling that trigger, attacks by some aliens who just kind of leave again after they're done... The only thing that's resolved is freeing Alicia from Aron, and that happened without the Fantastic Four even lifting a finger against the guy! What a bunch of vapid crap. In sum, then, this is really bog-standard average stuff for the era - with bad 90s shit like poor costume updates, arbitrary dark shit for no reason, really dumb retro-references like the Secret Defenders, and too little Doom. I'm gonna go with 2 stars... below average for my taste. 1 star is for proper crap, after all.
I think I'll be needing that soon...
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I do quite love this picture of Johnny going Nova, even if it's kind of a dumbass move.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Do not belabor the obvious, you snivelling simpleton!"
"If there is even the remotest opportunity to leech the star-spanning power which I suspect is at hand… it will belong to DOOM!"
"It is fitting that [Aron] lies crumpled at my feet, for soon… very soon… this entire world… and perhaps the universe as well, will be prostrate before the matchless glory that is DOOM!"
"I will tolerate nothing less than absolute perfection!"
"Your supreme sovereign is pleased… for the moment!"
"Mortal eyes cannot view the true face of Doom without the ultimate punishment!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
Can I just sort of give this to Sue for that costume? Yeah, thought so.
Runner-up is the white vest Reed has for one entire issue because the colorist didn't realize it's supposed to be brown.
Comic Trivia
The entire love polyhedron of the Fantastic Four is getting pretty silly at this point, even ignoring the complication of multiple clone versions of the same person loving and marrying different people and having different relationships. To recap the entire sordid thing in short: Alicia and Ben began dating early on, in Fantastic Four v1 #9. After Secret Wars, Alicia was replaced by the Skrull spy Lyja, who pursued a relationship with Johnny under her assumed identity around Fantastic Four v1 #265. Ben returned from Battleworld in Fantastic Four v1 #277 to discover the situation, thinking Alicia left him for Johnny. Lyja and Johnny got married in Fantastic Four v1 #300, while Ben was given leadership of the Fantastic Four and he recruited Ms. Marvel to the team in Fantastic Four v1 #307.
Sharon mutated into the She-Thing in Fantastic Four v1 #310 (after which comes that one infamous suicide issue) and Ben immediately starts hitting on the only other rock person in the world. By Fantastic Four v1 #317 they are in a relationship. Eventually their relationship soured after Ben was cured of his powers in an accident during Fantastic Four v1 #326. Later, during Fantastic Four v1 #350, Sharon sought out Doctor Doom's help to cure her own powers, and on the same day Ben decided to regain his own to try and save her. Not much later, in Fantastic Four v1 #354, she disappeared after her last mission with the team. Shortly after that time, in Fantastic Four v1 #358, Lyja was exposed and the real Alicia rescued, and thinking that she and Ben are still an item, Alicia has not been told about Ben's relationship with Sharon.
Doom-Tech of the Week
I'm not sure we've seen this particular Personal Cruiser before, and obviously the Cosmically-Empowered Armor is new too. The device he uses to sap the power of the Watcher is pretty close in look and function to the one used on the Silver Surfer, so I'm not gonna count that as new. That's just reusing proven technology!
Covers
I am covering a bunch of issues here, because Doctor Doom is more of a background threat building up during these issues, while the main cast is doing their usual shenanigans front and center, building up to the confrontation. As a result, Doom doesn't actually appear on any of these covers - because they're far more interested in being gimmicky 90's nonsense, like the completely red embossed cover, and some with foil. It was a thing at the time to make 'collectable' issues when speculators ran amok. It eventually nearly killed the industry. Anyway, the main star in most of these covers is actually the Human Torch for storyline-related reasons, and Malice because boobies. Also there's a a lot of guest stars with guns and pockets - again, it's the 1990's now, expect this to continue.
Story Overview
Jumping directly into the main story could work here, but I think a bunch of prepwork is useful to provide much-needed context for the complex layers of plots and individual situations that tie into the forthcoming issues - we're sticking with the Fantastic Four for something like six to eight issues in a row, after all, though I'll only cover the more Doom-involved ones in full. I'll get you up to speed on the most relevant status quo changes for the team, though, since a lot of stuff is going on. Time for backstory!
#369 - 372 - Backstory Issues
Okay, so back during the Infinity War event, when everyone was subjected to Galactus's mind-probe to update them on what's going on, it apparently caused an unexpected side-effect in Sue of the Fantastic Four - the dark side of her personality, Malice, reappeared from wherever she'd been hiding. She's the one in bondage gear and spikes, you might've seen her before. It's a whole thing. They fight a battle in their mind until Sue pulls a Naruto and absorbs her dark side into herself, which immediately makes her more assertive, as well as more of an asshole.
After the event wraps up and everyone is warped back home to Earth, the Fantastic Four are dumped into the wreckage of the nuked Four Freedoms Plaza. Reed wonders what the hell people did to his place in his absence, and Sue chastises Reed because it was his doppelganger who was responsible, and it was her quick thinking which ensured nobody was killed. Angry at her husband over something he clearly didn't do, Sue storms off and leaves everyone staring after her in confused silence.
The Fantastic Four soon learn that Aron the Rogue Watcher kidnapped Alicia Masters while the entire Earth was in suspended animation (for some reason?) They then run into Sharon Ventura at their home base, a former member of the team and the former She-Thing - we've covered her adventures with the team before. Reed leaves her and Ben to catch up. Sue, meanwhile, has had a drastic wardrobe malfunction - she's trying on a new and quite extremely revealing costume. What are you even doing, Sue? Reed gets uncomfortable and quickly changes the subject to the repairs of their building, which angers Sue enough that she lashes out at him about getting neglected. The two are unaware that their son Franklin is watching their marital spat, and since he hates to see his family fight, Franklin vows to make them stop any way possible, while his eyes crackle with boundless energy.
While Sharon reports back to her mysterious backer who wears a voluminous cloak - who could that possibly be - Reed tries to contact the Watcher on the Moon to talk about the whole Aron kidnapping situation, but Uatu decides not to respond, determined to merely watch rather than interfere. While Reed and Ben are getting ready to leave, they are joined by Sharon, who volunteers to fill in for an absent Johnny and Sue and has created a new Ms. Marvel costume for such an occasion. The trio appear outside the cave entrance of Aron's hideout located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, last seen during that terrible 'dream' episode in Fantastic Four v1 #330. They are confronted by the rogue Watcher, who says they are going to learn first hand what he'd done to Alicia!
Johnny, meanwhile, heads to Empire State University to take some classes, musing that heroes have gotten darker lately to keep up with the times, and maybe he should too. He gets ambushed by aliens Paibok and Devos, and a civilian side-character named Bridget ends up frozen in a block of ice by said bad guys, much to Johnny's horror. Johnny considers firing a Fantasti-Flare into the sky to ask for help in this fight, but decides he can handle it solo like other 90's badasses would. He manages to thaw her out in time, but is blasted from behind by his former wife Lyja, who Johnny thought was quite dead. She also calls herself 'the Lazerfist' now, as if that's not completely ridiculous. Lyja is furious that Johnny left her for dead when they went to rescue Alicia Masters back in Fantastic Four #358, and worse still, he abandoned their unborn child! The shocks just keep coming! Belatedly Johnny calls for help, but he's overpowered facing three foes at once and is at risk of being killed, so he uses his Nova Flame attack, risking the lives of all the nearby students in the process. When Sue arrives to help, she finds a desperate Johnny claiming that he lost control of his powers to explain the devastation: Empire State University is on fire.
Not much later, the NYC's superhuman response police unit, Code: Blue, comes to Four Freedoms Plaza to arrest Johnny. This team includes both Marcus Stone, the cop we saw back in Thor #409 facing Doom's teleport-you-in-front-of-a-dinosaur-gun, and Rigger Ruiz, the elder sister that Rhythm Ruiz of the Yancy Street Gang was so embarrassed about back in Fantastic Four v1 #361. Small world! Anyway, the whole thing quickly devolves into a fight, but before the battle can escalate, Johnny turns himself in.
Meanwhile, tenants of the Fantastic Four's building are unhappy about the recent nuclear attack that took out the upper floors of the place, creating an eyesore - oh, and also risking all their lives. Priorities, people! Not interested in listening to their complaints, Sue tells them that if they don't like the conditions of renting here, they can just up and leave. Insulted, the head of the committee begins chastising Sue for her revealing costume, but this crosses a line for Sue, and she uses her invisibility powers to render everyone else's clothes transparent to mock them. Embarrassed and humiliated, the angry mob realize that their complaints are going nowhere and they storm out, except for one straggler who is awfully interested to know how long Sue's husband will be out of town, and maybe she wants to have a little fun? Ugh.
While Johnny is being led up the stairs of the courthouse in front of a screaming mob, a nearby Peter Parker's Spider-Sense suddenly goes off to warn him of a strange woman in the crowd, but he's not sure why that would be. She turns out to be Lyja in disguise, and briefly shows herself to Johnny while nobody else is looking so that he'll panic. Paibok - disguised as a cop - then tries to take a shot at Johnny, who is forced to flame on when his attackers take down one of the officers guarding him. The people gathered around think he's attacked an innocent police officer, however, and Code: Blue opens fire on him in return, so Johnny decides that things are getting too out of control and flees.
Elsewhere, Ben Grimm wakes up in human form to a happy home with three children and his wife Alicia Masters, who has her eyesight back. This feels oddly familiar, doesn't it? Ben doesn't realize that he is actually living a fabricated life within a tiny pocket universe created by Aron the Rogue Watcher for his own amusement - Liddleville with more steps. As Aron marvels over his creation, and how he can alter events in his pocket universe to anything he wishes, he is interrupted by the arrival of the Molecule Man, who demands that Aron set his prisoners free. He is there under the control of Alicia's father, the villain Puppet Master...
Back in New York City, Peter Parker has changed into his alter ego of Spider-Man and is swinging through the city to try and find Johny. Said hero spots him from a nearby alley, but thinking that Spidey had joined the manhunt against him as well, he feels utterly and completely alone. To make matters worse, J. Jonah Jameson has just hired the services of Silver Sable and the Wild Pack in order to hunt down Johnny as well, and bring him to justice for his crimes...
#373 - Shattered Lives
Well, here we go, we've finally arrived at the actual issue I'm covering, with all the build-up and establishing material for the next arc or two covered. Thankful, we don't have long to wait for Doctor Doom to show up, as he's there on page 1! Silently, majestically, the brooding armor-clad figure of the good Doctor overlooks subtle variations and fluctuations in a highly sensitive device in front of him, while his mind races as quickly as a sophisticated computer, instanting assimilating the raw data. He asks for a report from his technicians, and a minion quickly informs him that a secret agent Doom sent to infiltrate the Fantastic Four appears to have been apprehended by an unidentified source of incredible and unknown energy! Doom crosses his arms and tells his minion not to belabor the obvious, and states that at a glance he's already determined the likely identity of the captor - but he can't figure out what their motive might be for doing so...
Deciding on his next course of action, Doom tells his servant to use his spy's secret beacon to pinpoint her exact location, and to prepare Doom's cruiser for departure. He's going there personally to take care of this situation. The aged, bespectacled minion immediately agrees. As he walks away, Doom declares that if he is correct in his hypothesis, and there is even the slightest opportunity to leech the 'star-spawning power' which he suspects is involved, it shall belong to Doom! Emphasis on the last word is in huge red shuddering block letters, by the way. His minion stares after him and fears that soon all of humanity shall tremble beneath his Master's boot!
Over in the Canadian Rockies, Molecule Man warns Aron that he is the Master of Molecules - well, non-organic ones, anyway - and that's more than enough to rescue Alicia Masters! Aron's only response is to lift a hand and toss an entire mountain's worth of debris at Owen, but he just transforms them into harmless bubbles before they can impact. Owen then drags some clouds out of the sky and transforms them into an avalanche of solid steel which comes raining down on his enemy, but Aron teleports away before he can be killed by the attack. Aron then summons some trees to his aid, and Owen complains that he shouldn't have mentioned the thing about organics - him and his big mouth! Unable to affect organic matter, he's tied up by the trees while Aron turns away.
Oh, if you're a little confused about Molecule Man's limitations here, it's actually the same ones he had when he first got his powers in Fantastic Four #20. He overcame those limitations in Secret Wars #11 by virtue of Doctor Doom granting him enlightenment while nigh-omnipotent, only to have them imposed on him again sometime later in Fantastic Four Annual #24, presumably because having no weaknesses is slightly boring to write about. Just make him vulnerable to Kryptonite and magic guys, you know how this works!
Within Aron's Liddleville, Ben Grimm awakens from a nightmare, and is consoled by his wife Alicia and their children. Ben goes to work at his office at the Grimm & Richards Corporation, where he tells his partner Reed Richards and his secretary Sharon Ventura about the strange dreams of turning into a rock monster and being watched by a massive eye. He's got everything he ever could have wanted here, so why does he keep getting these haunting dreams? Reed admits he's had similar issues and is seeing a psychologist to deal with it, but Ben gets angry at the suggestion, thinking Reed is claiming he's going crazy. When Ben begins to attack Reed with a chair, however, Richards stretches out of the way, much to his own shock. Also, Ben suddenly begins to transform into the Thing, regaining his memories and realizing what's really going on here. Sharon, meanwhile, tries to flee for cover from the rocky monster that's just appeared in the room, but a simple swipe of her hand causes a coat rack to break in two. This really does feel familiar, doesn't it?
As the three try to make sense of these things, Alicia Masters suddenly teleports into the room, begging them all not to ruin the perfect lives she has constructed for them here - Ben has his humanity back, and she has her eyesight! Ben tries to convince Alicia that this fantasy world is not their real life, and they can't stay here. Suddenly their discussion is interrupted by the arrival of the Fabulous Foursome, fabricated heroes based on the original Fantastic Four during the early days of their career. They're wearing elaborate costumes too, with the equivalent of the Thing even having a full-on Superman cape! These are the villains of the hour, I suppose.
Back at Four Freedoms Plaza, repairs on the building have been halted by the Invisible Woman due to the pending legal battle between the Fantastic Four and Empire State University. Also Sue is still dressed like she's forgotten the function of clothing. A 4-shaped boob window, really? Sue tells her financial manager, Ms. Yakaka, to buy the people at ESU off so they drop their charges against Johnny, though she's warned that could run into the millions. She also demands that her lawyer Matt Murdock provide some results in finding her brother while he is on the run from the law. As Murdock and Yakaki leave, they both mention that Sue has visibly changed - and not just in that she's wearing half her usual clothing. Matt figures she's under intense strain, and tells the financial manager that they have to pool their talents to help resolve this current crisis.
At the Symkarian Embassy, Silver Sable and her Wild Pack are gearing up to hunt down the Torch after they have been hired to do so by Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Sable is visited by Spider-Man who tries to appeal to her, but she in turn tries to hire him to help her on her mission. Their discussion is interrupted with reports that the Wild Pack has managed to track Johnny Storm down. Elsewhere in the city, the Torch is being pursued by Battlestar, Chen, Powell, Crippler and Quentino, who are chasing after him with specially designed jet packs and weapons that can disable Johnny's flame powers. During the battle Johnny pleads to them about his innocence in the fire, but it falls on deaf ears - and it's also not strictly true. The Torch finally loses his temper when Crippler tries to hit him with an acid grenade. Having had enough of being hounded, Johnny lashes out and uses his powers to disable the Wild Pack's jet packs and helicopter before fleeing the scene. It's actually a pretty badass sequence in which he goes on a full-on tirade about how they mistake his reticence to hurt them with weakness, then unleashes his power on their equipment, which he is free to mangle - he even takes down their helicopter.
Molecule Man and Aron's battle continues to rage on, with the former realizing that the supposed trees that bound him aren't really that - they're just mineral deposits made to look like trees! What a nasty trick! He turns them to paper and shreds them apart (wait, isn't paper organic since it's made from trees? I guess the limitation is only one way...) Owen makes some boulder-spewing geysers to surround his enemy, while Aron creates a giant hand made of ice to grasp him from behind, but he sees that coming. He mocks Aron for not realizing that he can pretty much convert anything into harmless substances - every single thing! He asks Aron to take his best shot, and he's suddenly surrounded by an airless sphere. Oops. Unable to breathe, Molecule Man soon passes out, much to the frustration of the Puppet Master.
Within Aron's pocket universe, Reed, Ben and Sharon battle against the Fabulous Foursome. During the fight Alicia begs them to stop because this is a perfect world that they can all share together. The three heroes make short work of these Fantastic Four doppelgangers, with Sharon in particular putting in work - she rips out a fire hydrant to douse the Human Torch analogue, then spots the Invisible Woman by dousing the area in water and revealing a void where she's hiding out. She knocks out this sensibly dressed Sue as well, and Sharon decides she must not have access to the real one's invisible force fields, or mimic-Sue would have knocked her out from a long distance away. Reed figures Ben was right as he defeats his own copy - these heroes have similar powers, but none of the experience of the real Fantastic Four - they are really just comic book parodies. In fact, Reed notes they bear a vague resemblance to that famous fictional superhero who recently died with so much media ballyhoo, which must be a direct reference to Death of Superman!
After beating up his own twin, Ben complains that Reed is too long-winded and he prefers the silent alternative, while Sharon arrives with the two remaining superheroes under her arms. Alicia confronts the group, again talking about keeping the lovely fantasy intact, but Ben tells her off for living out a fantasy - there are no real children, none of this is true. When Alicia demands to know if all of it's a lie, if he doesn't really love her either, Ben admits that he does truly love her, much to Sharon's shock. Alicia is now more confused than ever due to all the changes in her life, and she runs away screaming for help, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality anymore. The pocket universe shatters, freeing Alicia, Reed, Ben and Sharon from its confines. Reed determines that the strain of maintaining such a complex fantasy put more strain on Alicia than Aron had anticipated, which is why she was so unstable. Ben figures that even through all that, Alicia came through for them in the end.
The heroes' newfound freedom is detected by Aron, but before the Rogue Watcher can act on it, he is suddenly incapacitated by Doctor Doom, who comes flying into the scene in gloriously abrupt fashion with an extremely familiar device we've seen him use before. He used it, long ago, to steal the power of the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four v1 #57-60! Doom declares that his analysis was correct, and a Watcher did indeed walk this world, but he's surprised to find it's not the one based on the Moon who has watched the Earth from the birth of Man to the rise of Doom. Still, he'll make do, as the identity of this alien interloper is ultimately unimportant, since he has already siphoned off the being's cosmic powers! They are beyond verbal description, and are truly without limit! Doom decides it is fitting Aron lies crumpled at his feet, for soon - very soon - the entire Earth, and perhaps the entire Universe, will lay prostrate before the matchless glory that is Doom!
Aron's former captives recover inside the cave, with Alicia only barely remembering the illusion as flashes of being able to see. Sharon wants to ask Ben about what he said to Alicia in the dream, but he tells her now is really not the time to get into those things. Aron's still out there, and he's not going to let them just waltz away! Rushing outside they find Uatu standing over Aron's unconscious body, and when Reed tries to ask the Watcher what happened, he does not respond at all. Reed is forced to wonder if Uatu is responsible for what happened here. Ben worries that things are about to get a whole lot worse, and beats himself up for Alicia being blind again - a familiar refrain by now.
Back in New York City, Matt Murdock has assumed his alter ego of Daredevil and begun his own search for the Human Torch. He soon finds Spider-Man and Silver Sable, who have caught up to the Wild Pack following their defeat at the hands of the Torch earlier in the issue. Johnny's unexpected brutality prompts Spider-Man to consider his loyalties, and he swings off to find some friends who can help him in his quest to find Johnny and get some answers - the ones he calls the big guns. Molecule Man, meanwhile, recovers from his battle with Aron, confused about the reason he came there to fight - he barely even knows this Alicia Masters! He slips away unseen, back to his little shrine to Volcana.
Miles away, Doom's sleek green personal cruiser cuts through the sky, bound for home, for Latveria. On board, Doom thinks it's a pity that his siphoning device was designed to take power from only a single cosmic being at a time - but it's a lucky break for Molecule Man. Doom decides he'll make the appropriate adjustments for the future, in case a situation like this happens again. Owen Reece might be the mightiest mortal of all - save for Doom - but he will eventually have his powers claimed by Doom as well. First, though, Doom has another person to visit with his vessel full of cosmic energy, someone who will enable him to magnify this power and help deliver the entire universe into the hands of Doctor Doom!
