The 2010s are here for Doctor Doom, starting with the conclusion of the last major storyline of 2009.
Despite being one of the major players of Dark Reign, Doom is going to skip most of its conclusion.
Siege: The Cabal (2010)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Lark
cover by David Finch
As you can imagine by the cover, Doom is going to skip this event mostly because of his utter disdain for Norman Osborn.
We begin with a meeting of the Cabal, where Doom is being fashionably late.
When Doom arrives, he’s most definitely unhappy about the current membership of the Cabal.
Osborn, Hood and Loki are still there, but Emma Frost is nowhere to be seen…
…and more importantly, Namor has been replaced by Taskmaster.
Yeah, uhm, nothing against Taskmaster… I’ve always loved the character… but EVERYONE involved knows he doesn’t belong in a meeting like this.
Including Taskmaster, as we’ll see later.
Doom wouldn’t care about Taskmaster normally, but it’s especially infuriating for him because the ONLY reason he came to this meeting was to help his bro Namor, who has been deposed and imprisoned by Osborn.
Norman tries to spin this as nothing more than regular supervillain business, while Loki seems to be the only one who has figured out exactly how this is going to end.
Once again, Doom is not buying ANY of this.
Unable to read the room, Norman then tries to spin this into a recruitment: this event is called “Siege” because Osborn’s forces are going to take over Asgard.
It’s very telling that Doctor Doom would be behind the idea of launching an assault on freaking Asgard, albeit a bit reluctantly, if only thanks to his bromance with Namor.
Up this point during his Dark Reign, Norman Osborn has been remarkably diplomatic.
But now it’s a match between who is the most stubborn ruler, and NOBODY beats Doom at that.
Doom is such a master at insulting people, that him not coming up with a dedicated insult is probably a bad sign for Osborn.
Also: notice the understated detail of Taskmaster reaching for his sword. He knows what’s about to happen.
Since Osborn is not taking the hint, Doom gets as blatant as he possibly can.
I typically don’t like the way Bendis scripts his dialogue scenes, but this is capturing the tension of the situation perfectly.
Also, love that closeup of Doom’s mask.
So Osborn plays his trump card: the Sentry, who shows up in a horrific display of terror.
Well at least that’s what is SUPPOSED to be happening here; we’ll see later how the moment was supposed to play out in a different comic, but it’s incredibly underwhelming here!
Another moment that will play MUCH better later: Doom blasting Taskmaster. You can BARELY see it’s him!
Doom is then blasted by the still unseen Sentry, and at this point everything has gone exactly as Loki planned.
It’s too early to shout victory, though, because not only this was just a Doombot…
…it’s a Doombot made up of A SWARM OF TINY MURDER ROBOTS.
Robots that are mildly amusing for Loki…
…but that can deplete the shields of an armor designed by Stark by more than a half IN TWO PANELS.
AND that damage Avengers Tower so much that the Dark Avengers need to immediately evacuate the entire building.
While obviously Tony Stark would have handled the situation MUCH better than Norman Osborn… this is a rather blatant display of just how much Doom’s technology is superior to Stark’s.
In fact, if it wasn’t for Sentry, I have no doubt the Swarmbots would’ve murdered Osborn.
Osborn takes this as a declaration of war, but Doom puts him in his place with a masterful move.
“How many unwinnable wars can you fight at once?” is a perfect Doom moment. Not only he’s correctly calling Osborn’s bluff, but he’s also boasting about his own invincibility.
Doom not-so-subtly threatening to retaliate against Harry Osborn (who was back to being alive by now), on the other hand, feels quite a bit out of character for him.
I think he would definitely threaten Harry if he was working for Norman, but that was not the case at the time.
The next morning, Osborn tries to convince the President to declare war on Asgard while pretending the Doom attack was somehow Stark’s fault.
(Asgard was on Earth and technically on U.S. soil at the time)
The President is not exactly sold on the idea of declaring war on an otherworldly nation of gods, for some reason.
So Osborn asks Loki to create an incident with American casualties, as an excuse to attack Asgard.
Which is a very Osborn thing to do, but… why didn’t he just fabricate a link between Doom’s attack and Asgard, instead of pretending it was Stark’s fault?
From the moment the Cabal was created, it was abundantly clear that Loki and Doom were the only ones truly capable of calling the shots.
It was only a matter of time before one of the two took control of the entire thing.
Dark Avengers #15 (2010)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Mike Deodato Jr.
This issue shows the fight between Doom and Sentry from a MUCH better perspective, and it takes place partially DURING the previous story… despite being published 3 months later.
Ah, the Bendis era, when you had absolutely no freaking idea of when the next month’s issue will take place… I shockingly liked most of his work on this series, but I did not miss that aspect.
The story begins much like the previous one…
…except we see that Doom didn’t fight Sentry, he fought Sentry’s monstrous evil side Void.
Why would you not include this in the other story!??!?
Avengers: The Initiative #31 (2010)
by Christos N. Gage & Rafa Sandoval
cover by David Yardin
Speaking of scenes that get expanded in other books, let’s see Taskmaster’s perspective.
