FANTASTIC FOUR #16 (1963)
by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
First time Doom fights someone who isn’t the Fantastic Four (I’m not counting Namor since they were allies at the start of their fight).
And it’s Ant-Man, of all people.
Very nice cover (of course, it’s Kirby) with the Fantastic Four at the mercy of Doom, though I don’t like the magnifying glass over Ant-Man.
I prefer the first page, which in this period is still used as a teaser for the rest of the book: Doom’s mask isn’t Kirby’s best work, but every character’s position makes sense.
Note that while everybody else is running away, the Thing is wrecking Doom’s microscope!
We start with the Human Torch flying through the city, showing us the effects: from ruining an amateur astronomer (who is REALLY an amateur if he can confuse a ball of fire for a comet), to providing light for both a life-saving operation AND for an arrest.
Nice little touch.
Once he reaches the Baxter Building he finds the rest of the team has been shrunk to toy-size and is being sucked into an air duct.
They quickly return to their normal size, and they reveal to each other that this isn’t the first time they’ve been shrunk.
What the heck is the Invisible Girl doing with that pose?
Also, guys… you’ve been to space, met aliens, traveled through time, and you KNOW people who have been shrunk (more on that soon). Why WOULDN’T the others believe you!?
Why would you be embarrassed? What happened to you?
Okay, the Thing MIGHT have a reason for keeping this a secret.
Then Reed remembers that there’s someone who could help them with this kind of thing, the Astonishing Ant-Man.
Too bad this is still the period when not all super-heroes know each other.
Now… get this. You know Ant-Man can talk to ants, right? It’s weird, but it’s a comic book universe, so it’s not THAT weird.
How about the ants hear his name MENTIONED and decide to inform Ant-Man?
And sure enough, this is enough to lead Ant-Man to the Baxter Building, where Reed uses a huge magnifying glass to hear him better.
Because as we all know a magnifying glass is perfect to increase the volume of someone’s voice.
Ant-Man figures out they called him because they have trouble with shrinking, which… I mean, it makes sense, but talk about having low self-esteem.
Reed definitely doesn’t have self-esteem since he points out that he could create a shrinking serum himself, but why bother when Ant-Man already has one?
And so Ant-Man just gives the Fantastic Four a few drops of his serum and leaves.
He could’ve stayed and helped them find out what’s really happening, sure, but Reed just flat-out told him that he could replicate his crowning achievement with almost zero effort… I’m on Ant-Man’s side this time.
Then we have a couple of downtime scenes, first with Reed giving the Thing a serum that will turn him back to human:
But maybe don’t give him the serum WHILE HE’S HOLDING A PIANO, Reed.
The world’s smartest man, ladies and gentlemen.
Note the mistake of calling her Sue. That’s actually Alicia, the Thing’s blind girlfriend.
Then we have a rare scene of the Human Torch with his school buddies:
Unlike Spider-Man, the Torch’s civilian life was pretty much non-existent, so it’s a nice touch.
Not like the Invisible Girl playing with perfumes.
Ugh. Susan, leave the experiments to Reed and wait for the moment the writers finally give you a personality.
Between all these scenes, each member of the team has hear a disembodies voice tell them “Beware of Doctor Doom”, and they finally reunite.
Weirdly enough, the Thing is back to his orange form when he arrives. He acknowledges it, but it’s a little clumsy even for this time period.
Only NOW Reed realizes that Doctor Doom is behind this, which… let’s be frank, should’ve been blatantly obvious from the start.
The last time they met him he had a shrinking ray. As far as they know, Ant-Man and Doctor Doom should be the only people with that technology; why WOULDN’T they suspect Doom?
The way I remembered this issue, I was sure Doom kidnapped them. But no, it’s much dumber than that: they take Ant-Man’s shrinking serum, shrink down (WAY smaller than what Ant-Man usually does), and then take his growth serum to stop themselves.
As a plan, this makes no sense.
Okay, they suspect Doom is alive and that he survived being shrunk out of existence. So their solution is to shrink themselves out of existence to end up exactly where he did!
Which works, by the way, but that doesn’t make it any better.
In fact, they end up in The Micro-World of Doctor Doom, as per the story’s title.
Doom ends up shrinking them even more:
And he monologues (of course he does) to explain to them that after their last fight he ended up in a microscopic kingdom. Which, being Doom, he immediately took over.
Doom captures them and puts them into a prison, with the former king and princess of this world.
But not any prison.
A prison under a sea of acid, guarded by robot fish! Talk about overkill.
After that, he plans to marry the princess and access a planet of super-strong lizard people into his new kingdom. Doom doesn’t waste time!
To humiliate the Fantastic Four, he plans to use them for manual labor and/or war.
Hey, that’s a little harsh for the Invisible Girl!
So… the Fantastic Four are screwed? Not if Ant-Man can help!
He can’t.
Luckily the Invisible Girl is smarter than she looked (pun intended) in the perfume scene, because she’s the one who comes up with the plan of escape. It involves all the members of the team working together, which is surprisingly rare in this period.
When they escape, we find out how how tiny their underwater (underacid?) prison was another nice touch.
Then the Thing sends the lizard people back to their planet BY USING A SMALL BUILDING AS A BASEBALL BAT:
And Doctor Doom, rather uncharacteristically, just runs away.
And everything is wrapped up rather neatly:
Except Doctor Doom, who we’ll meet again next issue.
Historical significance: 6/10
The first time the Fantastic Four meet Ant-Man, who in his civilian identity of Hank Pym will be a recurring science-bro to Reed Richards.
Doom’s micro-world will be used again a couple of times, but nothing important ever comes out of it.
Doom significance: 4/10
You would think Doom would return to this world or do something significant with it, but no.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Pretty standard for a Marvel comic of this era. A little too silly with the shrinking shenanigans, but the way the final plan comes together balances that.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
In a reversal to Doom’s last appearance, the second part of the story is way better than the first.
The Invisible Girl playing with perfumes is a bit too silly.
It was a Doombot all along
Since the Doctor Doom of last issue must be the real one, as he used his mind transference power, this has to be the real Doom.
Doom always keeps his word
A missed opportunity. When he took over the planet, I expected him to tell the king something like “Doom told you your planet would rule the stars” or something like that.
Take over the world
Doom takes over A world, so I think it counts.
Destroy the FF
It’s a little unclear if Doom anticipated the Fantastic Four would follow him to the micro-world. Once he has them prisoners he doesn’t make any effort to kill them, just to humiliate them.
Crazy tech
A prison submerged in acid, guarded by robot fish.
Latveria is typically described as a landlocked country, but I bet these little monsters guard its rivers.
Superhero count: 5
With Ant-Man, Doom has already fought 5 superheroes. I’m not counting Namor since at this point he wasn’t really a hero.