#374 - Suddenly the… Secret Defenders!
We continue with the manhunt for the Human Torch in progress. Spider-Man is hanging from a ceiling as he surreptitiously sneaks inside a very conspicuous New York townhouse. He's there to help his friend, of course, by getting help from the 'big guns' he mentioned in the previous issue. If the cover wasn't hint enough, or the mention of a townhouse, then Doctor Strange calling the wallcrawler down before he scuffs it up with footprints on his ceiling should make things clear. Also, Wong hates cleaning those! Spidey is surprised Strange knew he was coming, but the wizard just waves him off by saying that he'd be a crappy sorcerer if he didn't. Spider-Man wonders if that means he also knows why he has come, and Strange assures him he does - even a sorcerer reads the newspapers to keep up with current events - that, and for Calvin and Hobbes!
While this conversation is happening, Strange is busy building a literal house of cards in the air, constructed entirely out of Tarot cards. Spider-Man wonders what he's doing, and Strange explains that it's a device to free his mystical subconscious, while internally he muses that recent events in his own book caused him to lose many of his powers, and he has to rely on these sorts of enchantments. This is related to an 'Emancipation Incantation' in which he renounced the various mystical beings he drew power from (like Agamotto) and which meant he was now mostly casting using his own lifeforce. Anyway, he goes to add one more card and the house collapses, which was unavoidable - but the important part is which card caused the collapse. He turns it over to reveal that the card is of a skull-faced figure in a green hood - the 13th Major Arcana: Death, or Doom! Spider-Man wonders what that means, and Doctor Strange isn't certain himself. Geniuses, these two.
Strange explains that his card construct only confirmed his suspicions that the Human Torch's woes have a far greater cosmic scope than is readily apparent. Thus, Strange will aid Spider-Man in his search! Spidey is happy, if a little creeped out by Strange's behaviour, and asks if the good Doctor can contact a few of his old pals from a while back, when they briefly filled in for the Fantastic Four together. Strange promptly astrally projects out of his body and visits Wolverine, who is busy training on his robot-fighting techniques, Hulk, who is working out while reading nuclear physics textbooks, and Ghost Rider, who is driving his motorcycle through a cemetery - as you do. None of them are pleased at getting contacted, since all of them are suffering various personal torments at the time - this is the 1990's, after all - but as heroes they reluctantly answer the call anyway. I have to say, if you wanted to bring him in peacefully, this is just about the last trio of heroes I'd contact...
Turning to the home base of the Fantastic Four, still in ruins after the events of Infinity War, we see Reed, Ben, and Sharon return from their trek to the arctic to save Alicia. They come home only to discover what happened in their absence - Johnny set a University on fire causing millions in damages, and then fled from the police! A horrified Reed asks what's wrong with Sue that she'd allow something like this to happen, which seems a little harsh when she wasn't even really involved. The still scantily-clad Sue angrily explains that a joint attack by Paibok, Devos and Lyja led to Johnny unleashing his ultimate attack, and they'd have killed him if he didn't - but she supposes that sort of thing doesn't matter to him! She asks what nerve Reed has to go traipsing off with the others to the North Pole on some adventure while he has problems in his own backyard, only to come back and blame her for everything that went wrong in his absence! Reed responds that they were battling a rogue Watcher up there - what was she doing exactly, aside from running around naked in that ridiculous new costume of hers? Ouch!
Sharon worries about Sue's radical personality change, but is distracted by her personal romantic problems. She tries to bring up Ben's love confession to Alicia in the previous issue, but while he understands her problem, he has no idea how to discuss these things. Awkwardly he tells her they'll discuss it after all this is over, but Sharon is getting impatient at the constant delays. While Reed and Sue continue to unleash their pent-up frustrations at ever greater volume, their voices carry to a nearby room where Agatha Harkness watches over little Franklin, who hates it when they fight like this. He hates it a lot. To Agatha's horror his eyes begin to glow red as mystical energy surrounds him, and she tells him to control himself. She uses her magical training to force Franklin to sleep and release his powers, but she worriedly observes that he is growing stronger at a staggering rate - what will happen at his next outburst, or the one after that? She wants to warn the others, but they're beset on all sides by adversaries - too many to deal with at once! She loves Franklin, but she fears him, too…
Shifting over to distant Doomstadt, natives of the city behold a fearful glow around the castle of their Lord, and decide he must be hard at work inside his laboratory - who knows what new dire threat will soon be unleashed upon unsuspecting mankind? Within the palatial abode, Doom has successfully placed most of the cosmic energy he siphoned from the rogue Watcher Aron into a specially constructed battery pack. He commands a robot to pick up the battery pack and follow him - to the place where destiny awaits! He calls it a Mechadrone, by the way, but it's clearly a bog standard servo-guard of the original design - maybe he just felt like changing their name.
In the next room, a small legion of Doctor Doom's technical staff, all dressed in green leotards, are busy finishing up work on a brand new armor, constructed to his most exacting specifications. He tolerates nothing but absolute perfection! The suit in question, at first blush, appears to share a number of key features with both the recent 'futuristic' armor which appeared in Fantastic Four v1 #350 as well as the armor of a future incarnation of Doom we'll be seeing in Doom 2099, so I like to read this as a bit of a stealth prequel. At the very least it gives us a natural connection between the two versions of the character - clearly there is common ground there. Most notably this armor is silver in color, has sculpted abs, and bears a distinct row of spikes around the collar which extends onto the shoulder pads. In other words, it's from the 90's. Doom compliments his support crew for their work, but commands them out of the room - he wishes to be alone!
With all the humans gone, Doom has several servo-guards help him out of his cloak, an apparent reference to Fantastic Four v1 #258. Humans aren't allowed to see Doom's face, but the robots don't count - their unseeing eyes rove without really seeing. In this comic, by the way, Doom once more has his full head of hair. and though the extent of his scarring is unclear, it's at least not sufficient to extend to his cheeks or ears as in some later depictions. The robots disrobe Doom, remove his armor, and start putting on the new pieces one by one, all while Doom narrates to himself that the Watcher on the Moon must surely already know that Doom took the power of his colleague. As the robots attach the cosmic battery to his armor like a backpack, Doom declares he can already feel the power flowing through this armor - power far beyond the dreams of most humans, which has given him a thirst for more!
Back in New York, the Four have briefly set aside their internal quarrels to go look for Johnny in their little flying bumper cars, each of them carrying a signal to warn the others if they spot him. I'd like to take a brief moment to mention their costumes. Since the writers decided to dress Sue in an extremely revealing outfit without a back, or anything covering her arms or legs or boobs, the issue of her getting cold would obviously come up. Travelling at high speeds in the air would be pretty drafty. Thus the solution here is to give her a bomber jacket. An ugly, brown, bomber jacket - and that's it. No pants. Reed also has an ugly brown vest, but it's literally just a few dozen pouches stitched together - he's had that since Fantastic Four v1 #371, but during most of the intervening period he was stuck in a simulated world so it didn't really come up. During one of those issues it was even discolored from beginning to end, but it probably looked better in white anyway! At least Sharon made herself a more sensible costume than Sue.
As he flies off, Reed notes that Sue ignored him when they set off, and he can't blame her after the way they'd been snapping at each other. What's wrong between them lately? It is the tension of their hectic lives, the mounting pressure of all these threats at the same time, or something worse? Reed loves Susan, but he can't deny that there's something unsettling about her recently, and he wonders if he's feeling threatened by the fact that she's taken charge of leading the team quite effectively when he was away, supplanting his traditional position. Reed is so caught up in his vaguely sexist, vaguely self-aware thoughts that he flies by Johnny, who wants to come in from the cold but doesn't know how to face Reed after the way he screwed up. He wanders off, complaining about the way he could use a shower and a shave...
Elsewhere, the four 'Secret Defenders' have gathered, with a ghostly Doctor Strange hovering over Spidey, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, and Hulk. Wolverine can smell Johnny from a mile away due to him not having washed in ages, and Ghost Rider figures that means they can take him down quickly before any innocent blood is shed. Hulk concurs, figuring the only blood that will be shed is Johnny's. Spider-Man is a bit freaked out by such talk and reminds them that they're here to get Torch to surrender, not hurt him! Wolverine wonders who appointed him leader, and when Doctor Strange says he backs Spidey, Hulk figures a guy who isn't even really there doesn't get a say. Incidentally, going back to costumes for a moment, what is up with the Hulk's getup here? Why is everyone wearing ugly brown? Evidently the 90's and early 2000's FPS games have a lot in common. Anyway, Spider-Man worriedly wonders if his choice of allies was really all that wise…
Meanwhile, in space, Paibok, Devos, and Lyja are keeping an eye on Johnny. They're happy he's suffering as a result of their actions, but Devos admits he'd have preferred a more personal form of punishment than this. Lyja wonders why she isn't enjoying Johnny's suffering like the others, since her former husband did abandon her and their unborn child. Shouldn't she hate him? And yet…?
The Secret Defenders catch up with Johnny Storm on a random rooftop, and show themselves out in the open. Wolverine asks if he's burned down any more schools lately, while Hulk just tells him he's coming with them, while Spider-Man tries to calm things down and explain that they're supposed to give him a choice in the matter. Johnny figures he's no match for all these bruisers put together, but neither will he just let himself get muscled to the ground. Time to put the pride on hold - and call for backup. He blasts the Fantastic Four flare into the sky with his fire powers, then gets ready for a rumble!
Combat almost immediately erupts, with Johnny narrowly avoiding Wolverine and Ghost Rider while Spider-Man tries once again to calm everyone down and say that fighting isn't necessary. Johnny wonders how Spidey of all people could betray him, and when the hero tries to say he's trying to help Johnny, he's told he's got a funny way of showing it. Hulk uses an almighty clap of his hands to douse the Torch for a moment and declares that he's already spent too much of his life engaged in mindless fisticuffs. He won't waste any more! Which is when a big rocky fist taps him on the shoulder and wonders if he's got one more romp in him. The Fantastic Four have arrived! Ben knocks Hulk off his feet with one blow, and everything threatens to spiral out of control.
Doctor Strange, still hovering nearby in his astral form, muses that his card trick from before indicated that this encounter would be resolved by some unexpected Doom - so perhaps someone is fated to die here? Spidey wonders if it's finally time to talk, but Wolverine declares the time for negotiation is over, and he tells Reed that Johnny is theirs. Reed tells him that the Fantastic Four would never abandon one of their own, and Johnny will voluntarily give himself up! Wolverine complains that maybe they don't want to wait for him to do the right thing, then threatens him with his adamantium claws, reminding Reed that they'll cut through even his super-stretchy hide! Nearby, Ghost Rider warns Wolverine that Sue is raising her hands to lash out at him, but she's only forming a shield around himself - and around Wolverine's hands, so he can't actually cut her husband. They then share a few passive-aggressive names of endearment back and forth, very mature.
Johnny isn't too pleased with the way Ghost Rider tries to tag his sister with his chain, even if she deflected it, and opens fire on him. Ghost Rider assures him it would only have stunned her on contact - though it would still have been more effective than regular fire on someone who is perpetually wreathed in hellfire. Sharon, meanwhile, goes after Spider-Man and asks if he and Johnny weren't supposed to be friends. Spidey agrees, but says things got a little out of hand, before avoiding her blow and webbing her up.
Ben and Hulk slug it out, meanwhile, with Hulk pointing out that he's the poster child for unthinking violence, but he's learned since his rampaging days, and while he can't undo everything he's done, he can prevent others from taking the same path. He then punches Ben on top of his head hard enough to send him through two solid floors of the building below them. Ouch! Meanwhile, Mister Fantastic has completely wrapped up Wolverine, revealing that even though adamantium is super-sharp, Reed's body is malleable enough he can just sort of bend around the cutting force and avoid getting hurt anyway. Hulk approaches and says that they're all very impressed that the mutant's greatest trick can't hurt him, then tosses him aside like he's weightless - time for a new tactic!
Even as the battle goes on back on Earth, we switch over to the blue area of the Moon, to the ancient city of Attilan, ancestral home of the Inhumans. It's a city which is currently preparing for an attack! It seems a missile was launched from Earth, and it's on a collision course with the Moon, due to impact nearby! Some inhumans are about to inform the royal family, but they're already aware - Black Bolt and Medusa arrive, with the latter observing that her husband seems oddly at ease about the situation. Gorgon, meanwhile, observes that perhaps he's already calculated the trajectory of the missile and concluded, as he himself just did, that it isn't aimed at them - but at the home of Uatu the Watcher!
Deep inside his citadel, Uatu is doing what he does best over the body of the rogue Aron, whom he captured at the end of the previous issue - watching! The comic recounts that Aron violated his vow of non-interference, and he's already paid a great price for such treachery - namely getting stuffed into a big glass stasis cylinder! Horror of horrors! The morose moment is interrupted when a wall suddenly violently blows up to reveal a new arrival - Doctor Doom himself, dressed in his brand new armor, and blazing with the pink light of Aron's power. Doom names himself, then tells Uatu that he knew it was pointless to try and conceal his plans from someone who has been watching humanity for millennia - so he has come, he explains, to see if the vow of non-interference extends to one who would invade this citadel and claim the power which lies within Uatu himself!
Back on Earth, the petty hero dust-up is still ongoing. Sue comments that there's something hauntingly noble about Wolverine, but he's got too many rough edges for her tastes, then bounces him away from her shield. He could use some tenderizing! Wolverine decides to stress-test her force fields and she just eggs him on, much to Ben's annoyance. He comes over to tell Wolverine off for treating a lady so ungraciously and plants him face-first into the floor. An enraged Wolverine declares nobody gets in the way of him when he has his mad on - nobody! With that he lashes out with his claws and viciously maims Ben's face with his adamantium claws, and an inhuman cry of agony sears through the air. Wolverine is immediately apologetic about going too far, but Ben just punches him so hard that he gets blasted through an entire building before he comes to a stop.
The Fantastic Four converge on Ben , with Reed worriedly telling him that he needs immediate medical attention while Sue cries in horror at the damage that was done, calling his face horrible. Ben tries to play it off, figuring it can't be much worse than it already was. Johnny decides he'll never forgive himself if all this led to Ben being permanently disfigured, and Ghost Rider takes advantage to lasso him down from the sky with his chain, then declares that his carelessness caused this confrontation, and his thoughtless actions caused a University to burn and shed innocent blood. The time has come for punishment, for vengeance! His body, mind, soul, will suffer under the Penance Stare!
Before Ghost Rider can unleash his wrath, however, a blast of energy interrupts the proceedings and Johnny's ex-wife descends from the sky to protect him - or more specifically, to declare that only she gets to beat him up. Yah? She's introduced, by the way, as Lyja the Lazerfist. Yeah, really, she's sticking with that. With the 'z' and everything. Johnny worries whether Lyja really hates him so much she's come to finish him herself, even as the purple-clad green-skinned alien hovers in mid-air in front of him. Up in space, Paibok and Devos realize that their colleague has betrayed them, as she slipped away while they were distracted. Devos reveals himself to be a gigantic racist by immediately concluding that Lyja's actions are an indictment of her entire species, and that it's about time to get rid of the Skrulls, starting with Paibok!
Wolverine rejoins the battle after he got punted away, but Reed warns him to stay away. Lyja then joins the rest of the Four in protecting Johnny, who wonders if he deserves this loyalty after the way he messed up with her. As the Secret Defenders surround them, however, the Fantastic Four are suddenly engulfed in blazing light and vanish into thin air!
Hulk warns that the Invisible Woman may have simply turned them all see-through, which isn't a bad point to make, but Wolverine notes he'd be able to tell if they were still there through his other senses - they're really gone. Spidey says that the moment they disappeared the group looked just as shocked as they did, and the ghostly Strange concludes the power which took them was not of this world! If it was one of the team's countless foes… they might have seen the last of the Fantastic Four!
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
These issues are relatively light on their Doom content, but heavy on the interpersonal drama and interlocking plotlines - basically, it's melodramatic nonsense that doesn't really ever go anywhere. It's honestly more of a soap opera than many storylines in comics already tend to be, so it's hard to excise individual plots from the whole, but it's probably a good way to keep people coming back to see how things progress. The people you don't lose right away, of course. I appreciate messing with the status quo rather than keeping everything identical (though there are limits on that) but I wished I actually liked many of the changes here. As it stands, this is just barely passable because it's not completely terrible at what it's trying to do. When it doesn't shit the bed.
Johnny is the most central character of these issues, and also one of the only ones who has to fully own up to what happened to him. Not only is he kill-happy during Infinity War (which is a topic of contention between Ben and him in the early issues) but he also goes full Nova in the middle of a crowded area after willfully refraining from calling in backup until it's too late. He wasn't forced into that situation - he put himself into a problematic position with his own decisions, then retroactively claims it's either the situation's fault or his powers running amok, instead of owning up to it. Granted, he does eventually give himself up to the police, but only after Sue basically starts a war on his behalf against law enforcement and he realizes it's getting serious. It'll be interesting to see how the courtroom side of this entire affair shakes out after the current storyline is resolved and everyone is back from the Moon. If it gets more than a passing mention, of course. Kudos, though, for Johnny's little speech to the Wild Pack, that was pretty cool.
Sue is the next most changed character here, and her new self is the most… contentious of the bunch, I would say. Her extremely revealing costume with the 4-shaped boob hole is well-known and well-mocked, and it lasts for a bunch of issues - and for all that people claim it's just a storyline thing, it's certainly no coincidence that it's the female member of the team that gets taken over by an exhibitionist spirit who makes her rip most of her clothes off. There's also the fact that it's explicit here that Sue designed this new costume to be sexy in order to gain her man's approval. It's basically the first thing she says to Reed after donning it, no less. She's basically lost all the character growth of several decades, but now she's really angry about it. Sue's personality transplant is actually lot worse for her character than her physical looks - she goes from the positive influence on the team to full-on asshole, comfortable with assaulting people with little pretext, threatening and attacking the police, and she arguably commits sexual assault - I'm not sure how you'd classify forcibly disrobing an entire room full of people and making them to run around naked because they criticized your clothing choices, but it's pretty fucked up regardless.
I've never been a fan of the 'Malice' character and how she's portrayed, so I'm not too fond of seeing her here. The idea behind the original Malice story was that it was a repressed side of Sue that appeared after years of being treated as an inferior by her teammates and the public. The Hate-Monger amplified her hate, sure, but Malice represented a legitimate anger, and after the Hate-Monger's influence was gone, Sue changed her name from Invisible Girl to Invisible Woman to reflect owning her maturity, and all of that dovetailed with John Byrne writing Sue as a much more powerful and empowered character than before. It turned something pretty damn sexist into a message of feminism. The same thing happens here, sort of, but it's written instead like the alleged 'feminism' from writers back in the 70's, when an assertive woman is almost always a crazy violent nutcase who is looked on with doubt by all the male characters. If this entire affair is supposed to be character growth, maybe the writers should have realized that this story has already been told better, and moved on to something less overdone.
Reed and Ben both get their own slight 90's updates, but they're less extreme than the others. Reed is mostly just there to put new gear on everyone, including a dorky new jacket with pockets for himself - he doesn't change much otherwise, at least during these issues. Ben, meanwhile, gets slashed in the face by Wolverine - an ongoing issue which leads to a costume change for him in the near future, and not a particularly well-remembered one either. Honestly it's just kind of dorky, and I'm not sure why he decided to skip out on medical care this time only. Other than the two of them, Alicia and Lyja show up to bring the team to gender parity - which is appreciated, if a bit random. Slightly less appreciated, though, is the fact that all of the women are there to have pointless relationship fights with their respective boyfriends/love interests/exes and it's going to be a headache to deal with all this shit, I can already tell. Soap opera is a good description!
The actual plots of these issues are pretty empty-headed. The entire Aron saga is confusing, in that the rogue Watcher just randomly kidnaps Alicia for no apparent reason, sets up an elaborate illusion world for the Fantastic Four to waste half an issue in, and then gets into an entirely pointless fight with the Molecule Man for yet more page wastage. None of that actually meaningfully contributed to any larger plots - it's just stuff for the team to be doing. Johnny, meanwhile, gets an actual plot - but it's put on pause, and we might get back to finding out how his legal issues turn out later. Sue's plot is literally just being a raging bitch to everyone and assaulting them for several issues while also complaining a lot. Lots of pretty vapid issues quickly getting resolved so a new one can be dropped in. Characters like Doctor Strange, Daredevil and Spider-Man are basically just there to cameo before leaving again without meaningfully changing anything.