At this point in the series, Taskmaster had been chosen by Osborn to be the head of the superhero recruits of the Initiative.
I really liked this book, it was BY FAR the best thing to come out of Civil War.
And the direction taken during Dark Reign was interesting, because we got to see Taskmaster juggling between being a teacher… ostensibly his official title… and the good old scumbag.
But there’s also the power play of the Cabal itself.
Hood is jealous of Taskmaster being promoted, because HE used to be the street-level representative that worked directly for Osborn…
…who is ALSO assembling a new Cabal that has fewer megalomaniacs than the first iteration.
But the highlight of the story is Taskmaster confessing to fellow supervillain Constrictor why he’s going along with this, despite knowing PERFECTLY that he’s in over his head.
One of the best things about Taskmaster has always been that he’s FAR more pragmatic than your typical supervillain: he just wants to get money and knows he’s not cut out for more.
But this is a nice examination of his doubts, because now that everything’s coming his way he’s tempted to give it a shot.
Constrictor convinces Taskmaster to go ahead and join the Cabal.
The irony in this is that while Constrictor really is Taskmaster’s friend, he ALSO knows that the Initiative has spies working against Osborn and he’s hiding that from Taskmaster.
Taskmaster’s meeting with the Cabal is told not only from his perspective, but from a letter that he’s writing to Constrictor.
The way he explains how these people operate at a completely different level is just magnificent.
Turns out Taskmaster survived the encounter, mostly because Doom’s blast was doing “mostly spiritual damage”. (!!!)
It’s too late to leave the Cabal, however… even now that they’re invading Asgard.
Spoiler alert from the end of the storyline: Asgard wins.
Taskmaster, true to form, manages to survive the event and get away mostly unscathed.
Doom significance: 2/10
The event is quite significant: it’s basically the epilogue of something that started with Civil War, considering this is what ends the Superhuman Registration Act. It has Steve Rogers taking over SHIELD and Thor returning to the Avengers, but more importantly it features the death of the original incarnation of Loki… he’ll return as Kid Loki first, and as a sort of antihero later.
But as far as Doctor Doom goes? Basically nothing. He’ll later have a feud with Hood, but its link to this is not very strong.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
It’s a very brutal siege.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
Talking exclusively about the issues I reviewed. The Cabal story in particular, despite hiccups in the show-don’t-tell department, is a truly fantastic Doom.
As for the event itself, while it stumbles a bit at the end I would recommend reading the main series and to a lesser extent the Dark Avengers tie-ins.
The entire Initiative series is HIGHLY recommended!!!
It was a Doombot all along
One of the most fascinating ones, too.
Times Doom has saved the world: 16
Had Osborn surrendered Namor, Doctor Doom would have joined the fight. Granted it’s not a given they would’ve succeeded, but they certainly would’ve had MUCH better chances!
Still… Doom doesn’t take an active role in this, and while it would be funny I’m not increasing the count just because he refues to join.
Crazy tech
A Doombot filled with a swarm of tiny robots that can overwhelm a Stark armor in a few minutes!!!
Few things I’ve been wondering.
1) Have you ever considered covering “Dr Doom and the Masters of Evil”? It’s far from canon (it’s not even really a What If or anything) but some called it one of most underrated Doom stories. In any case, did you read it?
2) Note I haven’t read all of your reviews since I’m going through Marvel at my own pace but I’ve noticed you criticizing comic when they portray Doom negatively – as too weak, incompetent, too one-note evil…but did you even criticize comic because it’s overglorifies Doom? So either make him too noble and heroic or too incredibly smart and powerful, especially if it makes over heroes/villains look bad compared to him?
1) I will surely review it, that’s a great Doom miniseries that in my opinion should’ve been canon. Not really sure when I’ll review it, probably using it as a pause between major storylines, but I’ll get there.
2) Hmm, good question! I’m sure I have criticized Doom a couple times for claiming to be nobler or more powerful than he actually is, or for some dumb decision here and there, but those tend to be intentional choices by the writer to highlight Doom’s hypocrisy.
Those are relatively rare, however, because most of the time Doom can actually back up his boasts of intelligence and power with actual feats, plus you can sort of track how he slowly becomes more powerful over the years.
My favorite Doom stories are those where he loses not because he’s overpowered or outsmarted, but because he doesn’t understand other people at a fundamental level.
As for criticizing the comic for having Doom completely overshadow the protagonist, the only example that comes to mind is the Brother Voodoo story: GREAT Doom story, but it makes Voodoo basically redundant.
Most of the time when Doom is the villain, him looking like an insurmountable obstacle for the protagonist is kind of the point of the story so I tend to be forgiving as long as the hero gets his fair share.
In addition to “Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil”, I’d love to see u covering “Avengers & the Infinity Gauntlet (2010)”, which Doom plays a rather fun role.
And if I’m not mistaken, both stories are from the same “continuity”, Marvel Adventures, a comic line from the early 2000s directed to a younger audience.
I might do some of Doom’s apocrypha, like I did for the Silver Age. I’m a bit hesitant since there’s sooooooo much of it, so it’s not a high priority, but that was a fun miniseries.