Infamous Iron Man #6 (2017)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev
Don’t be shy Doom, now that your face is healed you can pose for the cover a little closer.
We begin with a flashback of when Doom and Reed were at the same university.
I kind of sympathize with Doom here; Reed seems to be quite annoying in his attempt to force Doom to be his friend.
Ben Grimm is also there, receiving an insult so awesome…
…that even he has to acknowledge Doom’s skills at insults.
Reed, honestly, I’m typically on your side in these flashbacks but this is WAY out of line.
Back to the present, Doom’s recent attacks on supervillains has Wizard and M.O.D.O.K. worried.
This is probably the most polite M.O.D.O.K. has ever been.
Doom might be WAY out of Wizard’s league, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t resourceful.
Before he can finish the battle, Doom is distracted by the sudden appearance of… whatever the heck this is supposed to be.
We won’t discover it in these two issues.
That’s the opening Wizard was looking for, but he immediately flees the scene.
Meanwhile, Doom’s mom* and Reed Richards** look at the scene.
*not really her
**not really him
Wizard knocked out Doom long enough for the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to show up, and by this time Maria Hill has been replaced by Sharon Carter.
I swear S.H.I.E.L.D. has like five Directors that rotate every other week.
Come on Doom, you know exactly who this is… maybe not from her time as Captain America’s girlfriend, but she has been the Director a couple of times before this and you certainly keep track of those things.
It’s far more likely that Doom is saying this to highlight how little he thinks of her.
See, Ben was right. Doom IS the king of sick burns.
Infamous Iron Man #7 (2017)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev
I take it back, DON’T show your face on the cover if the artwork sucks this much.
Thanks to Wizard, the fact that Doom is now playing hero becomes common knowledge among supervillains.
If you think about it, this is rightfully TERRIFYING for most supervillains.
Bendis being Bendis, he plays most of these supervillains like complete morons.
Well, some of them ARE idiots, but Crossfire thinking that Doctor Doom was jealous of him?
CROSSFIRE, the Hawkeye villain???
Hood is the one leading this team, because we’re still in the period when Bendis was shoving him in every single series he could, and he’s certain that under his leadership they can take Doom.
They can’t.
By the way, that guy with sunglasses at the supervillain reunion?
That’s Slug. He’s not really a supervillain, he’s just a fat crime boss! He’s not even drawn superhumanly fat like he SHOULD be.
WTF IS HE DOING HERE???
The one supervillain fleeing the scene is the Wrecker, who COULD have at least TRIED to fight since he’s strong enough to fight Thor.
And lose of course, but just the fact that it IS a fight is enough credit.
It’s particularly hilarious to see the Wrecker scared by the fact that Doom was fighting “big league” supervillains, considering that in that group HE was one of the few legitimate threats!!!
For crying out loud, the one on the bottom right is Jigsaw: a Punisher supervillain who is just a dude with scars!
In previous issues I’ve criticized the decision to cut the fighting scenes to summarize them later, but in this case I think it does work for a specific reason that we’ll see soon.
The Wrecker’s narration continues with his discussion of Doom’s ultimatum: stop being a villain.
He’s still Doom, though.
He’s the reason why jumping the fight scene like this works: turns out that Doom didn’t kill anyone, but every one of his victims believed otherwise!
So not only Doom managed to put all those criminals in jail… they all put THEMSELVES in jail, believing they were the only survivor!!!
At this point it’s legit to wonder if he really IS being honest.
Once the Thing gets back home, he finds Doom waiting for him AND eating his food.
They both have a point.
Well… these really are the end times.
Notice that MOST kind words are for Susan. Shocking to see he doesn’t mention Valeria, who is also missing.
Ben is UNDERSTANDABLY taken back by all this.
If Doom can actually apologize, a lot of other impossible things might be happening.
At this point Peter Parker had become a billionaire and had purchased the Baxter Building, and I think we can all agree that was dumb.
Well he said he never uses a door to ENTER, not to LEAVE.
And we end the issue with Ben receiving a visit from Reed**.
**not really him
Doom significance: 2/10
Hood manages to escape Doom’s attack, leading to his involvement at the end of the series.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
That is such a random assortment of minor supervillains that it’s laughable they could be persuaded for more than a second to take on Doctor Doom.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
I am really enjoying the examination of Doom’s new life and motivations; they are still very much aligned with his old persona, with only one thing that doesn’t convince me.
I can buy his remorse for causing the death of Reed and Sue, but I draw the line at him apologizing for insulting Ben over the years… we’ve seen time and time again that even this Doom is still an unrepentant jackass.
We also have the continuing problem of the story progressing at a snail’s pace, and the new problem (for this series at least) of Bendis treating secondary characters as either completely interchangeable or unbelievably stupid, or both.
The idea of Doom scaring all these villains to death and tricking everyone into turning themselves in is both quite funny and in-character. Doom didn’t really NEED to do it this way… he has multiple mind-control devices… but spreading fear and awe was clearly one of the goals.
Also the fact that Doom is being quite successful as a hero is in line with Reed’s innumerable attempts over the years to redeem him.
The flashbacks to Doom’s youth are the most interesting part; it’s technically seen from Doom’s memory so he could be embellishing things, but the young Reed having trouble socializing like a normal person is believable.
If only anyone in this series could keep a recognizable appearance! In the flashback ALL three look king of the same, and if it wasn’t from the dialogue you wouldn’t recognize the fake Reed at the last page.
Gotta say, I like the way Bendis writes Reed in these books.
You seem to disagree, but to me it looks that he gives Doom the burns as good as he takes them.
Piledriver’s “The Doctor Doom? Of Doctor Doom fame?” just says it all so well.
I had been okay with the artwork until this issue, but not anymore. Ben Grimm looks like a Muppet! It’s like someone shaved and removed the ears from Fozzy Bear.
I am enjoying the storyline quite a bit though, even with it’s snails pace.