Doctor Doom's plot in these issues is almost entirely divorced from the actual story - he builds himself a new armor, goes to tackle Aron and steals his cosmic Watcher powers pretty easily, then launches himself to the Moon to steal the powers of the other Watcher too because he figures the big-headed weirdo is the likeliest to take offense at his thievery. I like Doom's new armor well enough (though it probably won't last long) but he doesn't really get to do all that much here, and what we do see is basically a repeat of the Silver Surfer Saga with a different cosmic target. That said, at least he managed to get into space this time around! We'll be seeing him wield his newfangled pink energy in the next issue, I imagine, which should be a more substantial Doom issue than these glorified preludes. Even a lame rehash of a previous FF vs. Doom fight would be a nice diversion from all this relationship shit. Now if only they didn't bring all that with them to the Moon...
After covering something like six different issues here, it feels like we haven't really gotten anywhere. It's 90% setup, like getting Sharon and Lyja back, introducing Johnny's problems before just kind of dropping them so something else can happen after an issue-long irrelevant side-thing with a random quartet of heroes, introducing Sue's personality change but not really doing much with it except make her an ass, teasing Franklin stuff but never pulling that trigger, attacks by some aliens who just kind of leave again after they're done... The only thing that's resolved is freeing Alicia from Aron, and that happened without the Fantastic Four even lifting a finger against the guy! What a bunch of vapid crap. In sum, then, this is really bog-standard average stuff for the era - with bad 90s shit like poor costume updates, arbitrary dark shit for no reason, really dumb retro-references like the Secret Defenders, and too little Doom. I'm gonna go with 2 stars... below average for my taste. 1 star is for proper crap, after all.
I think I'll be needing that soon...
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I do quite love this picture of Johnny going Nova, even if it's kind of a dumbass move.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Do not belabor the obvious, you snivelling simpleton!"
"If there is even the remotest opportunity to leech the star-spanning power which I suspect is at hand… it will belong to DOOM!"
"It is fitting that [Aron] lies crumpled at my feet, for soon… very soon… this entire world… and perhaps the universe as well, will be prostrate before the matchless glory that is DOOM!"
"I will tolerate nothing less than absolute perfection!"
"Your supreme sovereign is pleased… for the moment!"
"Mortal eyes cannot view the true face of Doom without the ultimate punishment!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
Can I just sort of give this to Sue for that costume? Yeah, thought so.
Runner-up is the white vest Reed has for one entire issue because the colorist didn't realize it's supposed to be brown.
Comic Trivia
The entire love polyhedron of the Fantastic Four is getting pretty silly at this point, even ignoring the complication of multiple clone versions of the same person loving and marrying different people and having different relationships. To recap the entire sordid thing in short: Alicia and Ben began dating early on, in Fantastic Four v1 #9. After Secret Wars, Alicia was replaced by the Skrull spy Lyja, who pursued a relationship with Johnny under her assumed identity around Fantastic Four v1 #265. Ben returned from Battleworld in Fantastic Four v1 #277 to discover the situation, thinking Alicia left him for Johnny. Lyja and Johnny got married in Fantastic Four v1 #300, while Ben was given leadership of the Fantastic Four and he recruited Ms. Marvel to the team in Fantastic Four v1 #307.
Sharon mutated into the She-Thing in Fantastic Four v1 #310 (after which comes that one infamous suicide issue) and Ben immediately starts hitting on the only other rock person in the world. By Fantastic Four v1 #317 they are in a relationship. Eventually their relationship soured after Ben was cured of his powers in an accident during Fantastic Four v1 #326. Later, during Fantastic Four v1 #350, Sharon sought out Doctor Doom's help to cure her own powers, and on the same day Ben decided to regain his own to try and save her. Not much later, in Fantastic Four v1 #354, she disappeared after her last mission with the team. Shortly after that time, in Fantastic Four v1 #358, Lyja was exposed and the real Alicia rescued, and thinking that she and Ben are still an item, Alicia has not been told about Ben's relationship with Sharon.
Doom-Tech of the Week
I'm not sure we've seen this particular Personal Cruiser before, and obviously the Cosmically-Empowered Armor is new too. The device he uses to sap the power of the Watcher is pretty close in look and function to the one used on the Silver Surfer, so I'm not gonna count that as new. That's just reusing proven technology!
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I believe that is the Professor Hulk's regular costume
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Yeah, during one of the periods where the Hulk had Bruce Banner's intellect, he decided a brown jumpsuit was the way to go. Apparently Banner doesn't have much fashion sense.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, Bruce regularly wears purple pants. We knew that already.
- Location
- France
Ah yes, the introduction of the infamous sexy costume. Look at how deluxe it is with both boob and abbs window.
Why did he go back to not affecting organic matter again?
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Tipping the Fantastic Four from half assholes to three-quarters assholes. Honestly, being married to Reed all these years, it's no surprise that Sue has developed a homicidal dark side.
- Location
- Netherlands
Also it has no back whatsoever. The weirdest thing is that this very comic confirms that she can selectively turn clothes invisible so why not just keep the old costume and add the holes whenever she's feeling particularly exhibitionist? At least the protection would still be there...
Okay, so you remember how Molecule Man vanished in that whole merging deal of Secret Wars 3, where he turned into a Cosmic Cube along with the Beyonder? There's a Volcana issue not much later which I've also covered where she randomly got more powers, and it's revealed to be related to the cosmic power Molecule Man left her. Anyway, in the aftermath of that, Owen Reece shows back up and reveals that he endowed some of his former power into her prior to merging with the Cube. Marsha then quickly relinquishes this power back to Owen and he's reborn as the Molecule Man once again -- albeit with all his original limitations.
Also known as retcons.
- Location
- France
I suppose protection is a little subjective when her best defense will always be her invisible forcefields, letting her conjure invisible armor at a moment's notice. Though their nature as invisible does mean that some things can get through, like visible light, so Sue can be blinded by intense luminosity, but she's never been known to wear sunglasses in the first place and the costume does nothing to protect her from that.
I think the main function of the jumpsuits was that they could be turned into instant spacesuits by adding astronaut helmets, or similarly provide passive environmental protection in harsh climates, rather than any significant upgrade to personal protection over their powers.
153: Fantastic Four v1 #375 - It's Always Darkest Before the... DOOM!
- Location
- Netherlands
Fantastic Four v1 #375 (April 1993)
Cover
Man, I thought they had a consistent pattern going, but here we have an anniversary issue that doesn't even land on a multiple of 50! I guess at this point you can just make one every two years and be done with it! For this occasion they've pulled out the novelty prismatic foil, hence the trippy background. I really wish it was used on a more worthwhile cover, but instead we have to deal with an extremely 1990's take on the Fantastic Four, with the awful (if thankfully temporary) costume of Sue on full display alongside copious pocket jackets, giant guns, excessive belts, and pocket shoulder pads. I'm a little confused why Johnny, who spends most of his time on fire, also got himself a bomber jacket to wear, but I guess it's for style points? Note the dorky helmet on Ben, too. This is possibly the dumbest cover for the Fantastic Four I've ever seen, and that's just impressive.
Still, the most promising aspect of the comic is, of course, the big blocky letters which declare this issue contains the Rise of Doom! ~KRAKATHOOM!~ It promises to finally pay off all those solo scenes in the last few issues, and it's about time! The stage is set with a cosmically-empowered Doom facing off against an expanded Fantastic Four roster, which now includes both Alicia and Lyja as well. Huh, the team actually has gender parity now! How delightfully novel! Let's see if they actually make something interesting out of this...
Story Overview
It's Always Darkest Before the... DOOM!
In a supreme bit of laziness, the comic doesn't summarize the previous issue so much as reprint its last page with a slight bit of overlaid text, once more showing the flash of light with teleported the group away right in front of the 'Secret Defenders' who hunted Johnny down. This time the story continues from there, with the heroes (and Lyja) reappearing inside the citadel of Uatu the Watcher. Surprisingly, the only person there is Uatu - Doom is nowhere to be seen despite facing off with Uatu in the previous issue. Anyway, Sharon immediately calls Uatu a 'creature', which is a bit rich for a woman who spent a long time as a rock-monster. Johnny quickly explains he's a member of an alien race that likes to spy on people, while Reed insists that 'observe' is more accurate. He notes that there must be a grave threat for Uatu to violate his vow of non-interference and summon heroes to the Moon. Sue wonders if the Avengers weren't available, or maybe the X-Men - isn't the Watcher a fan of the latter team like everyone else? This is a reference to the relatively high popularity of the X-Men comics in this era, as Wolverine was in everything and then some.
Anyway, Uatu tells everyone that their presence will soon be explained, then walks over to the stasis tube containing the unconscious Aron, recounting the recent events in which said rogue Watcher abducted Alicia Masters for his little games. He continues by stating that Doctor Doom swooped in to steal Aron's cosmic power before the team got to him, after which the villain constructed a special power pack to contain this purloined energy for use in a newly designed suit of armor. Which Doom then promptly used to announce his intentions to conquer Uatu and his citadel before leaving. Nice of Doom to deliver an early warning, isn't it? Reed is aghast at the thought of Doom obtaining the power of a Watcher for himself, declaring it almost too horrible to imagine. Sharon figures the Watcher is a big boy and can defend himself so it's not really their problem, and Johnny concurs - nobody appointed them guardians of the galaxy, after all! They're already up to their eyeballs in their own problems! He's wanted by the cops as they speak, for crying out loud!
Lyja asks why she's been brought here - she's a Skrull, she has no vested interest in the planet Earth, nor does she wish to be associated with the Fantastic Four anymore. The Watcher admits he may have erred in his haste when he kidnapped them, and confirms that Sue is technically right - while he is not allowed to interfere with the affairs of other races, he is allowed to defend himself against the likes of Doom. Honestly, Doom is only a threat to the Earth and the universe at large - not to the Watchers. He muses to himself that perhaps he is as guilty as Aron for interfering, and decides to consult with others of his race on the proper course of action, taking Aron along to face judgment by his peers. In a flash of golden light the Watchers both vanish, leaving the Fantastic Four and pals behind in his moonbase. Sue darkly suggests that clearly the pompous alien never intended to give them a choice about dealing with Doom, since they're now trapped in the same space base with him.
Sharon decides to herself that she doesn't buy Doctor Doom as the menace everyone believes he is - he helped her with her She-Thing problem, didn't he, and cure her from being monster-shaped? She walks over to Ben, who is isolating himself, and wonders what's going on with him. She belatedly remembers that he was slashed in the face by Wolverine's adamantium claws moments before they were all whisked away from Earth. She asks him if he's alright, and Ben turns to show his face for the first time, revealing a rather horrifying sight of pinkish flesh that oozes out of the side of his face, almost as if his brains are dripping out of his head. It's pretty ghoulish. 'What do you think?' he asks sarcastically, and the group gasps in horror at the sight.
Elsewhere, Doctor Doom is rocketing around the Watcher's base, an incredible technological wonderland of alien machines, while revelling in the cosmic power of Aron that he's channeling through his armor. His new method of flying is a bit dorkier than usual - he's sort of Supermanning at a 45 degree angle with his cloak fanning behind him, rather than using his rocket boots or jetpack in the traditional manner. Still not as silly as that time he buzzed around horizontally on his rocket-boots, though, like the Green Goblin without a glider. As he floats through the base he admits that his goals have already shifted from being merely the Master of Earth to something grander, his ambitions growing to be more cosmic in scope to match his increased might. Only Doom has the necessary, power, matchless genius, and ruthless strength of will to force the universe to grovel at his feet!
The first task which lies before him, Doom determines, is to somehow overpower Uatu the Watcher who resides within this glorious lunar palace. He thinks it's only a matter of time before the alien decides to launch a counter strike against him, so he'll have to get ahead of that. As Doom lands among the machines, he decides to go with his usual habits - anticipate every possible contingency! He reprograms some alien service robots to work for him, concluding that their instrumentation was designed for functions beyond all human conception - except his! Doom's mastery of robotics knows no equal, as demonstrated by his control of extraterrestrial Roombas, huzzah! After he's enslaved the Watcher, he'll turn his attention to destroying those he loathes most of all - the accursed Fantastic Four!
Some distance away from the Watcher's base, the Inhuman royal family are watching ongoing events from atop a flying saucer with a handrail - it seems a bit impractical. On board are Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak, and Triton. Black Bolt silently commands the group to be cautious, even as the others recount that a UFO struck near the Watcher's base last issue, and they've gone to investigate what that was about. Medusa suspects any menace dangerous enough to threaten the Watcher could be a risk to them as well, so they should see what's going on.
How are they going to get inside the well-protected dome of the Watcher, though? Gorgon tries to cause a moonquake to shatter a wall but fails to get anywhere, even though his kicks have shattered mountains before. Karnak believes it's the fault of the crazy strong alien materials the base is made of, but he knows every material has a weakness - even this! He searches for a stress point using his powers, then moves to strike at the proper angle - and falls straight through the wall, vanishing inside. It was an illusion! Medusa relays that Black Bolt thinks this is probably an indication that their presence here was expected, and someone opened the door for them…
Within the citadel, the Fantastic Four have split up into teams to cover more ground, each grouping ensuring maximum relationship drama - because what else would you expect? Sharon figures it's a good thing she's finally gotten Ben alone with her to have that long-awaited talk about their woes. She has no idea where she stands with him anymore! They wander into a museum which contains statues of all sorts of foes the heroes of Earth have defeated, and Ben wonders if Uatu has a comics collection too. Sharon speaks up, figuring the first thing they should discuss is Doom. Ben doesn't think there's anything to discuss there - he's a maniac who wants to conquer the universe. 'Nuff said. When he suddenly spots something over her shoulder, Sharon says he's not impressed with his attempts at distracting her. She went to Doom for help after Reed failed at curing her, she reminds him, and they'll have to face that fact sooner or later. He has to face her! Their discussion is interrupted when a giant multi-colored robot barrels into the scene, and the Thing declares they'll discuss their interpersonal issues later - much later!
He starts punching the robot, calling out for Doom - he was surely the one to sic this thing on them! He demands the robot tell him where the 'chrome-covered coward' is hiding, but the thing responds by violently pummeling him directly in the face, hitting the wounded part of it with repeated impacts and sending Ben to the ground in agony. Sharon is horrified at the Thing's screams, having never heard Ben in so much pain before, but even her strongest blows don't seem to be affecting the robot at all. The machine smashes Ben into some nearby scenery, then turns around to face Sharon.
Ben digs himself out of the pile of metallic debris, tearing out a huge chunk of broken steel which he just ripped out of the floor and chucking it like a spear, perforating straight through the giant robot - let 'er rip! Sharon thanks Ben for saving her from getting squashed, but he waves it off as just the regular hero biz. Ben decides he desperately needs to do something about his face, since it's an extremely obvious weak point at the moment, one which every foe will exploit. Among the Watcher's artifacts he finds a monument to the Fantastic Four circa Fantastic Four v1 #3, back when the Thing was briefly convinced to wear a helmet. He has a clever idea…
Johnny and Lyja are making their way through the base too, and Johnny muses that even if Reed wanted to keep an eye on Sue due to her recent behaviour, he still can't believe he was teamed up with Lyja. There is so much bad blood between the two of them, even if she did save him from Ghost Rider last issue. Why did she do that, exactly? Does she still harbor feelings for him? Johnny asks Lyja why she's so willing to risk her life against Doom, and she answers that she was given little choice - and regardless, the only one allowed to kill Johnny is her! Johnny wonders why she's so hostile when Johnny was the injured party - he was the one tricked into marriage to an alien shapeshifter. Lyja accuses him of abandoning her to die after learning the truth of her alien nature, and when Johnny tells her he left because he was convinced she was already dead, she dismisses that as a lie. Johnny asks after the baby she mentioned before, and Lyja starts blasting Johnny with energy beams while declaring that he forfeited any parental rights when he deserted them!
Thankfully, Doctor Doom suddenly arrives to tell the two of them off for having a tedious lovers' quarrel at the worst time imaginable, declaring it pointless to belabor their dreary ills when they're about to perish anyway. Johnny tries for a bit of heroic banter, but neither Doom nor Lyja are particularly impressed, so they start fighting. Johnny says they should find the others and warn them of Doom's presence here so they can get some backup, and Lyja snarks that she never counted on him staying anyway. Ouch. Doom gleefully commends Lyja for hating Johnny almost as much as he does, before turning her lasers back on herself so she's blasted aside by her own attack. Johnny catches the stunned woman before she can hit the floor, but worries about the unborn baby she's carrying - if she's even still carrying it! He briefly wonders if he only cares about the baby or about Lyja too - but soon he reaffirms that she betrayed him and lied to him for most of their relationship, and he can't forgive that.
Throwing himself back into combat with Doom after putting Lyja somewhere to recover, he blasts the villain with pillars of flame which are casually absorbed by Doom's new cosmically-empowered armor, and that energy is then converted back into pure kinetic force which blasts him out of his flaming state entirely and sends him careening through the room.
Johnny recognizes that Doom is stronger than he's ever been before (which is questionable given the times he had ultimate power) but he's still confident he can be beaten. Doom himself recognizes Johnny's defiance, and declares it a good thing - crushing Johnny is only worthwhile because he would never surrender! In fact, Doom magnanimously allows Johnny the time to plan a new attack, in the hope that he'll be amusing.
Back on Earth, Matt Murdock meets with representatives of the torched Empire State University, alongside Ms. Yakaki. He stresses that Johnny acted alone at the time of the incident and not as a part of Fantastic Four Incorporated, but the representative of the school - a Mr. Losey - declares that it's just lawyer talk; what matters is that a flaming maniac set fire to the university and now the Fantastic Four are trying to dodge a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Unexpectedly, Ms. Yakaki responds with a very generous offer of a sizable cash settlement, along with a new athletic center for the school and the future proceeds from scientific patents owned by the Fantastic Four. Murdock is shocked and after the meeting he questions who greenlit such huge expenditures, and he's told that Sue authorized it, and she was told to make the university an offer they couldn't refuse. Murdock is worried what the rest of the Fantastic Four will think when they get back to discover they might be penniless…
We turn to Reed and Sue, with the latter badgering the former about letting himself get conned into fighting the Watcher's battle for him when Johnny is still wanted by the cops. Reed tells her to maybe focus on one problem at a time, while he's working on an 'optimizer' and noting that his adjustments to the device are critical. Sue complains that he always prefers playing with his scientific toys rather than listening to her concerns, and then asks what the machine is even for, and why on earth he decided to start equipping the team with jackets and guns all of a sudden. Good questions, actually! Reed evasively claims that the device is necessary to take on Doom, since he invented a new sort of battery pack to carry around cosmic energies. He doesn't really go into detail. Their bickering is soon interrupted by a beam of pink light...
...Which resolves into the form of Doctor Doom, who notices that Reed has obviously anticipated his arrival - but the same is true in reverse. Doom, still all-pink, declares that he prepared for every possibility. Given the Fantastic Four's history with the Watcher, Doom expected the bobblehead to immediately call up his Earthside buddies, so he made sure he was ready for them. He claims he enjoyed showing his new power to the Human Torch, and now it's their turn! Sue flies into a rage at the implication that her brother got hurt, and when Reed tries to impress upon her that they have to protect the 'optimizer' at all costs, she just tells him he can guard his own shit and goes after the villain by her lonesome.
Unexpectedly, Sue employs a brand new power against Doom - instead of her usual spheres or planes of invisible power, she starts chucking daggers made of force fields around, just like Malice! Doom is caught off guard and admits that clearly he is not the only person who's undergone some changes, before using his surging pink energy to blast her. Reed employs his stretching powers to pull her out of harm's way at the last moment, though she just tells him off for assuming she was incapable of saving herself. Reed admits she might have - but she's his wife, and they're supposed to protect each other. He then begs her to please protect the optimizer with one of her force fields, as their lives may depend on it. Sue gets over her anger at Reed and agrees, declaring she won't fail. At least someone's getting along!
Doom thinks this is all nauseatingly noble - a curious phrase, given how much he values nobility. He recognizes that Reed is intentionally making himself a target so Sue can protect the weapon Reed's been constructing - but he won't let this happen. He uttery ignores Reed firing a laser-gun at him, and focuses all his energy on attacking Sue. She proclaims that nothing's ever penetrated her force fields, but Doom replies that he's wielding alien power beyond anything she's experienced, and Sue has to admit that she's feeling the effects. The pink energy seems to have a psychic backlash to it, which passes through her shield and makes her feel like she's on fire and about to shatter - but she can't afford to give up. Doom compliments Sue's courage, determination, and strength of will - but it is all in vain! Finally the force field explodes as Sue collapses from the energy overload, and in the blast the optimizer is completely incinerated. Reed rushes over to her, but worries what such trauma could have done to his wife's mind, or her powers.
Doom looks on as Reed looks after his defeated wife, and muses to himself that he could easily use the opportunity of his rival's distraction to take him out. He elects not to, as such a victory would ring hollow - devoid of satisfaction. He's still got his honor. Instead, Doom flies away and begins repairing his armor, which got somewhat damaged in the detonation of Sue's force field. He declares that he and Reed must both be at their finest for their final confrontation - nothing less will do!
Back on Earth, we catch up with Agatha Harkness and little Franklin. Agatha tells her charge that he's acting like a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum, and he should stop at once. Franklin declares that he won't - he can sense that his parents are in great danger, he can feel it burning in his head! The bad man wants to kill them! Agatha wonders if the kid could really be in psychic contact with the Moon - she's apparently aware that's where the team is - and muses that Franklin's telepathic powers have been expanding faster than his ability to cope with them. She tells him there's nothing he can do - he's to stay in the building, as he's not allowed to endanger himself. Franklin angrily declares she can't stop him - nobody can! As he shouts this, his eyes light up with unholy power, and they glow bright pink. Power is pink today, I guess.
Agatha had spent hours trying to soothe the furious child, but those efforts seem to have failed. She falls back on her magical training from New Salem, and hopes that sorcery can work where words have failed, even as Franklin glows brighter. Silently they battle, mutant child against warrior witch, in a clash of wills. It's only moments before the inevitable happens however - the endless potential of Franklin Richards makes itself known, and he tosses Agatha around the room with his psychic might. It takes him only a few moments to come back to his senses, but when the pink fades and Franklin returns to a more normal state, Agatha Harkness lies unconscious on the floor…
Ben has donned the helmet he picked up from the exhibit, and grabbed a large chunk of debris for use as a club. Sharon asks him if it's necessary to wear that dorky headgear, and Ben tells her it's better than his gruesome face. Ben muses to himself that the robot made his injury worse - he can feel his skin oozing and puffing out beneath the mask. Something's happening, and it's no improvement. He tells Sharon to keep her eyes peeled as they head further into the base, anticipating that Doom has probably placed traps. Sharon is unexpectedly caught up in one - only it turns out to be Medusa of the Inhumans who grabbed her with her prehensile hair. Ben greets the Inhumans as friends, and they're momentarily confused by him wearing a helmet, but they take it in stride.
Reed and Sue, meanwhile, are recovering from their fight with Doom. Reed tells Sue to take it easy, that she might have a concussion, but Sue just tells him off for once again assuming she's made of glass. He should stop hovering like a mother hen and finish his work before their enemy returns. Sue's head is killing her, in truth, but she decides Reed can't afford the distraction right now. Reed himself wonders what exactly he's done that made Sue so angry at him. Johnny and Lyja soon fly in and note that it seems they weren't the only ones to run into the new Doom. Johnny asks if Sue is okay, and she answers that it's nothing a case of 'Tylenol 2099' couldn't cure. Heh. Reed explains that Doom shattered one of her force fields, and Johnny is shocked - he didn't know that could happen!
'Anything is now possible to Doom!' Reed explains - he's ascended to a new level of power, but Reed's convinced there must be some sort of weakness they can exploit. Lyja silently admires Reed's courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Reed explains that he modified the Watcher's technology to assemble custom weaponry for everyone which might give them an edge by enhancing their various powers. Johnny dismisses this, and references the Treasure of the Sierra Madre - 'The FF don't need no steeeenkin' weapons!' Reed says that they do, but admits he didn't know enough about Lyja's lasers to make anything for her. He hands Johnny a jacket, who says he wouldn't be caught dead in the goofy thing, but he relents when Lyja tells him that his life is more important than his image. He notes that Lyja's words sounded almost affectionate, and says that while the fit on his jacket is good, the colors are awful.
'The color should be black!' Doom declares from off-panel as he suddenly reappears backed by a small army of reprogrammed alien roomba robots. 'Black as a funeral shroud!' Rematch time!
Back on earth, a square, pink portal opens in the middle of Four Freedoms Plaza and deposits a large, shiny robot with a conical head, spiky horns and pauldrons. It's a time portal of the kind that Doctor Doom uses! The apparent robot declares he's been deposited at the right spatial coordinates, but he can only guess at the day and year. He's distracted by the sound of a sobbing child nearby and investigates, wondering if he's already too late. He walks in on a tearful Franklin attempting to stir his unconscious nanny, apologizing for his temper tantrum. The robot removes his helmet to reveal a gray-haired man beneath, though we do not see his face. He announces that Agatha is destined to live, and when Franklin spins around and asks who he is, the man declares that he's someone who has always loved Franklin…
The Fantastic Four have gotten in a full-on brawl with Doom and his robots in the Watcher's home, with both Reed and Sue using big honking space guns to blast apart robots while Johnny luxuriates in his new space biker jacket which apparently improves the quality of his flames by drawing in oxygen directly from the surrounding atmosphere. Lyja tells him to unleash this newfound energy where it will do the most good, and Johnny agrees, reflecting on the last time he cut loose and set a school on fire. He'd been terrified of flaming on ever since, he claims - though he hasn't actually shown that in practice. Still, he can't afford to hold back now, so he unleashes the energy on Doom.
Doom declares that Johnny erroneously believes him to be malevolent, but his most fervent desire has always been to bring peace and prosperity to the universe, as he has done his beloved kingdom of Latveria! Johnny tells him to stow the altruistic dictator routine, since his people live in abject terror of him. Doom responds that paradise is not without its costs, smacking the hero aside violently as he states he'd got only a single commandment: total, blind obedience! Johnny loses his jacket in the clash (good riddance), and Reed warns Sue that he's on the defensive now. Luckily, Reed had the time to cobble together a new optimizer, and tells Sue to focus her powers on her gun - it's designed to transform the energy of her force fields into destructive discharges which the optimizer can then magnify for use against Doom. Sue, unfortunately, is still in too much pain from the previous encounter to employ her powers.
Doom says it's a pity that Reed's plan has gone awry, before he blasts the second optimizer to smithereens just as he did the first. Doom then says that for too many years, and on far too many occasions, Reed has ineffectually competed against him - with little thought to the consequences of his actions. He has grown worry of such reckless behavior, so Doom will allow it no more. No more! Reed sees these as the words of a true megalomaniac, and responds that luckily for all of them, both the original optimizer and the one Doom just annihilated were mere decoys meant to be easy targets so Reed could siphon off some of the cosmic energies for use in the real thing. Once Reed learned that Doom was using a souped-up battery to channel the cosmic energy, he decided the best way to deal with it was to overcharge it - so he uses the captured energy with the optimizer to amplify it into a concentrated beam which he fires from his own space gun. With a Kar-zzak! Doom is lit up by orange energy, which overloads Doom's armor and sends him crumpling to the ground.
Sue asks if Doom is dead, but Reed dismisses this, knowing his rival well enough that he'd surely have built in protections against any malfunction - Reed would have. Doom soon pushes himself up from the floor and acknowledges that Reed is correct in that regard - but has underestimated him in all others. Doom anticipates every possibility, thus he included safeguards against such an obvious and clumsy attack. The final victory is his and it's as gratifying as it is decisive! With that he starts blasting huge beams of pink energy again, laying the hurt on the assembled heroes with his full power.
From out of nowhere, Ben and Sharon arrive with the Inhumans in tow, and Ben tells Doom off for counting victories before they're hatched. Black Bolt is first into the fray and knocks Doom aside. Reed tells Ben that his timing was perfect, then stuffs a giant cannon into his hands to replace the loose piece of debris. Ben complains that he knows they have to change with the times, but he doesn't want to be the Punisher! Reed just tells him to stuff it, the fate of the universe could depend on it! As Black Bolt is repelled by Doom's energy, Reed warns Ben of the recoil of his gun, but the rocky hero isn't worried. He fires the gun and manages to stagger Doom, and he likes the kick that the gun has - he's keeping it!
Doom refocuses his ire on Ben, and declares that the Thing still doesn't appreciate his true power, and shall live long enough to do so. Doom could erase him where he stood, of course, but he has a better idea. He turns to Sharon, and tells her that it's about time to reveal her true allegiance. Ben, aghast, turns to ask her what that's about. Sharon hesitates, noting that Doom did cure her of her mutation - but he can't make her turn against Ben. He can't. She declares that everyone was right about Doom, after all - he is a monster! She tosses a chunk of debris at him, and Doom admits he's disappointed that she failed to hold up her end of the deal - now she must die with the others!
Ben shouts at Sharon for an explanation - she was spying on them this entire time? Sharon tries to explain that she was doing it for him, hoping she could get a cure for his own mutation out of Doom, but Ben doesn't buy it. Reed arrives to tell them off for squabbling in the middle of the fight - they have to present a united front or they won't survive! He declares that his optimizer failed before because it couldn't get enough of a charge going to truly destroy the battery through its failsafes. (It was his own fault that he counted too much on Sue's energy to make up the difference.) He has a new option now, however - a new source of incredible energy. He asks Black Bolt to shout into the optimizer.
Shocked, Medusa asks if fear has driven Reed insane - the ruler of the inhumans dares not even speak for fear of destroying everything around him with an incredible blast of energy, as his mere whispers can reduce mountains to rubble. Reed explains that he's aware of this, but there's no other way to deal with Doom. Fearfully, Black Bolt grasps the optimizer in his hands and focuses - he's been indoctrinated since birth to remain silent, so it's a conscious act of will to trust in Mr. Fantastic's statements and employ his deadly gift. He speaks, and the resulting shockwave dwarfs the explosion of a nuclear weapon as it washes over Doom, who is battered by ever-increasing force, soaking up the energy like a sponge.
Reed explains this was exactly what he intended to happen - to give Doom more power than he's ever dreamed of having. No matter what failsafes he built into his armor, there is still a maximum power capacity which he cannot exceed without explosive results, and Doom's about to reach it. Reed tells Sue to set up a protective force field, since they're about to need it. Doom reaches critical mass just as Sue painfully manages to set up a protective field despite the strain, the blurry eyes, and the headache. With a bright explosion the top of the Watcher's base is blown wide open and Doom is gone. It's over.
Sure enough, the moment the fight is done the Watcher reappears as if he'd never left. Ben explains that they're not sure what exactly happened to Doc Doom in the end - but it looks like he's gone for good! The Watcher just stares at him. He then teleports them all back to Earth without a word. Reed concludes that Uatu must've been chastened by his peers for involving them in this affair, so he's trying to stick to his vows more closely. Sue is relieved that her headache is fading, but she's worried what will happen the next time she tries to summon a force field again. Sharon, meanwhile, tries to explain spying for Doom, but Ben doesn't want to hear it. Not now, not ever! Agatha Harkness suddenly appears from around the corner, having heard voices, and the Fantastic Four are shocked when her head is bandaged - what happened to her? She waves the question away - she and Franklin just had a little mishap. Sue asks where Franklin is, and Agatha explains he's playing with the visitor. What visitor? Why, it's none other than Nathaniel Richards, Reed's absentee time-traveling cyborg father! It's a whole thing. Nathaniel's come to this period in time to help Franklin with something, you see...
Back on the Moon, the Watcher looks up to the Earth from among the ruins of his once-proud citadel and focuses on a specific location - on Latveria. There, within one of the sub-basements, a desperate form clings to life. Smoking from excess energies with his new armor partially destroyed and molten, any other man would be whimpering in excruciating pain at that moment - but not Doom. He just barely managed to jettison the power battery and activate his emergency transport beam to get back home, and is sure the others there must believe him dead. Fools! Doom prepared for every contingency. The world may breathe a momentary sigh of relief while he recuperates, as his ultimate victory has once more been delayed - but he is destined to triumph in the end!
Epilogue (#276)
We get a brief scene in the next issue of Fantastic Four which serves as a coda to this storyline. A minion of Doom's - Kaufman - approaches to compliment Doom for his swift recovery after his recent defeat at the hands of the Fantastic Four. Doom repeats the word 'defeat' to himself, and the minion declares he meant no disrespect. Doom says that no offense was taken - his loyalty is without question! Doom explains that he anticipated the problems he eventually ran into, so he squirreled away a portion of the cosmic power of Aron into one of his machines. It's a much smaller amount than he once possessed in his armor, but it's sufficient for his purposes. He asks Kaufman to do the honors of turning the device on, pointing to a nearby lever.
The man obediently walks over and pulls the handle - and is instantly reduced to atoms when the cosmic energy pours directly into him. Ouch. So much, Doom declares, for Kaufman's inappropriate choice of words! Doom may be thwarted, circumvented, disappointed, deterred or delayed - but he is never defeated! And yet… Kaufman's punishment will seem like a kindness to the one he prepared to unleash upon Sharon Ventura for spurning their agreement. She availed herself of his generosity, benefited from his intellect, and then betrayed him in return! She will suffer dire consequences…
Rating & Comments
You know, on the face of it, this issue seemed pretty promising. The Fantastic Four and bonus cast are stranded in an enclosed space and pitted against an empowered Doctor Doom, forced to rely on each other despite deep animosity between some of the members and ongoing relationship issues they have to overcome. It makes sense as a story premise. Then you start reading, and it quickly becomes apparent that what we get here is not truly a big Doom vs. Fantastic Four clash, or even a proper Doom vs. Reed rematch - instead, it's an amalgamation of a bunch of previous Doom comics glommed into one and resolved via a blatant self-contradiction. Also there's a bunch of random guest stars who don't really do much at all, but they're there because they're a group package, I guess. And everyone has guns for some reason.
Firstly, the premise of this entire story is rather odd. For reasons that are beyond me, the previous issues set up a scenario which is immediately undercut here - because while Doom is facing off against the Watcher in the last issue, here he just kind of wanders off into the alien's base for no reason, flying about and tinkering with robots instead. He explicitly came to steal Uatu's powers, but he never bothered to actually do it? He just kinda threatened the guy and left? It makes no sense. Since Uatu is the one to actually teleport the Fantastic Four to the Moon, what was Doom's plan exactly? Why would he want to face the Fantastic Four when he hadn't yet defused the second Watcher that he identified as a liability before? If he's so powerful he could face off against a Watcher one-on-one, and we saw how powerful Aron could get in his fight with Molecule Man, why didn't we get to see that confrontation at all? Even if Uatu just teleported away from that fight, it would've made more sense than what actually happened here.
In any case, after the Fantastic Four arrive, we get our second example of idiocy - when the team splits up into drama couples to have various conversations that never really lead anywhere. Lyja was actively threatening Johnny's life last issue, and still gets a few licks in here, but for some reason they start rebuilding their relationship out of nowhere partway through, apparently on the back of getting beaten up and not much else. It's not even like Johnny saved Lyja's life or something, they both got their asses kicked. Similarly, the team-ups between Ben and Sharon & Reed and Sue are troubled, with the men trying to ignore things as much as possible while their respective women get annoyed by it, so it's all very melodramatic and soap opera. Out of the three relationships, only the one between Sharon and Ben stays the same - but we see none of the actual development of the other two. They just suddenly act nicer to each other for no discernible reason. Did I miss something?
The most annoying part of this comic, I think, is how repetitive it gets. After the initial setup is done, it basically repeats the same scene several times, though with slightly different details. First, Ben and Sharon have their little drama, but resolving anything gets interrupted by the attack of a big stompy robot which kicks their asses, before it eventually gets taken down by chucking debris at it. We then switch to a similar scene with Johnny and Lyja who get into their own drama, before Doom himself shows up to take them down with relative ease. After he succeeds, Doom then leaves to let them regroup out of some form of honor, or maybe just for the sake of dramatics. Reed and Sue then have their drama, are also interrupted by Doom, and after Sue gets taken down by Doom, he screws off again, once more allowing his enemies to regroup and gather their forces. What was the point of all these mini-fights? It's not like Doom beating up one of the Fantastic Four by themselves is particularly remarkable - there's a reason he's a foe for the entire team. It feels like this could have been one big scene instead of several identical ones in succession to give some actual context to how much stronger Doom is supposed to be here.
The 90's flavor in this issue is never any clearer than when Reed goes around outfitting everyone with new gear. The whole scene is ridiculous, and thankfully some of the characters actually mention it, even if it doesn't prevent the scene from actually happening at all. Johnny gets a random vest which enhances his powers via vague oxygen-related shenanigans, and everyone else suddenly totes huge guns, because I guess that was necessary? Even the melee specialist of the group gets a huge handcannon to blast stuff with, because I guess at this point staying consistent with your character concept is just lame.
When the final fight with Doom starts, Reed unsuccessfully uses his charged optimizer to overload him with cosmic energy. Doom then reveals that he was prepared for such a strategy and included ways in his armor to deal with the overload scenario. He's on his feet pretty quickly again and once more on full assault. So explain to me, writers, why on Earth the exact same tactic would work better the second time around? Huh? Reed didn't have time to charge the second device, so Black Bolt's powers are supposed to be that much more powerful than the Watcher's? And it's not like this is an alternate way of attacking Doom, since the narration explicitly confirms that the villain is absorbing the energy just like he did before. So why wouldn't the systems which prevented an overload the first time also work the second? At least explain that the relevant circuits burned out or something, because right now this is just contradictory.
While we're on the topic, the inclusion of the Inhumans just feels really pointless. I know that they live on the Moon, but they literally just showed up to fill some page space, then stood around while one of them shouted in a microphone for a bit. Yay. If just using the optimizer again worked wonders, why couldn't Johnny have had a second run at it? Then at least it would've been a Fantastic Four victory, not a shared kind of deal with some random people who showed up at the last moment. The fact that the victory ultimately comes down to a device Reed fixated on this week isn't lost on me either - it's never come up before, but apparently Reed has an all-purpose anti-cosmic-entities solution that he's never pulled out when any major cosmic threats were running around. But God forbid Doom is, like, slightly more powerful than usual, time to build like three of them in half an hour!
Doom in this issue trends more towards the theatrical than the practical - which isn't anything new, but it does make him seem rather ineffectual for someone ostensibly hyper-charged with power. He mostly just harps on about how he anticipates every contingency, to the point that he does it even after he's defeated. I guess he planned for getting defeated, but not for the cause of his defeat? In any case, his cosmic might went to his head pretty quickly in this story, so he starts playing with his food, beating up Lyja, Johnny, and Sue before retreating to give them a sporting chance in a rematch, falling back on his peculiar form of honor. Then he still attacks by surprise while people are distracted, because I guess there's only so far he's willing to go with that. Although Doom does seem somewhat stronger in his one-on-one fights here, his power-up seems to have led him to a very passive fighting style in which he just hangs around in mid-air with his arms spread for most of the issue, blasting people from afar with pink energy when they get uppity. Entire conversations take place while he's just sort of suspended in the air, reflecting or absorbing anything that comes near. The fact that even his melee opponents have switched to ranged attacks might be a reason for that - but it does mean his fight scenes become rather boring.
The weirdest thing about this issue's plot is that, in some sense, it is an incredibly old fashioned, 1970's era story. It's basically a rehash of the Silver Surfer Saga after all, with Doom stealing some alien's powers and eventually getting taken down by a trick on behalf of the good guys. For all the 1990's trappings of this piece, I'd charge this comic's main sin as lack of originality - it's not just paying homage to the classics, but straight up copying them. It's a paint-by-numbers version of a fight between the Fantastic Four and Doom where everyone plays out their tired parts. Between the relationship troubles, the stupid equipment updates, and the pointless guest stars, I can't say this comic scores particularly high for me… Below average equates to 2 stars, I guess. Well, at least the next one can hardly do worse!
Hah. Haha.
HahAhaHAha...
Prepare for pain. I'm gonna have to fetch those content warnings again...
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I think this panel of Doom getting zapped is pretty nice, and for whatever reason I'm getting Dead Space vibes from his right arm - I think it's in the same position as on one of the posters? Whatever. I appreciate the font choice too! Very dramatic!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"To think that I once dreamed of becoming the mere Master of Earth! May ambitions are now far greater - and more cosmic in scope! Only I have the necessary power - the matchless genius - and the ruthless strength of will - to force the universe to grovel at my feet!"
"As is my usual habit, I must anticipate every possible contingency!"
"This tedious lovers' quarrel is utterly ludicrous and inappropriate considering the current circumstances! It is pointless to belabor your dreary ills! Especially since you are both destined to perish!"
"The world may breathe a momentary sigh of relief! My ultimate victory has once more been temporarily delayed! But Doom is surely destined to triumph in the end!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
I nominate the dorky helmet the Thing starts wearing in this issue. Technically it's not an invention of this comic (since he wore it very early in his career, which was quickly forgotten.) Still, it's just a dumb concept to hide away the face of a character who couldn't blend in anyway. Mando he ain't.
Doom-Tech of the Week
Technically he got it last time, but here Doom uses his Cosmic Battery Backpack which he ditches towards the end when it explodes. Also some Alien Roombas that he hijacked.
Cover
Man, I thought they had a consistent pattern going, but here we have an anniversary issue that doesn't even land on a multiple of 50! I guess at this point you can just make one every two years and be done with it! For this occasion they've pulled out the novelty prismatic foil, hence the trippy background. I really wish it was used on a more worthwhile cover, but instead we have to deal with an extremely 1990's take on the Fantastic Four, with the awful (if thankfully temporary) costume of Sue on full display alongside copious pocket jackets, giant guns, excessive belts, and pocket shoulder pads. I'm a little confused why Johnny, who spends most of his time on fire, also got himself a bomber jacket to wear, but I guess it's for style points? Note the dorky helmet on Ben, too. This is possibly the dumbest cover for the Fantastic Four I've ever seen, and that's just impressive.
Still, the most promising aspect of the comic is, of course, the big blocky letters which declare this issue contains the Rise of Doom! ~KRAKATHOOM!~ It promises to finally pay off all those solo scenes in the last few issues, and it's about time! The stage is set with a cosmically-empowered Doom facing off against an expanded Fantastic Four roster, which now includes both Alicia and Lyja as well. Huh, the team actually has gender parity now! How delightfully novel! Let's see if they actually make something interesting out of this...
Story Overview
It's Always Darkest Before the... DOOM!
In a supreme bit of laziness, the comic doesn't summarize the previous issue so much as reprint its last page with a slight bit of overlaid text, once more showing the flash of light with teleported the group away right in front of the 'Secret Defenders' who hunted Johnny down. This time the story continues from there, with the heroes (and Lyja) reappearing inside the citadel of Uatu the Watcher. Surprisingly, the only person there is Uatu - Doom is nowhere to be seen despite facing off with Uatu in the previous issue. Anyway, Sharon immediately calls Uatu a 'creature', which is a bit rich for a woman who spent a long time as a rock-monster. Johnny quickly explains he's a member of an alien race that likes to spy on people, while Reed insists that 'observe' is more accurate. He notes that there must be a grave threat for Uatu to violate his vow of non-interference and summon heroes to the Moon. Sue wonders if the Avengers weren't available, or maybe the X-Men - isn't the Watcher a fan of the latter team like everyone else? This is a reference to the relatively high popularity of the X-Men comics in this era, as Wolverine was in everything and then some.
Anyway, Uatu tells everyone that their presence will soon be explained, then walks over to the stasis tube containing the unconscious Aron, recounting the recent events in which said rogue Watcher abducted Alicia Masters for his little games. He continues by stating that Doctor Doom swooped in to steal Aron's cosmic power before the team got to him, after which the villain constructed a special power pack to contain this purloined energy for use in a newly designed suit of armor. Which Doom then promptly used to announce his intentions to conquer Uatu and his citadel before leaving. Nice of Doom to deliver an early warning, isn't it? Reed is aghast at the thought of Doom obtaining the power of a Watcher for himself, declaring it almost too horrible to imagine. Sharon figures the Watcher is a big boy and can defend himself so it's not really their problem, and Johnny concurs - nobody appointed them guardians of the galaxy, after all! They're already up to their eyeballs in their own problems! He's wanted by the cops as they speak, for crying out loud!
Lyja asks why she's been brought here - she's a Skrull, she has no vested interest in the planet Earth, nor does she wish to be associated with the Fantastic Four anymore. The Watcher admits he may have erred in his haste when he kidnapped them, and confirms that Sue is technically right - while he is not allowed to interfere with the affairs of other races, he is allowed to defend himself against the likes of Doom. Honestly, Doom is only a threat to the Earth and the universe at large - not to the Watchers. He muses to himself that perhaps he is as guilty as Aron for interfering, and decides to consult with others of his race on the proper course of action, taking Aron along to face judgment by his peers. In a flash of golden light the Watchers both vanish, leaving the Fantastic Four and pals behind in his moonbase. Sue darkly suggests that clearly the pompous alien never intended to give them a choice about dealing with Doom, since they're now trapped in the same space base with him.
Sharon decides to herself that she doesn't buy Doctor Doom as the menace everyone believes he is - he helped her with her She-Thing problem, didn't he, and cure her from being monster-shaped? She walks over to Ben, who is isolating himself, and wonders what's going on with him. She belatedly remembers that he was slashed in the face by Wolverine's adamantium claws moments before they were all whisked away from Earth. She asks him if he's alright, and Ben turns to show his face for the first time, revealing a rather horrifying sight of pinkish flesh that oozes out of the side of his face, almost as if his brains are dripping out of his head. It's pretty ghoulish. 'What do you think?' he asks sarcastically, and the group gasps in horror at the sight.
Elsewhere, Doctor Doom is rocketing around the Watcher's base, an incredible technological wonderland of alien machines, while revelling in the cosmic power of Aron that he's channeling through his armor. His new method of flying is a bit dorkier than usual - he's sort of Supermanning at a 45 degree angle with his cloak fanning behind him, rather than using his rocket boots or jetpack in the traditional manner. Still not as silly as that time he buzzed around horizontally on his rocket-boots, though, like the Green Goblin without a glider. As he floats through the base he admits that his goals have already shifted from being merely the Master of Earth to something grander, his ambitions growing to be more cosmic in scope to match his increased might. Only Doom has the necessary, power, matchless genius, and ruthless strength of will to force the universe to grovel at his feet!
The first task which lies before him, Doom determines, is to somehow overpower Uatu the Watcher who resides within this glorious lunar palace. He thinks it's only a matter of time before the alien decides to launch a counter strike against him, so he'll have to get ahead of that. As Doom lands among the machines, he decides to go with his usual habits - anticipate every possible contingency! He reprograms some alien service robots to work for him, concluding that their instrumentation was designed for functions beyond all human conception - except his! Doom's mastery of robotics knows no equal, as demonstrated by his control of extraterrestrial Roombas, huzzah! After he's enslaved the Watcher, he'll turn his attention to destroying those he loathes most of all - the accursed Fantastic Four!
Some distance away from the Watcher's base, the Inhuman royal family are watching ongoing events from atop a flying saucer with a handrail - it seems a bit impractical. On board are Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak, and Triton. Black Bolt silently commands the group to be cautious, even as the others recount that a UFO struck near the Watcher's base last issue, and they've gone to investigate what that was about. Medusa suspects any menace dangerous enough to threaten the Watcher could be a risk to them as well, so they should see what's going on.
How are they going to get inside the well-protected dome of the Watcher, though? Gorgon tries to cause a moonquake to shatter a wall but fails to get anywhere, even though his kicks have shattered mountains before. Karnak believes it's the fault of the crazy strong alien materials the base is made of, but he knows every material has a weakness - even this! He searches for a stress point using his powers, then moves to strike at the proper angle - and falls straight through the wall, vanishing inside. It was an illusion! Medusa relays that Black Bolt thinks this is probably an indication that their presence here was expected, and someone opened the door for them…
Within the citadel, the Fantastic Four have split up into teams to cover more ground, each grouping ensuring maximum relationship drama - because what else would you expect? Sharon figures it's a good thing she's finally gotten Ben alone with her to have that long-awaited talk about their woes. She has no idea where she stands with him anymore! They wander into a museum which contains statues of all sorts of foes the heroes of Earth have defeated, and Ben wonders if Uatu has a comics collection too. Sharon speaks up, figuring the first thing they should discuss is Doom. Ben doesn't think there's anything to discuss there - he's a maniac who wants to conquer the universe. 'Nuff said. When he suddenly spots something over her shoulder, Sharon says he's not impressed with his attempts at distracting her. She went to Doom for help after Reed failed at curing her, she reminds him, and they'll have to face that fact sooner or later. He has to face her! Their discussion is interrupted when a giant multi-colored robot barrels into the scene, and the Thing declares they'll discuss their interpersonal issues later - much later!
He starts punching the robot, calling out for Doom - he was surely the one to sic this thing on them! He demands the robot tell him where the 'chrome-covered coward' is hiding, but the thing responds by violently pummeling him directly in the face, hitting the wounded part of it with repeated impacts and sending Ben to the ground in agony. Sharon is horrified at the Thing's screams, having never heard Ben in so much pain before, but even her strongest blows don't seem to be affecting the robot at all. The machine smashes Ben into some nearby scenery, then turns around to face Sharon.
Ben digs himself out of the pile of metallic debris, tearing out a huge chunk of broken steel which he just ripped out of the floor and chucking it like a spear, perforating straight through the giant robot - let 'er rip! Sharon thanks Ben for saving her from getting squashed, but he waves it off as just the regular hero biz. Ben decides he desperately needs to do something about his face, since it's an extremely obvious weak point at the moment, one which every foe will exploit. Among the Watcher's artifacts he finds a monument to the Fantastic Four circa Fantastic Four v1 #3, back when the Thing was briefly convinced to wear a helmet. He has a clever idea…
Johnny and Lyja are making their way through the base too, and Johnny muses that even if Reed wanted to keep an eye on Sue due to her recent behaviour, he still can't believe he was teamed up with Lyja. There is so much bad blood between the two of them, even if she did save him from Ghost Rider last issue. Why did she do that, exactly? Does she still harbor feelings for him? Johnny asks Lyja why she's so willing to risk her life against Doom, and she answers that she was given little choice - and regardless, the only one allowed to kill Johnny is her! Johnny wonders why she's so hostile when Johnny was the injured party - he was the one tricked into marriage to an alien shapeshifter. Lyja accuses him of abandoning her to die after learning the truth of her alien nature, and when Johnny tells her he left because he was convinced she was already dead, she dismisses that as a lie. Johnny asks after the baby she mentioned before, and Lyja starts blasting Johnny with energy beams while declaring that he forfeited any parental rights when he deserted them!
Thankfully, Doctor Doom suddenly arrives to tell the two of them off for having a tedious lovers' quarrel at the worst time imaginable, declaring it pointless to belabor their dreary ills when they're about to perish anyway. Johnny tries for a bit of heroic banter, but neither Doom nor Lyja are particularly impressed, so they start fighting. Johnny says they should find the others and warn them of Doom's presence here so they can get some backup, and Lyja snarks that she never counted on him staying anyway. Ouch. Doom gleefully commends Lyja for hating Johnny almost as much as he does, before turning her lasers back on herself so she's blasted aside by her own attack. Johnny catches the stunned woman before she can hit the floor, but worries about the unborn baby she's carrying - if she's even still carrying it! He briefly wonders if he only cares about the baby or about Lyja too - but soon he reaffirms that she betrayed him and lied to him for most of their relationship, and he can't forgive that.
Throwing himself back into combat with Doom after putting Lyja somewhere to recover, he blasts the villain with pillars of flame which are casually absorbed by Doom's new cosmically-empowered armor, and that energy is then converted back into pure kinetic force which blasts him out of his flaming state entirely and sends him careening through the room.
Johnny recognizes that Doom is stronger than he's ever been before (which is questionable given the times he had ultimate power) but he's still confident he can be beaten. Doom himself recognizes Johnny's defiance, and declares it a good thing - crushing Johnny is only worthwhile because he would never surrender! In fact, Doom magnanimously allows Johnny the time to plan a new attack, in the hope that he'll be amusing.
Back on Earth, Matt Murdock meets with representatives of the torched Empire State University, alongside Ms. Yakaki. He stresses that Johnny acted alone at the time of the incident and not as a part of Fantastic Four Incorporated, but the representative of the school - a Mr. Losey - declares that it's just lawyer talk; what matters is that a flaming maniac set fire to the university and now the Fantastic Four are trying to dodge a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Unexpectedly, Ms. Yakaki responds with a very generous offer of a sizable cash settlement, along with a new athletic center for the school and the future proceeds from scientific patents owned by the Fantastic Four. Murdock is shocked and after the meeting he questions who greenlit such huge expenditures, and he's told that Sue authorized it, and she was told to make the university an offer they couldn't refuse. Murdock is worried what the rest of the Fantastic Four will think when they get back to discover they might be penniless…
We turn to Reed and Sue, with the latter badgering the former about letting himself get conned into fighting the Watcher's battle for him when Johnny is still wanted by the cops. Reed tells her to maybe focus on one problem at a time, while he's working on an 'optimizer' and noting that his adjustments to the device are critical. Sue complains that he always prefers playing with his scientific toys rather than listening to her concerns, and then asks what the machine is even for, and why on earth he decided to start equipping the team with jackets and guns all of a sudden. Good questions, actually! Reed evasively claims that the device is necessary to take on Doom, since he invented a new sort of battery pack to carry around cosmic energies. He doesn't really go into detail. Their bickering is soon interrupted by a beam of pink light...
...Which resolves into the form of Doctor Doom, who notices that Reed has obviously anticipated his arrival - but the same is true in reverse. Doom, still all-pink, declares that he prepared for every possibility. Given the Fantastic Four's history with the Watcher, Doom expected the bobblehead to immediately call up his Earthside buddies, so he made sure he was ready for them. He claims he enjoyed showing his new power to the Human Torch, and now it's their turn! Sue flies into a rage at the implication that her brother got hurt, and when Reed tries to impress upon her that they have to protect the 'optimizer' at all costs, she just tells him he can guard his own shit and goes after the villain by her lonesome.
Unexpectedly, Sue employs a brand new power against Doom - instead of her usual spheres or planes of invisible power, she starts chucking daggers made of force fields around, just like Malice! Doom is caught off guard and admits that clearly he is not the only person who's undergone some changes, before using his surging pink energy to blast her. Reed employs his stretching powers to pull her out of harm's way at the last moment, though she just tells him off for assuming she was incapable of saving herself. Reed admits she might have - but she's his wife, and they're supposed to protect each other. He then begs her to please protect the optimizer with one of her force fields, as their lives may depend on it. Sue gets over her anger at Reed and agrees, declaring she won't fail. At least someone's getting along!
Doom thinks this is all nauseatingly noble - a curious phrase, given how much he values nobility. He recognizes that Reed is intentionally making himself a target so Sue can protect the weapon Reed's been constructing - but he won't let this happen. He uttery ignores Reed firing a laser-gun at him, and focuses all his energy on attacking Sue. She proclaims that nothing's ever penetrated her force fields, but Doom replies that he's wielding alien power beyond anything she's experienced, and Sue has to admit that she's feeling the effects. The pink energy seems to have a psychic backlash to it, which passes through her shield and makes her feel like she's on fire and about to shatter - but she can't afford to give up. Doom compliments Sue's courage, determination, and strength of will - but it is all in vain! Finally the force field explodes as Sue collapses from the energy overload, and in the blast the optimizer is completely incinerated. Reed rushes over to her, but worries what such trauma could have done to his wife's mind, or her powers.
Doom looks on as Reed looks after his defeated wife, and muses to himself that he could easily use the opportunity of his rival's distraction to take him out. He elects not to, as such a victory would ring hollow - devoid of satisfaction. He's still got his honor. Instead, Doom flies away and begins repairing his armor, which got somewhat damaged in the detonation of Sue's force field. He declares that he and Reed must both be at their finest for their final confrontation - nothing less will do!
Back on Earth, we catch up with Agatha Harkness and little Franklin. Agatha tells her charge that he's acting like a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum, and he should stop at once. Franklin declares that he won't - he can sense that his parents are in great danger, he can feel it burning in his head! The bad man wants to kill them! Agatha wonders if the kid could really be in psychic contact with the Moon - she's apparently aware that's where the team is - and muses that Franklin's telepathic powers have been expanding faster than his ability to cope with them. She tells him there's nothing he can do - he's to stay in the building, as he's not allowed to endanger himself. Franklin angrily declares she can't stop him - nobody can! As he shouts this, his eyes light up with unholy power, and they glow bright pink. Power is pink today, I guess.
Agatha had spent hours trying to soothe the furious child, but those efforts seem to have failed. She falls back on her magical training from New Salem, and hopes that sorcery can work where words have failed, even as Franklin glows brighter. Silently they battle, mutant child against warrior witch, in a clash of wills. It's only moments before the inevitable happens however - the endless potential of Franklin Richards makes itself known, and he tosses Agatha around the room with his psychic might. It takes him only a few moments to come back to his senses, but when the pink fades and Franklin returns to a more normal state, Agatha Harkness lies unconscious on the floor…
Ben has donned the helmet he picked up from the exhibit, and grabbed a large chunk of debris for use as a club. Sharon asks him if it's necessary to wear that dorky headgear, and Ben tells her it's better than his gruesome face. Ben muses to himself that the robot made his injury worse - he can feel his skin oozing and puffing out beneath the mask. Something's happening, and it's no improvement. He tells Sharon to keep her eyes peeled as they head further into the base, anticipating that Doom has probably placed traps. Sharon is unexpectedly caught up in one - only it turns out to be Medusa of the Inhumans who grabbed her with her prehensile hair. Ben greets the Inhumans as friends, and they're momentarily confused by him wearing a helmet, but they take it in stride.
Reed and Sue, meanwhile, are recovering from their fight with Doom. Reed tells Sue to take it easy, that she might have a concussion, but Sue just tells him off for once again assuming she's made of glass. He should stop hovering like a mother hen and finish his work before their enemy returns. Sue's head is killing her, in truth, but she decides Reed can't afford the distraction right now. Reed himself wonders what exactly he's done that made Sue so angry at him. Johnny and Lyja soon fly in and note that it seems they weren't the only ones to run into the new Doom. Johnny asks if Sue is okay, and she answers that it's nothing a case of 'Tylenol 2099' couldn't cure. Heh. Reed explains that Doom shattered one of her force fields, and Johnny is shocked - he didn't know that could happen!
'Anything is now possible to Doom!' Reed explains - he's ascended to a new level of power, but Reed's convinced there must be some sort of weakness they can exploit. Lyja silently admires Reed's courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Reed explains that he modified the Watcher's technology to assemble custom weaponry for everyone which might give them an edge by enhancing their various powers. Johnny dismisses this, and references the Treasure of the Sierra Madre - 'The FF don't need no steeeenkin' weapons!' Reed says that they do, but admits he didn't know enough about Lyja's lasers to make anything for her. He hands Johnny a jacket, who says he wouldn't be caught dead in the goofy thing, but he relents when Lyja tells him that his life is more important than his image. He notes that Lyja's words sounded almost affectionate, and says that while the fit on his jacket is good, the colors are awful.
'The color should be black!' Doom declares from off-panel as he suddenly reappears backed by a small army of reprogrammed alien roomba robots. 'Black as a funeral shroud!' Rematch time!
Back on earth, a square, pink portal opens in the middle of Four Freedoms Plaza and deposits a large, shiny robot with a conical head, spiky horns and pauldrons. It's a time portal of the kind that Doctor Doom uses! The apparent robot declares he's been deposited at the right spatial coordinates, but he can only guess at the day and year. He's distracted by the sound of a sobbing child nearby and investigates, wondering if he's already too late. He walks in on a tearful Franklin attempting to stir his unconscious nanny, apologizing for his temper tantrum. The robot removes his helmet to reveal a gray-haired man beneath, though we do not see his face. He announces that Agatha is destined to live, and when Franklin spins around and asks who he is, the man declares that he's someone who has always loved Franklin…
The Fantastic Four have gotten in a full-on brawl with Doom and his robots in the Watcher's home, with both Reed and Sue using big honking space guns to blast apart robots while Johnny luxuriates in his new space biker jacket which apparently improves the quality of his flames by drawing in oxygen directly from the surrounding atmosphere. Lyja tells him to unleash this newfound energy where it will do the most good, and Johnny agrees, reflecting on the last time he cut loose and set a school on fire. He'd been terrified of flaming on ever since, he claims - though he hasn't actually shown that in practice. Still, he can't afford to hold back now, so he unleashes the energy on Doom.
Doom declares that Johnny erroneously believes him to be malevolent, but his most fervent desire has always been to bring peace and prosperity to the universe, as he has done his beloved kingdom of Latveria! Johnny tells him to stow the altruistic dictator routine, since his people live in abject terror of him. Doom responds that paradise is not without its costs, smacking the hero aside violently as he states he'd got only a single commandment: total, blind obedience! Johnny loses his jacket in the clash (good riddance), and Reed warns Sue that he's on the defensive now. Luckily, Reed had the time to cobble together a new optimizer, and tells Sue to focus her powers on her gun - it's designed to transform the energy of her force fields into destructive discharges which the optimizer can then magnify for use against Doom. Sue, unfortunately, is still in too much pain from the previous encounter to employ her powers.
Doom says it's a pity that Reed's plan has gone awry, before he blasts the second optimizer to smithereens just as he did the first. Doom then says that for too many years, and on far too many occasions, Reed has ineffectually competed against him - with little thought to the consequences of his actions. He has grown worry of such reckless behavior, so Doom will allow it no more. No more! Reed sees these as the words of a true megalomaniac, and responds that luckily for all of them, both the original optimizer and the one Doom just annihilated were mere decoys meant to be easy targets so Reed could siphon off some of the cosmic energies for use in the real thing. Once Reed learned that Doom was using a souped-up battery to channel the cosmic energy, he decided the best way to deal with it was to overcharge it - so he uses the captured energy with the optimizer to amplify it into a concentrated beam which he fires from his own space gun. With a Kar-zzak! Doom is lit up by orange energy, which overloads Doom's armor and sends him crumpling to the ground.
Sue asks if Doom is dead, but Reed dismisses this, knowing his rival well enough that he'd surely have built in protections against any malfunction - Reed would have. Doom soon pushes himself up from the floor and acknowledges that Reed is correct in that regard - but has underestimated him in all others. Doom anticipates every possibility, thus he included safeguards against such an obvious and clumsy attack. The final victory is his and it's as gratifying as it is decisive! With that he starts blasting huge beams of pink energy again, laying the hurt on the assembled heroes with his full power.
From out of nowhere, Ben and Sharon arrive with the Inhumans in tow, and Ben tells Doom off for counting victories before they're hatched. Black Bolt is first into the fray and knocks Doom aside. Reed tells Ben that his timing was perfect, then stuffs a giant cannon into his hands to replace the loose piece of debris. Ben complains that he knows they have to change with the times, but he doesn't want to be the Punisher! Reed just tells him to stuff it, the fate of the universe could depend on it! As Black Bolt is repelled by Doom's energy, Reed warns Ben of the recoil of his gun, but the rocky hero isn't worried. He fires the gun and manages to stagger Doom, and he likes the kick that the gun has - he's keeping it!
Doom refocuses his ire on Ben, and declares that the Thing still doesn't appreciate his true power, and shall live long enough to do so. Doom could erase him where he stood, of course, but he has a better idea. He turns to Sharon, and tells her that it's about time to reveal her true allegiance. Ben, aghast, turns to ask her what that's about. Sharon hesitates, noting that Doom did cure her of her mutation - but he can't make her turn against Ben. He can't. She declares that everyone was right about Doom, after all - he is a monster! She tosses a chunk of debris at him, and Doom admits he's disappointed that she failed to hold up her end of the deal - now she must die with the others!
Ben shouts at Sharon for an explanation - she was spying on them this entire time? Sharon tries to explain that she was doing it for him, hoping she could get a cure for his own mutation out of Doom, but Ben doesn't buy it. Reed arrives to tell them off for squabbling in the middle of the fight - they have to present a united front or they won't survive! He declares that his optimizer failed before because it couldn't get enough of a charge going to truly destroy the battery through its failsafes. (It was his own fault that he counted too much on Sue's energy to make up the difference.) He has a new option now, however - a new source of incredible energy. He asks Black Bolt to shout into the optimizer.
Shocked, Medusa asks if fear has driven Reed insane - the ruler of the inhumans dares not even speak for fear of destroying everything around him with an incredible blast of energy, as his mere whispers can reduce mountains to rubble. Reed explains that he's aware of this, but there's no other way to deal with Doom. Fearfully, Black Bolt grasps the optimizer in his hands and focuses - he's been indoctrinated since birth to remain silent, so it's a conscious act of will to trust in Mr. Fantastic's statements and employ his deadly gift. He speaks, and the resulting shockwave dwarfs the explosion of a nuclear weapon as it washes over Doom, who is battered by ever-increasing force, soaking up the energy like a sponge.
Reed explains this was exactly what he intended to happen - to give Doom more power than he's ever dreamed of having. No matter what failsafes he built into his armor, there is still a maximum power capacity which he cannot exceed without explosive results, and Doom's about to reach it. Reed tells Sue to set up a protective force field, since they're about to need it. Doom reaches critical mass just as Sue painfully manages to set up a protective field despite the strain, the blurry eyes, and the headache. With a bright explosion the top of the Watcher's base is blown wide open and Doom is gone. It's over.
Sure enough, the moment the fight is done the Watcher reappears as if he'd never left. Ben explains that they're not sure what exactly happened to Doc Doom in the end - but it looks like he's gone for good! The Watcher just stares at him. He then teleports them all back to Earth without a word. Reed concludes that Uatu must've been chastened by his peers for involving them in this affair, so he's trying to stick to his vows more closely. Sue is relieved that her headache is fading, but she's worried what will happen the next time she tries to summon a force field again. Sharon, meanwhile, tries to explain spying for Doom, but Ben doesn't want to hear it. Not now, not ever! Agatha Harkness suddenly appears from around the corner, having heard voices, and the Fantastic Four are shocked when her head is bandaged - what happened to her? She waves the question away - she and Franklin just had a little mishap. Sue asks where Franklin is, and Agatha explains he's playing with the visitor. What visitor? Why, it's none other than Nathaniel Richards, Reed's absentee time-traveling cyborg father! It's a whole thing. Nathaniel's come to this period in time to help Franklin with something, you see...
Back on the Moon, the Watcher looks up to the Earth from among the ruins of his once-proud citadel and focuses on a specific location - on Latveria. There, within one of the sub-basements, a desperate form clings to life. Smoking from excess energies with his new armor partially destroyed and molten, any other man would be whimpering in excruciating pain at that moment - but not Doom. He just barely managed to jettison the power battery and activate his emergency transport beam to get back home, and is sure the others there must believe him dead. Fools! Doom prepared for every contingency. The world may breathe a momentary sigh of relief while he recuperates, as his ultimate victory has once more been delayed - but he is destined to triumph in the end!
Epilogue (#276)
We get a brief scene in the next issue of Fantastic Four which serves as a coda to this storyline. A minion of Doom's - Kaufman - approaches to compliment Doom for his swift recovery after his recent defeat at the hands of the Fantastic Four. Doom repeats the word 'defeat' to himself, and the minion declares he meant no disrespect. Doom says that no offense was taken - his loyalty is without question! Doom explains that he anticipated the problems he eventually ran into, so he squirreled away a portion of the cosmic power of Aron into one of his machines. It's a much smaller amount than he once possessed in his armor, but it's sufficient for his purposes. He asks Kaufman to do the honors of turning the device on, pointing to a nearby lever.
The man obediently walks over and pulls the handle - and is instantly reduced to atoms when the cosmic energy pours directly into him. Ouch. So much, Doom declares, for Kaufman's inappropriate choice of words! Doom may be thwarted, circumvented, disappointed, deterred or delayed - but he is never defeated! And yet… Kaufman's punishment will seem like a kindness to the one he prepared to unleash upon Sharon Ventura for spurning their agreement. She availed herself of his generosity, benefited from his intellect, and then betrayed him in return! She will suffer dire consequences…
Rating & Comments
You know, on the face of it, this issue seemed pretty promising. The Fantastic Four and bonus cast are stranded in an enclosed space and pitted against an empowered Doctor Doom, forced to rely on each other despite deep animosity between some of the members and ongoing relationship issues they have to overcome. It makes sense as a story premise. Then you start reading, and it quickly becomes apparent that what we get here is not truly a big Doom vs. Fantastic Four clash, or even a proper Doom vs. Reed rematch - instead, it's an amalgamation of a bunch of previous Doom comics glommed into one and resolved via a blatant self-contradiction. Also there's a bunch of random guest stars who don't really do much at all, but they're there because they're a group package, I guess. And everyone has guns for some reason.
Firstly, the premise of this entire story is rather odd. For reasons that are beyond me, the previous issues set up a scenario which is immediately undercut here - because while Doom is facing off against the Watcher in the last issue, here he just kind of wanders off into the alien's base for no reason, flying about and tinkering with robots instead. He explicitly came to steal Uatu's powers, but he never bothered to actually do it? He just kinda threatened the guy and left? It makes no sense. Since Uatu is the one to actually teleport the Fantastic Four to the Moon, what was Doom's plan exactly? Why would he want to face the Fantastic Four when he hadn't yet defused the second Watcher that he identified as a liability before? If he's so powerful he could face off against a Watcher one-on-one, and we saw how powerful Aron could get in his fight with Molecule Man, why didn't we get to see that confrontation at all? Even if Uatu just teleported away from that fight, it would've made more sense than what actually happened here.
In any case, after the Fantastic Four arrive, we get our second example of idiocy - when the team splits up into drama couples to have various conversations that never really lead anywhere. Lyja was actively threatening Johnny's life last issue, and still gets a few licks in here, but for some reason they start rebuilding their relationship out of nowhere partway through, apparently on the back of getting beaten up and not much else. It's not even like Johnny saved Lyja's life or something, they both got their asses kicked. Similarly, the team-ups between Ben and Sharon & Reed and Sue are troubled, with the men trying to ignore things as much as possible while their respective women get annoyed by it, so it's all very melodramatic and soap opera. Out of the three relationships, only the one between Sharon and Ben stays the same - but we see none of the actual development of the other two. They just suddenly act nicer to each other for no discernible reason. Did I miss something?
The most annoying part of this comic, I think, is how repetitive it gets. After the initial setup is done, it basically repeats the same scene several times, though with slightly different details. First, Ben and Sharon have their little drama, but resolving anything gets interrupted by the attack of a big stompy robot which kicks their asses, before it eventually gets taken down by chucking debris at it. We then switch to a similar scene with Johnny and Lyja who get into their own drama, before Doom himself shows up to take them down with relative ease. After he succeeds, Doom then leaves to let them regroup out of some form of honor, or maybe just for the sake of dramatics. Reed and Sue then have their drama, are also interrupted by Doom, and after Sue gets taken down by Doom, he screws off again, once more allowing his enemies to regroup and gather their forces. What was the point of all these mini-fights? It's not like Doom beating up one of the Fantastic Four by themselves is particularly remarkable - there's a reason he's a foe for the entire team. It feels like this could have been one big scene instead of several identical ones in succession to give some actual context to how much stronger Doom is supposed to be here.
The 90's flavor in this issue is never any clearer than when Reed goes around outfitting everyone with new gear. The whole scene is ridiculous, and thankfully some of the characters actually mention it, even if it doesn't prevent the scene from actually happening at all. Johnny gets a random vest which enhances his powers via vague oxygen-related shenanigans, and everyone else suddenly totes huge guns, because I guess that was necessary? Even the melee specialist of the group gets a huge handcannon to blast stuff with, because I guess at this point staying consistent with your character concept is just lame.
When the final fight with Doom starts, Reed unsuccessfully uses his charged optimizer to overload him with cosmic energy. Doom then reveals that he was prepared for such a strategy and included ways in his armor to deal with the overload scenario. He's on his feet pretty quickly again and once more on full assault. So explain to me, writers, why on Earth the exact same tactic would work better the second time around? Huh? Reed didn't have time to charge the second device, so Black Bolt's powers are supposed to be that much more powerful than the Watcher's? And it's not like this is an alternate way of attacking Doom, since the narration explicitly confirms that the villain is absorbing the energy just like he did before. So why wouldn't the systems which prevented an overload the first time also work the second? At least explain that the relevant circuits burned out or something, because right now this is just contradictory.
While we're on the topic, the inclusion of the Inhumans just feels really pointless. I know that they live on the Moon, but they literally just showed up to fill some page space, then stood around while one of them shouted in a microphone for a bit. Yay. If just using the optimizer again worked wonders, why couldn't Johnny have had a second run at it? Then at least it would've been a Fantastic Four victory, not a shared kind of deal with some random people who showed up at the last moment. The fact that the victory ultimately comes down to a device Reed fixated on this week isn't lost on me either - it's never come up before, but apparently Reed has an all-purpose anti-cosmic-entities solution that he's never pulled out when any major cosmic threats were running around. But God forbid Doom is, like, slightly more powerful than usual, time to build like three of them in half an hour!
Doom in this issue trends more towards the theatrical than the practical - which isn't anything new, but it does make him seem rather ineffectual for someone ostensibly hyper-charged with power. He mostly just harps on about how he anticipates every contingency, to the point that he does it even after he's defeated. I guess he planned for getting defeated, but not for the cause of his defeat? In any case, his cosmic might went to his head pretty quickly in this story, so he starts playing with his food, beating up Lyja, Johnny, and Sue before retreating to give them a sporting chance in a rematch, falling back on his peculiar form of honor. Then he still attacks by surprise while people are distracted, because I guess there's only so far he's willing to go with that. Although Doom does seem somewhat stronger in his one-on-one fights here, his power-up seems to have led him to a very passive fighting style in which he just hangs around in mid-air with his arms spread for most of the issue, blasting people from afar with pink energy when they get uppity. Entire conversations take place while he's just sort of suspended in the air, reflecting or absorbing anything that comes near. The fact that even his melee opponents have switched to ranged attacks might be a reason for that - but it does mean his fight scenes become rather boring.
The weirdest thing about this issue's plot is that, in some sense, it is an incredibly old fashioned, 1970's era story. It's basically a rehash of the Silver Surfer Saga after all, with Doom stealing some alien's powers and eventually getting taken down by a trick on behalf of the good guys. For all the 1990's trappings of this piece, I'd charge this comic's main sin as lack of originality - it's not just paying homage to the classics, but straight up copying them. It's a paint-by-numbers version of a fight between the Fantastic Four and Doom where everyone plays out their tired parts. Between the relationship troubles, the stupid equipment updates, and the pointless guest stars, I can't say this comic scores particularly high for me… Below average equates to 2 stars, I guess. Well, at least the next one can hardly do worse!
Hah. Haha.
HahAhaHAha...
Prepare for pain. I'm gonna have to fetch those content warnings again...
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I think this panel of Doom getting zapped is pretty nice, and for whatever reason I'm getting Dead Space vibes from his right arm - I think it's in the same position as on one of the posters? Whatever. I appreciate the font choice too! Very dramatic!
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"To think that I once dreamed of becoming the mere Master of Earth! May ambitions are now far greater - and more cosmic in scope! Only I have the necessary power - the matchless genius - and the ruthless strength of will - to force the universe to grovel at my feet!"
"As is my usual habit, I must anticipate every possible contingency!"
"This tedious lovers' quarrel is utterly ludicrous and inappropriate considering the current circumstances! It is pointless to belabor your dreary ills! Especially since you are both destined to perish!"
"The world may breathe a momentary sigh of relief! My ultimate victory has once more been temporarily delayed! But Doom is surely destined to triumph in the end!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
I nominate the dorky helmet the Thing starts wearing in this issue. Technically it's not an invention of this comic (since he wore it very early in his career, which was quickly forgotten.) Still, it's just a dumb concept to hide away the face of a character who couldn't blend in anyway. Mando he ain't.
Doom-Tech of the Week
Technically he got it last time, but here Doom uses his Cosmic Battery Backpack which he ditches towards the end when it explodes. Also some Alien Roombas that he hijacked.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
I know you already mentioned this, but Sue wearing an unzipped jacket that appears to be too small for her over that costume remains ridiculous. Her arms being uncovered was not the problem.
154: Fantastic Four v1 #379 - Only Death Be My Salvation!
- Location
- Netherlands
⚠ Warning: This issue contains references to Self-Harm and Suicide. ⚠
Fantastic Four v1 #379 (August 1993)
Cover
Oh boy. We're back here.
Again.
Englehart may be long gone from this title, but it seems other people picked up where he left off - and decided that a thinly veiled redo of the last time Sharon was mutated into a She-Thing was in order, and she's once more going to lash out in response. I expect to see many of the same terrible tropes based on my vague knowledge of looking this comic up before - and if it once more bungles the issue of suicide, like last time, I'm gonna give it 1 star and disown the damn thing. Period. For goodness sake, Marvel. Learn from your shitty mistakes and stop repeating them!
Story Overview
Relevant Backstory (#377-378)
While he overlooks his cosmic energy machine, Doctor Doom gets some intel from one of his minions that the Fantastic Four are away from their base, but the 'target' is not among them. He acknowledges this information before considering the device filled with the last remnants of the cosmic energy he siphoned from Aron the Rogue Watcher. He has concluded that the Watchers are not the only entities with power in the universe, so he'll use this spare bit of energy to lure in another so that they can become a new pawn of Doom. He flips a switch, and a bright beam of light fires into the sky from the top of his castle, into outer space...
Over at Four Freedoms Plaza, Sharon Ventura asks a time-travelling alternate teenage Franklin (don't ask) about her future, and whether she and Ben ever get back together or if he chooses Alicia Masters over her. When Franklin refuses to say, Sharon believes that she sees the answer in his eyes and storms out in tears. Down in the streets, she tries to come to terms with the fact that she has ruined her relationship with Ben through her spying and lying, when suddenly two servants of Doom ambush her and knock her out with a gas grenade.
Later, Ben is walking alone through the streets of New York, having blown off an outing with Sandman due to his concerns about how the Fantastic Four performed that day - Reed got injured pretty badly, and with Johnny still in legal trouble and Sue seeing double from the last fight with Doom, he realizes the team is not in such great shape. He wonders if he should call it quits. He's suddenly called over by someone in a dark alley, and Ben barely recognizes the voice as Sharon's. He goes to her side and is horrified to see that she has been mutated into a form even more grotesque than her old She-Thing form...
Only Death Be My Salvation!
Yikes. That title is… concerning... given the last time a story of this premise appeared in my readthrough. We open up with Reed Richards overworking himself, suffering from the wounds that the alternate future huntress Huntara of the Fearsome Foursome inflicted on him with her psychic weapon - the villain team broke into Johnny's trial and interrupted it, it was a whole thing. Reed's not affording himself any of the strictly advised bed rest because of the emergency with Sharon, so he's clearly hurting while he orders around Johnny to heat chemicals to exact temperatures because apparently this is manual work, and he doesn't have any machines to do such menial tasks for him. He's working himself to exhaustion, much to everyone's worry.
Johnny thinks to himself that he couldn't have imagined anyone, even a cold-hearted maniac like Doctor Doom, would ever mutate someone in such a grotesque fashion deliberately - he'd hate to be in Doom's shoes when Ben gets a hold of him! Everyone's on deck - Sue, future Franklin and Lyja are keeping an eye on various readings while Ben holds Sharon's hand and promises her that Reed will find a solution. Sharon doesn't buy it - Reed couldn't solve the problem the last time she was She-Thing, so why would he be able to now? Ben tells her she needs to keep faith, and figures Reed must have learned some answers by now. Reed admits that he's still trying to figure out the question, but he then suddenly keels over due to the combined effects of his exhaustion and his wounds. Franklin offers to help but is rebuffed by Sue, who helps Reed to a bed herself. Lyja looks on in worry, observing that Sue is also quite injured - she hasn't been able to use her powers properly since their last run-in with Doom on the Moon, after all, and suffers from migraines.
Sharon, in a sudden fit of anger, wonders what the point is of even trying anymore, before she starts smashing the delicate scientific equipment in Reed's laboratory with her mutant fists, declaring to Ben that all Reed could do was monitor her while she kept changing before his very eyes - it's useless! Doctor Doom is the only one who could cure her, but he's punishing her because she wouldn't betray the Fantastic Four! Ben swears they'll find a way to save her, that she can't just give up, but Sharon just says she doesn't want Ben to see her this way. To remember her this way. Dangerous talk, that.
While Ben tries to talk her down, she laments that she couldn't compete for his affections while she was still human, and now it's even worse! Uh, did she forget that she and Ben already shared a romance while they were rock people? Hell, Ben was even human for a part of that! Nearby, Johnny swears to teen Franklin that Doom will pay for what he's done to all of them, and Franklin darkly agrees that he will.
Meanwhile, in scenic Latveria, the ever-ominous figure of Doctor Doom is enjoying a lavishly prepared dinner while he's briefed on the latest intelligence by his robots, including receiving an update on a mysterious epidemic which was raging around the world at the time - this would be the Legacy virus which affected only mutants. After getting test data from one of his servo-guards, Doom sets a medical team the task of coming up with an antidote to this disease, noting that it may yet mutate and pose a danger to Doomstadt in the future. He's also informed that his New York operatives have conveyed his regards to Sharon Ventura, and Doom instructs his minions that they'll have to make the usual arrangements - if the Fantastic Four follow their normal patterns, Latveria will soon be receiving guests. When a cook offers Doom dessert, he turns it away, telling him that it should be donated to a deserving peasant family - along with Doom's command to enjoy it!
The same servo-guard from before tells Doom that 'Project Space Probe' has made initial contact, and Doom is surprised that Dr. Gittelsohn apparently succeeded very quickly. He announces he will be in the space laboratory until further notice, and recaps the last storyline while he walks there, including his appropriation of the power of a Rogue Watcher - power he would have used to make the entire world a paradise, he claims. War, famine, homelessness, crime and unemployment would have forever vanished if not for the interference of the Fantastic Four! Through their puerile trickery he was stripped of most of that power, but Doom is relentless - he will have what he wants. Thus, the Space Probe project was designed to find a new source of cosmic energy. Sure enough, when Doom checks in on the experiment, Dr. Gittelsohn reports that he's discovered an alien lifeform of remarkably complex energies and is luring it back to Earth…
Back at the Fantastic Four Headquarters, Lyja is annoyed that Johnny is trying to bond with teenage future Franklin - he seems to have time for everyone except her! Johnny can't quite believe Franklin is the same kid he played Gameboy with just a few weeks ago, and Franklin is weirded out too, having spent years away from Earth and this time period due to time travel shenanigans involving his grandfather, Nathaniel Richards. Franklin asks Johnny about the woman who hurt Reed, but the moment Johnny begins to describe her he rips the mental image from Johnny's mind with his powers, uncaring that it leaves his uncle with a huge headache. Franklin justifies this to himself by thinking he couldn't afford to rely on just words, though why he wouldn't just ask permission is left a mystery. He's sure who he's dealing with now, though - Huntara, who is someone he know from the future timeline. She's followed him! While Johnny is recovering from the spontaneous mental assault, Ben runs into the room to tell everyone that Sharon is gone.
High above the Earth, in the spaceship of Paibok and Devos, the Fearsome Foursome appears - that ragtag team-up of villains who came together to attack Johnny Storm's trial. Besides the two aliens above, it also includes the sound-based villain Klaw, and Huntara. Klaw likes the ship, but thinks Galactus's ship was a lot more impressive - he saw that one in Secret Wars. Devos compliments Huntara for her battle prowess, wondering if there are many of such skill on her homeworld. Huntara agrees that there are many people of such ability in 'elsewhen' but is not sure why he's asking. Devos says he was just… curious! Does someone have a crush? Paibok says that the trial of Johnny Storm gave him a great idea how to once and for all get rid of 'Earthers', but we cut away before we get any details on his dastardly plan…
Back in Manhattan, Johnny streaks through the sky in his flaming form, and reflects that Matt Murdock got him released on bail after all that trouble at the trial, which was pretty impressive, really - but now he owes the man a lot! Still, it's great to be free again. Unfortunately, he quickly realizes that not everyone is happy about that, as some folks on the street run in fear when they see him, afraid he'll set the area on fire like he did at the University. It hurts to hear, but Johnny decides he'll have to get used to it, and wonders if this is what mutants feel like - getting all this fear, this scorn. He decides maybe Sue was right when she suggested he stay behind, but he couldn't let Ben deal with the Sharon situation alone. He's soon called down from the sky by Bridget O'Neil, the 'pretty lady', who he seems to have the hots for - pun intended - and who he saved at the University.
Bridget says that it must be hard to get fearful looks from everyone, especially after Johnny risked his life so often on their behalf. Johnny admits that you get used to every kind of attention after years of being a superstar, and it's probably worse to go ignored. 'Funny you should say that,' Bridget mutters while Johnny extricates himself, saying it's been great but he's got to get going. He flames on and flies away into the sky once more, telling her he'll catch her later. Afterwards, Bridget says it's not necessary for the 'two-timing snake', since she'd already caught him. Then she reverts to normal, revealing herself to be Lyja in disguise all along, stalking him in another woman's form. Yikes...
Leaving the relationship drama aside, we turn to Sharon, who is hiding out in alleyways again and looking into the streets of the city with envy as young lovers pass by. The captions unkindly declare her a misshapen monstrosity separated from humanity by an infinite and agonizing gulf - how harsh! Ben arrives to speak to her, but Sharon doesn't believe that Reed could help her, and demands to know why he hadn't cured Ben if he's so great at it, or even repaired that wound on his face instead of covering it up with a helmet? She declares that there is no way for her to regain her humanity, so why should she even try? He tries to appeal to her one more time, but she reacts violently, punching Ben across the street with her enhanced strength. He lets himself go limp so he isn't hurt too badly from crashing through a nearby storefront, then muses that Sharon is worse off than he thought - she's clearly lost the will to live, and there's no telling what she's planning. He has to stop her before she does something they'll all regret!
Sharon runs through the streets and reflects that it's getting harder and harder to think - she's likely still mutating, and she suspects it's only a matter of time before her mind is gone altogether. She can't live like this, she decides, so she has no choice - she knows what has to be done. Ben chases after her and is disturbed to realize Sharon seems to have a specific destination in mind - that can't be good! He jumps out of the building he was punted into and crushes a car on his way down - should've known better than to park in the falling hero zone! Given their current money troubles, he's pretty sure Reed will read him the riot act over this bill! Not content with the property damage so far, Ben pulls a street lamp out of the ground and uses it to restrain Sharon, but she breaks out within seconds.
As she picks up a nearby bus as a weapon, Sharon declares that she followed Ben around like a lovesick puppy for months, but he was too busy for her, too involved in his own problems. So why would he come after her now? She chucks the bus at Ben, who is relieved that the vehicle is empty but wonders if Sharon knew that.
Ben explains to Sharon that his reticence about renewing their relationship was influenced by the return of his old flame Alicia Masters - he got scared, and couldn't figure out how to choose between two women that both meant so much to him. Or maybe he's just a gutless lunkhead, as he puts it - all he knows is that he cares about her, and he's really scared she's about to do something regrettable.
Johnny arrives overhead after hearing the bus crash, and is glad to see Ben found Sharon, though they seem to be having a bit of a dust-up. Johnny compares it to his own recent troubles with Lyja, as he still doesn't really know what he feels about her - but he puts those issues on the backburner and burns a flaming '4' into the sky to signal the rest of the team. Reed rushes out of bed when he spots it in the sky, and Sue immediately tells him off for getting out of bed.
Reed won't have it, though, reminding her that the signal means the team is needed. All of them. He is a member of this family, and the others need him! He can't fail them, no matter the consequences! Sue reflects that many consider Reed the weakest on the team (how times have changed) but if they could see him now, they might reconsider. Even though he completely exasperates her at times, Sue admits she does still love him with all her heart.
Sharon flees from Ben again, rushing down into the subway tunnels with him in hot pursuit. She begs him not to make this any harder - and to remember her as she was, not the way she is now! Ben doesn't like how fatalistic that sounds, and realizes why Sharon is going into the subway: she's heading for the third rail! He begs Sharon not to toss in the towel, not to quit! As they wrestle down the stairs, Sharon declares that he might be throwing her a lifeline, but hope is a barbed wire - it will only rip her to shreds and leave her in worse shape. Ben tells her to have faith, to believe in herself, to keep fighting! No matter how bad the pain, no matter how scared she is, she has the strength to beat this! She only has one life - if she gives up on it, she'll have nothing at all!
Sharon declares that's what she's been trying to tell him - she has nothing! Punting Ben into a train car, she says that Doom ended her life when he stole her humanity, and she won't let him have her mind as well! Ben refuses to let it end like this, to lose the most important battle of all. Sharon tells him it's not his battle to fight, and he can't control the final outcome. Ben tells her she has so much to live for, but Sharon tells him she did once - but no more! With a final declaration of love Sharon throws herself onto the electrified railroad tracks and is electrocuted while Ben screams in horror. Nooooo!
The rest of the Fantastic Four arrive belatedly and wonder where Sharon is, and they comment that Ben looks like hell - and then they spot her body on the tracks and rush over. They immediately conclude that this was no accident, and that Sharon must have voluntarily jumped on the third track in an attempted suicide. Attempted is the key word - she's still breathing. Sue is astounded that she'd survive such a tremendous shock, but Reed says that her mutated hide must be even stronger than it looks, and tells the others he'll need specialized equipment to move her - it's a matter of life or death! Johnny tells him to give a list of stuff he needs, as he can move the fastest. Sue then wonders where Ben has gone - he disappeared before he knew that Sharon was still alive!
Back at Four Freedoms Plaza, an enraged Ben arrives under the impression that Sharon is dead, and he lays the blame squarely at the feet of one man: Doom! He murdered her - he couldn't be more guilty if he'd pushed her onto those rails himself! Ben is determined to make him pay - and since she is dead, only death can repay this crime. The death of Doctor Doom! He gets into the Fantastic Four's rocket-plane and blasts off for Latveria by himself…
In Latveria, as it happens, the cowering lackeys of Doom's are rushing every which way to prepare for the arrival of the strange alien entity that's been lured towards the Earth, as if their very lives depended on it. Doom reflects that it actually does, since he is Monarch Supreme of all he surveys, and their every timid breath is subject to his royal approval!
He walks over to Dr. Gittelsohn and asks for an update, and his underling informs him that his equipment is working flawlessly - his designs are pure genius! Doom notes that they pale in comparison to the torture devices with which he may become acquainted should he fail to deliver a satisfactory report. Ouch! Thankfully the readings are good and promise that the incoming alien entity is a viable target for Doom's exploitation - Gittelsohn may yet live a little longer.
A servo-guard then arrives to notify Doom that Latverian airspace was violated by a vehicle tentatively identified as property of the Fantastic Four, and Doom recognizes that his eagerly expected guests have arrived. He assumes the quartet has come to attack him with their usual zeal, but their fate is already sealed this time - he can't afford to devote his unparalleled attention to them since he's busy with the alien, so he instructs his minions to give the team the courteous welcome which has been prepared for them. Moments later an array of defensive cannons unleash their payloads, and Ben's vehicle is blown out of the sky…
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
Is this why you brought Sharon back into the picture, writers? To pull this shit? She was reintroduced only a few issues ago, complete with a brand new costume, and she's barely had time to reintroduce herself before her entire story arc comes crashing back to the exact same point it did before - back to involuntary mutation and violent suicidal impulses while the Thing chases after her and belatedly tries to convince her not to do anything permanent. It's like everyone was dosed with amnesia juice, since nobody seems to recall the last time this exact scenario happened, or the lessons that were ostensibly learned during that debacle. Seriously? Seriously?
The issue of suicide is never a light one to tackle - it's like rape or child abuse, it's heavy. Not only are quite a few readers going to be familiar with the issue on some level, and carry some heavy feelings about it, but a poor treatment of this subject could easily leave troubling impressions with people - both for those who have dealt with the issue in their own life, or who might come into contact with those who have. Even leaving aside the issue of suicide specifically, this comic isn't any kinder about the concept of body image, is it? Being ugly on the outside is equated to being inhuman, monstrous, irredeemable, set apart from humanity. Then it wraps mental degradation in there as well, as if having Alzheimers is now a mortal sin, or something to be solved by jumping in front of a train. It all just comes together into a terrible ball of poor choices by whoever greenlit this story concept.
It would have been so easy, so easy, to have Sharon decide, in this moment, to run back to Doom for help, swearing herself to his service because she knows he can cure her. It'd be a betrayal of the Fantastic Four, and her own values, but it'd make complete sense - and Ben would have a great reason to go after her to stop her, to try and convince her that she's wrong. You could keep most of the dialogue the same, even! Then, instead of suicide, you have the chase lead to the apparent accidental death of Sharon, which Ben attributes to the damage Doom did to her psyche with the mutations, and things continue from there. You could tell this entire story without ever being a crass and insensitive asshole who makes Sharon into a perpetual victim who goes into violent suicidal mood swings at the drop of a hat. I might've even given that a decent score!
Now, there are a few other things to complain about in this issue, aside from the entire Sharon situation. For one, the Johnny affair pretty much resolved itself, it seems, with him free again on bail - the court case likely concludes via Sue buying the school's silence, as mentioned before. So, was all of the build-up just to get to an unrelated battle in a courtroom? One which is then instantly forgotten because there's new stuff to do? Feh. There's also the Lyja scene in this issue - she's being a terribly nosy stalker, interpreting innocuous friendly comments as Johnny two-timing her, when they're not even in a relationship at the moment - they used to be, but that was under false pretenses on her part, so I hardly think that counts. Leaving aside that I don't think Johnny is actually dating Bridget, and Lyja is not his girlfriend or wife, even actual cheating on someone is less of a creepy underhanded thing to do than the identity fraud she's committing here. Clingy…
Ben is the main character of this issue, in a way, but he doesn't really get to say too much except boilerplate 'you have so much to live for' stuff which Sharon disregards entirely. At least it's not quite as ridiculous as the previous time this confrontation happened, since he doesn't really try to flirt with her. Small mercies! Halfway amusing is the fact that Ben continuously realizes Reed will be mad at him for collateral damage, before completely ignoring that and just smashing everything in the vicinity anyway. In any case, the most interesting aspect of this comic is that he storms off without knowing that Sharon is still alive and goes to murder Doom for it, which should lead to a proper to-the-death face-off in the next few comics. Since I am roughly aware when Doom takes a year or two off from comics, and one such lacuna is coming up soon… that seems promising!
Doctor Doom himself is, for the duration of this issue, mostly a passive receptor of a bunch of exposition, and not much more. He sits around in his castle looking badass while a bunch of robots spout information at him, then he takes a walk and looks in on some of his ongoing projects. All of that seems to be set-up for the next two issues, which form their own mini-arc which is pretty separate from this issue. Still, the mutation of Sharon is also his doing - recompense for betraying him in Fantastic Four v1 #375 - so it makes sense to give this one a full look. Now, this assault is evil, yes, but it also makes sense from his perspective - Doom was the one to revert Sharon back to human form in exchange for her services in the rather excellent Fantastic Four v1 #350, and was even the first to offer such a cure in Fantastic Four v1 #311 - the very issue this one is imitating. It was the only decent part of that whole comic, actually. When you deal with villains and then betray them, taking back what they gave you is probably the least you should expect.
Incidentally, it seems Doom has found himself a replacement for the Hauptmanns of the world - a named minion who sticks around for more than one issue at a time. Dr. Gittelsohn is in charge of the 'space probe project' which lures in alien monsters, and it's a bit unclear to me how much of that is his doing, and how much is Doom's. We see Doom pull the switch to turn on the machine, but later Doom goes to check in with Gittelsohn and expect updates on the hunt, so clearly his minions are the ones actually manipulating the machine. I imagine this will play into the future issues - maybe Gittelsohn will betray Doom like the Hauptmanns before him? He does have an unfortunate history with people with German names, even if we exclude the actual WW2 Nazis he employed…
What is somewhat amusing to note, in this issue, is that Doom monologues to himself inside his own head, and we catch up on him narrating his own legend to himself in the corridors, noting that he would have used the rogue Watcher's power to solve all the world's ills and ushered in Utopia when we know perfectly well that when he actually had that power, he had designs to conquer the universe with it. I'm not sure if we're to assume he's just being massively delusional here, but that's how it comes across. It's one thing to outwardly project that your every deed is meant for some greater good, but it's a whole other one to think it without irony when your actions are blatantly in contradiction to that alleged goal. Although, I guess we can fill in the blanks here and assume that Doom would conquer the world in order to solve all its problems, like he did in the graphic novel Emperor Doom. That works!
So - there we have it. An entire issue dedicated to making Sharon into a violently suicidal threat to everything around her again, removing all the work previous writers did to undo some of the terrible shit that had already been done to her. The writers also drop the entire Johnny storyline despite spending an inordinate amount of time on setting it up, Lyja and Franklin are randomly being inconsiderate assholes for no reason, and Sue is still wearing her skimpy outfit despite an apparent desire on the part of the writers to mostly ignore her personality changes (possibly because they proved unpopular with readers.) Wrap it all up with a fairly passive Doom portrayal, and you wouldn't get a great score out of me on the best of days. But, yeah, that Sharon thing is kind of a dealbreaker. 1 star, and let's forget about it, yeah?
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I liked this shot of Doom striding off, with one hand dropping a handkerchief after having just eaten - with his mask on, don't ask me how that works - while he's already got his other hand balled into a fist. Note also the classic design servo-guard behind him, and the current symbol of Doom's rule as of this comic in the background.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Power which I would have used to make this entire world a paradise! War, famine, homelessness, crime and unemployment would have forever vanished - if not for the interference of the hated Fantastic Four!"
"These cowering lackeys scurry about … as if their very lives depended upon it! As well they do! I am the monarch supreme of all I survey… and their every timid breath is subject to my royal approval!"
"I am pleased… thus you may live awhile longer!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
The artists accidentally gave Sue a more reasonable costume in this panel! Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!
Doom-Tech of the Week
Technically it happened in the backstory issues, but the Mutagenic Gas Grenade plays into this issue's story. Also I guess the Space Probe Project counts - a way to lure in some cosmic alien via a beam of energy.
Fantastic Four v1 #379 (August 1993)
Cover
Oh boy. We're back here.
Again.
Englehart may be long gone from this title, but it seems other people picked up where he left off - and decided that a thinly veiled redo of the last time Sharon was mutated into a She-Thing was in order, and she's once more going to lash out in response. I expect to see many of the same terrible tropes based on my vague knowledge of looking this comic up before - and if it once more bungles the issue of suicide, like last time, I'm gonna give it 1 star and disown the damn thing. Period. For goodness sake, Marvel. Learn from your shitty mistakes and stop repeating them!
Story Overview
Relevant Backstory (#377-378)
While he overlooks his cosmic energy machine, Doctor Doom gets some intel from one of his minions that the Fantastic Four are away from their base, but the 'target' is not among them. He acknowledges this information before considering the device filled with the last remnants of the cosmic energy he siphoned from Aron the Rogue Watcher. He has concluded that the Watchers are not the only entities with power in the universe, so he'll use this spare bit of energy to lure in another so that they can become a new pawn of Doom. He flips a switch, and a bright beam of light fires into the sky from the top of his castle, into outer space...
Over at Four Freedoms Plaza, Sharon Ventura asks a time-travelling alternate teenage Franklin (don't ask) about her future, and whether she and Ben ever get back together or if he chooses Alicia Masters over her. When Franklin refuses to say, Sharon believes that she sees the answer in his eyes and storms out in tears. Down in the streets, she tries to come to terms with the fact that she has ruined her relationship with Ben through her spying and lying, when suddenly two servants of Doom ambush her and knock her out with a gas grenade.
Later, Ben is walking alone through the streets of New York, having blown off an outing with Sandman due to his concerns about how the Fantastic Four performed that day - Reed got injured pretty badly, and with Johnny still in legal trouble and Sue seeing double from the last fight with Doom, he realizes the team is not in such great shape. He wonders if he should call it quits. He's suddenly called over by someone in a dark alley, and Ben barely recognizes the voice as Sharon's. He goes to her side and is horrified to see that she has been mutated into a form even more grotesque than her old She-Thing form...
Only Death Be My Salvation!
Yikes. That title is… concerning... given the last time a story of this premise appeared in my readthrough. We open up with Reed Richards overworking himself, suffering from the wounds that the alternate future huntress Huntara of the Fearsome Foursome inflicted on him with her psychic weapon - the villain team broke into Johnny's trial and interrupted it, it was a whole thing. Reed's not affording himself any of the strictly advised bed rest because of the emergency with Sharon, so he's clearly hurting while he orders around Johnny to heat chemicals to exact temperatures because apparently this is manual work, and he doesn't have any machines to do such menial tasks for him. He's working himself to exhaustion, much to everyone's worry.
Johnny thinks to himself that he couldn't have imagined anyone, even a cold-hearted maniac like Doctor Doom, would ever mutate someone in such a grotesque fashion deliberately - he'd hate to be in Doom's shoes when Ben gets a hold of him! Everyone's on deck - Sue, future Franklin and Lyja are keeping an eye on various readings while Ben holds Sharon's hand and promises her that Reed will find a solution. Sharon doesn't buy it - Reed couldn't solve the problem the last time she was She-Thing, so why would he be able to now? Ben tells her she needs to keep faith, and figures Reed must have learned some answers by now. Reed admits that he's still trying to figure out the question, but he then suddenly keels over due to the combined effects of his exhaustion and his wounds. Franklin offers to help but is rebuffed by Sue, who helps Reed to a bed herself. Lyja looks on in worry, observing that Sue is also quite injured - she hasn't been able to use her powers properly since their last run-in with Doom on the Moon, after all, and suffers from migraines.
Sharon, in a sudden fit of anger, wonders what the point is of even trying anymore, before she starts smashing the delicate scientific equipment in Reed's laboratory with her mutant fists, declaring to Ben that all Reed could do was monitor her while she kept changing before his very eyes - it's useless! Doctor Doom is the only one who could cure her, but he's punishing her because she wouldn't betray the Fantastic Four! Ben swears they'll find a way to save her, that she can't just give up, but Sharon just says she doesn't want Ben to see her this way. To remember her this way. Dangerous talk, that.
While Ben tries to talk her down, she laments that she couldn't compete for his affections while she was still human, and now it's even worse! Uh, did she forget that she and Ben already shared a romance while they were rock people? Hell, Ben was even human for a part of that! Nearby, Johnny swears to teen Franklin that Doom will pay for what he's done to all of them, and Franklin darkly agrees that he will.
Meanwhile, in scenic Latveria, the ever-ominous figure of Doctor Doom is enjoying a lavishly prepared dinner while he's briefed on the latest intelligence by his robots, including receiving an update on a mysterious epidemic which was raging around the world at the time - this would be the Legacy virus which affected only mutants. After getting test data from one of his servo-guards, Doom sets a medical team the task of coming up with an antidote to this disease, noting that it may yet mutate and pose a danger to Doomstadt in the future. He's also informed that his New York operatives have conveyed his regards to Sharon Ventura, and Doom instructs his minions that they'll have to make the usual arrangements - if the Fantastic Four follow their normal patterns, Latveria will soon be receiving guests. When a cook offers Doom dessert, he turns it away, telling him that it should be donated to a deserving peasant family - along with Doom's command to enjoy it!
The same servo-guard from before tells Doom that 'Project Space Probe' has made initial contact, and Doom is surprised that Dr. Gittelsohn apparently succeeded very quickly. He announces he will be in the space laboratory until further notice, and recaps the last storyline while he walks there, including his appropriation of the power of a Rogue Watcher - power he would have used to make the entire world a paradise, he claims. War, famine, homelessness, crime and unemployment would have forever vanished if not for the interference of the Fantastic Four! Through their puerile trickery he was stripped of most of that power, but Doom is relentless - he will have what he wants. Thus, the Space Probe project was designed to find a new source of cosmic energy. Sure enough, when Doom checks in on the experiment, Dr. Gittelsohn reports that he's discovered an alien lifeform of remarkably complex energies and is luring it back to Earth…
Back at the Fantastic Four Headquarters, Lyja is annoyed that Johnny is trying to bond with teenage future Franklin - he seems to have time for everyone except her! Johnny can't quite believe Franklin is the same kid he played Gameboy with just a few weeks ago, and Franklin is weirded out too, having spent years away from Earth and this time period due to time travel shenanigans involving his grandfather, Nathaniel Richards. Franklin asks Johnny about the woman who hurt Reed, but the moment Johnny begins to describe her he rips the mental image from Johnny's mind with his powers, uncaring that it leaves his uncle with a huge headache. Franklin justifies this to himself by thinking he couldn't afford to rely on just words, though why he wouldn't just ask permission is left a mystery. He's sure who he's dealing with now, though - Huntara, who is someone he know from the future timeline. She's followed him! While Johnny is recovering from the spontaneous mental assault, Ben runs into the room to tell everyone that Sharon is gone.
High above the Earth, in the spaceship of Paibok and Devos, the Fearsome Foursome appears - that ragtag team-up of villains who came together to attack Johnny Storm's trial. Besides the two aliens above, it also includes the sound-based villain Klaw, and Huntara. Klaw likes the ship, but thinks Galactus's ship was a lot more impressive - he saw that one in Secret Wars. Devos compliments Huntara for her battle prowess, wondering if there are many of such skill on her homeworld. Huntara agrees that there are many people of such ability in 'elsewhen' but is not sure why he's asking. Devos says he was just… curious! Does someone have a crush? Paibok says that the trial of Johnny Storm gave him a great idea how to once and for all get rid of 'Earthers', but we cut away before we get any details on his dastardly plan…
Back in Manhattan, Johnny streaks through the sky in his flaming form, and reflects that Matt Murdock got him released on bail after all that trouble at the trial, which was pretty impressive, really - but now he owes the man a lot! Still, it's great to be free again. Unfortunately, he quickly realizes that not everyone is happy about that, as some folks on the street run in fear when they see him, afraid he'll set the area on fire like he did at the University. It hurts to hear, but Johnny decides he'll have to get used to it, and wonders if this is what mutants feel like - getting all this fear, this scorn. He decides maybe Sue was right when she suggested he stay behind, but he couldn't let Ben deal with the Sharon situation alone. He's soon called down from the sky by Bridget O'Neil, the 'pretty lady', who he seems to have the hots for - pun intended - and who he saved at the University.
Bridget says that it must be hard to get fearful looks from everyone, especially after Johnny risked his life so often on their behalf. Johnny admits that you get used to every kind of attention after years of being a superstar, and it's probably worse to go ignored. 'Funny you should say that,' Bridget mutters while Johnny extricates himself, saying it's been great but he's got to get going. He flames on and flies away into the sky once more, telling her he'll catch her later. Afterwards, Bridget says it's not necessary for the 'two-timing snake', since she'd already caught him. Then she reverts to normal, revealing herself to be Lyja in disguise all along, stalking him in another woman's form. Yikes...
Leaving the relationship drama aside, we turn to Sharon, who is hiding out in alleyways again and looking into the streets of the city with envy as young lovers pass by. The captions unkindly declare her a misshapen monstrosity separated from humanity by an infinite and agonizing gulf - how harsh! Ben arrives to speak to her, but Sharon doesn't believe that Reed could help her, and demands to know why he hadn't cured Ben if he's so great at it, or even repaired that wound on his face instead of covering it up with a helmet? She declares that there is no way for her to regain her humanity, so why should she even try? He tries to appeal to her one more time, but she reacts violently, punching Ben across the street with her enhanced strength. He lets himself go limp so he isn't hurt too badly from crashing through a nearby storefront, then muses that Sharon is worse off than he thought - she's clearly lost the will to live, and there's no telling what she's planning. He has to stop her before she does something they'll all regret!
Sharon runs through the streets and reflects that it's getting harder and harder to think - she's likely still mutating, and she suspects it's only a matter of time before her mind is gone altogether. She can't live like this, she decides, so she has no choice - she knows what has to be done. Ben chases after her and is disturbed to realize Sharon seems to have a specific destination in mind - that can't be good! He jumps out of the building he was punted into and crushes a car on his way down - should've known better than to park in the falling hero zone! Given their current money troubles, he's pretty sure Reed will read him the riot act over this bill! Not content with the property damage so far, Ben pulls a street lamp out of the ground and uses it to restrain Sharon, but she breaks out within seconds.
As she picks up a nearby bus as a weapon, Sharon declares that she followed Ben around like a lovesick puppy for months, but he was too busy for her, too involved in his own problems. So why would he come after her now? She chucks the bus at Ben, who is relieved that the vehicle is empty but wonders if Sharon knew that.
Ben explains to Sharon that his reticence about renewing their relationship was influenced by the return of his old flame Alicia Masters - he got scared, and couldn't figure out how to choose between two women that both meant so much to him. Or maybe he's just a gutless lunkhead, as he puts it - all he knows is that he cares about her, and he's really scared she's about to do something regrettable.
Johnny arrives overhead after hearing the bus crash, and is glad to see Ben found Sharon, though they seem to be having a bit of a dust-up. Johnny compares it to his own recent troubles with Lyja, as he still doesn't really know what he feels about her - but he puts those issues on the backburner and burns a flaming '4' into the sky to signal the rest of the team. Reed rushes out of bed when he spots it in the sky, and Sue immediately tells him off for getting out of bed.
Reed won't have it, though, reminding her that the signal means the team is needed. All of them. He is a member of this family, and the others need him! He can't fail them, no matter the consequences! Sue reflects that many consider Reed the weakest on the team (how times have changed) but if they could see him now, they might reconsider. Even though he completely exasperates her at times, Sue admits she does still love him with all her heart.
Sharon flees from Ben again, rushing down into the subway tunnels with him in hot pursuit. She begs him not to make this any harder - and to remember her as she was, not the way she is now! Ben doesn't like how fatalistic that sounds, and realizes why Sharon is going into the subway: she's heading for the third rail! He begs Sharon not to toss in the towel, not to quit! As they wrestle down the stairs, Sharon declares that he might be throwing her a lifeline, but hope is a barbed wire - it will only rip her to shreds and leave her in worse shape. Ben tells her to have faith, to believe in herself, to keep fighting! No matter how bad the pain, no matter how scared she is, she has the strength to beat this! She only has one life - if she gives up on it, she'll have nothing at all!
Sharon declares that's what she's been trying to tell him - she has nothing! Punting Ben into a train car, she says that Doom ended her life when he stole her humanity, and she won't let him have her mind as well! Ben refuses to let it end like this, to lose the most important battle of all. Sharon tells him it's not his battle to fight, and he can't control the final outcome. Ben tells her she has so much to live for, but Sharon tells him she did once - but no more! With a final declaration of love Sharon throws herself onto the electrified railroad tracks and is electrocuted while Ben screams in horror. Nooooo!
The rest of the Fantastic Four arrive belatedly and wonder where Sharon is, and they comment that Ben looks like hell - and then they spot her body on the tracks and rush over. They immediately conclude that this was no accident, and that Sharon must have voluntarily jumped on the third track in an attempted suicide. Attempted is the key word - she's still breathing. Sue is astounded that she'd survive such a tremendous shock, but Reed says that her mutated hide must be even stronger than it looks, and tells the others he'll need specialized equipment to move her - it's a matter of life or death! Johnny tells him to give a list of stuff he needs, as he can move the fastest. Sue then wonders where Ben has gone - he disappeared before he knew that Sharon was still alive!
Back at Four Freedoms Plaza, an enraged Ben arrives under the impression that Sharon is dead, and he lays the blame squarely at the feet of one man: Doom! He murdered her - he couldn't be more guilty if he'd pushed her onto those rails himself! Ben is determined to make him pay - and since she is dead, only death can repay this crime. The death of Doctor Doom! He gets into the Fantastic Four's rocket-plane and blasts off for Latveria by himself…
In Latveria, as it happens, the cowering lackeys of Doom's are rushing every which way to prepare for the arrival of the strange alien entity that's been lured towards the Earth, as if their very lives depended on it. Doom reflects that it actually does, since he is Monarch Supreme of all he surveys, and their every timid breath is subject to his royal approval!
He walks over to Dr. Gittelsohn and asks for an update, and his underling informs him that his equipment is working flawlessly - his designs are pure genius! Doom notes that they pale in comparison to the torture devices with which he may become acquainted should he fail to deliver a satisfactory report. Ouch! Thankfully the readings are good and promise that the incoming alien entity is a viable target for Doom's exploitation - Gittelsohn may yet live a little longer.
A servo-guard then arrives to notify Doom that Latverian airspace was violated by a vehicle tentatively identified as property of the Fantastic Four, and Doom recognizes that his eagerly expected guests have arrived. He assumes the quartet has come to attack him with their usual zeal, but their fate is already sealed this time - he can't afford to devote his unparalleled attention to them since he's busy with the alien, so he instructs his minions to give the team the courteous welcome which has been prepared for them. Moments later an array of defensive cannons unleash their payloads, and Ben's vehicle is blown out of the sky…
To be continued...
Rating & Comments
Is this why you brought Sharon back into the picture, writers? To pull this shit? She was reintroduced only a few issues ago, complete with a brand new costume, and she's barely had time to reintroduce herself before her entire story arc comes crashing back to the exact same point it did before - back to involuntary mutation and violent suicidal impulses while the Thing chases after her and belatedly tries to convince her not to do anything permanent. It's like everyone was dosed with amnesia juice, since nobody seems to recall the last time this exact scenario happened, or the lessons that were ostensibly learned during that debacle. Seriously? Seriously?
The issue of suicide is never a light one to tackle - it's like rape or child abuse, it's heavy. Not only are quite a few readers going to be familiar with the issue on some level, and carry some heavy feelings about it, but a poor treatment of this subject could easily leave troubling impressions with people - both for those who have dealt with the issue in their own life, or who might come into contact with those who have. Even leaving aside the issue of suicide specifically, this comic isn't any kinder about the concept of body image, is it? Being ugly on the outside is equated to being inhuman, monstrous, irredeemable, set apart from humanity. Then it wraps mental degradation in there as well, as if having Alzheimers is now a mortal sin, or something to be solved by jumping in front of a train. It all just comes together into a terrible ball of poor choices by whoever greenlit this story concept.
It would have been so easy, so easy, to have Sharon decide, in this moment, to run back to Doom for help, swearing herself to his service because she knows he can cure her. It'd be a betrayal of the Fantastic Four, and her own values, but it'd make complete sense - and Ben would have a great reason to go after her to stop her, to try and convince her that she's wrong. You could keep most of the dialogue the same, even! Then, instead of suicide, you have the chase lead to the apparent accidental death of Sharon, which Ben attributes to the damage Doom did to her psyche with the mutations, and things continue from there. You could tell this entire story without ever being a crass and insensitive asshole who makes Sharon into a perpetual victim who goes into violent suicidal mood swings at the drop of a hat. I might've even given that a decent score!
Now, there are a few other things to complain about in this issue, aside from the entire Sharon situation. For one, the Johnny affair pretty much resolved itself, it seems, with him free again on bail - the court case likely concludes via Sue buying the school's silence, as mentioned before. So, was all of the build-up just to get to an unrelated battle in a courtroom? One which is then instantly forgotten because there's new stuff to do? Feh. There's also the Lyja scene in this issue - she's being a terribly nosy stalker, interpreting innocuous friendly comments as Johnny two-timing her, when they're not even in a relationship at the moment - they used to be, but that was under false pretenses on her part, so I hardly think that counts. Leaving aside that I don't think Johnny is actually dating Bridget, and Lyja is not his girlfriend or wife, even actual cheating on someone is less of a creepy underhanded thing to do than the identity fraud she's committing here. Clingy…
Ben is the main character of this issue, in a way, but he doesn't really get to say too much except boilerplate 'you have so much to live for' stuff which Sharon disregards entirely. At least it's not quite as ridiculous as the previous time this confrontation happened, since he doesn't really try to flirt with her. Small mercies! Halfway amusing is the fact that Ben continuously realizes Reed will be mad at him for collateral damage, before completely ignoring that and just smashing everything in the vicinity anyway. In any case, the most interesting aspect of this comic is that he storms off without knowing that Sharon is still alive and goes to murder Doom for it, which should lead to a proper to-the-death face-off in the next few comics. Since I am roughly aware when Doom takes a year or two off from comics, and one such lacuna is coming up soon… that seems promising!
Doctor Doom himself is, for the duration of this issue, mostly a passive receptor of a bunch of exposition, and not much more. He sits around in his castle looking badass while a bunch of robots spout information at him, then he takes a walk and looks in on some of his ongoing projects. All of that seems to be set-up for the next two issues, which form their own mini-arc which is pretty separate from this issue. Still, the mutation of Sharon is also his doing - recompense for betraying him in Fantastic Four v1 #375 - so it makes sense to give this one a full look. Now, this assault is evil, yes, but it also makes sense from his perspective - Doom was the one to revert Sharon back to human form in exchange for her services in the rather excellent Fantastic Four v1 #350, and was even the first to offer such a cure in Fantastic Four v1 #311 - the very issue this one is imitating. It was the only decent part of that whole comic, actually. When you deal with villains and then betray them, taking back what they gave you is probably the least you should expect.
Incidentally, it seems Doom has found himself a replacement for the Hauptmanns of the world - a named minion who sticks around for more than one issue at a time. Dr. Gittelsohn is in charge of the 'space probe project' which lures in alien monsters, and it's a bit unclear to me how much of that is his doing, and how much is Doom's. We see Doom pull the switch to turn on the machine, but later Doom goes to check in with Gittelsohn and expect updates on the hunt, so clearly his minions are the ones actually manipulating the machine. I imagine this will play into the future issues - maybe Gittelsohn will betray Doom like the Hauptmanns before him? He does have an unfortunate history with people with German names, even if we exclude the actual WW2 Nazis he employed…
What is somewhat amusing to note, in this issue, is that Doom monologues to himself inside his own head, and we catch up on him narrating his own legend to himself in the corridors, noting that he would have used the rogue Watcher's power to solve all the world's ills and ushered in Utopia when we know perfectly well that when he actually had that power, he had designs to conquer the universe with it. I'm not sure if we're to assume he's just being massively delusional here, but that's how it comes across. It's one thing to outwardly project that your every deed is meant for some greater good, but it's a whole other one to think it without irony when your actions are blatantly in contradiction to that alleged goal. Although, I guess we can fill in the blanks here and assume that Doom would conquer the world in order to solve all its problems, like he did in the graphic novel Emperor Doom. That works!
So - there we have it. An entire issue dedicated to making Sharon into a violently suicidal threat to everything around her again, removing all the work previous writers did to undo some of the terrible shit that had already been done to her. The writers also drop the entire Johnny storyline despite spending an inordinate amount of time on setting it up, Lyja and Franklin are randomly being inconsiderate assholes for no reason, and Sue is still wearing her skimpy outfit despite an apparent desire on the part of the writers to mostly ignore her personality changes (possibly because they proved unpopular with readers.) Wrap it all up with a fairly passive Doom portrayal, and you wouldn't get a great score out of me on the best of days. But, yeah, that Sharon thing is kind of a dealbreaker. 1 star, and let's forget about it, yeah?
Best Panel(s) of the Issues
I liked this shot of Doom striding off, with one hand dropping a handkerchief after having just eaten - with his mask on, don't ask me how that works - while he's already got his other hand balled into a fist. Note also the classic design servo-guard behind him, and the current symbol of Doom's rule as of this comic in the background.
Most Gloriously Villainous Doom Quotes
"Power which I would have used to make this entire world a paradise! War, famine, homelessness, crime and unemployment would have forever vanished - if not for the interference of the hated Fantastic Four!"
"These cowering lackeys scurry about … as if their very lives depended upon it! As well they do! I am the monarch supreme of all I survey… and their every timid breath is subject to my royal approval!"
"I am pleased… thus you may live awhile longer!"
Doom's Bad Hair Day
The artists accidentally gave Sue a more reasonable costume in this panel! Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!
Doom-Tech of the Week
Technically it happened in the backstory issues, but the Mutagenic Gas Grenade plays into this issue's story. Also I guess the Space Probe Project counts - a way to lure in some cosmic alien via a beam of energy.