ASTONISHING TALES #3 (1970)
by Larry Lieber & Wally Wood
Doom has been promoted to the top of the cover, where he should’ve been from issue 1.
In case you missed last issue, Doom is facing the mysterious Faceless One and Doomsman, a super-powerful robot that Doom created to look like a mummy.
Doomsman is confused because he’s receiving contradicting commands from Doom and the Faceless One. However he also has the mind of Doom, something that Doom can take advantage of.
(there sure is a lot of doom in this issue!)
I was expecting this to fail, honestly, but since there are no pesky superheroes in this story Doom is triumphant.
Bonus: Doom even uses one of my favorite weapons, the Molecular Expander ™ !
The Faceless One has a trick up his sleeve, even if he has to lose his head for this.
Bet you didn’t see THAT coming.
And neither did Doom, who is taken by surprise when the body that the Faceless One left behind explodes.
The Faceless One is fantastically creepy.
The resistance takes advantage of the situation to attack Doom, with rather predictable results.
However the Faceless One uses Doom’s technology against him, making the castle fall on his head.
It’s a significant blow against Doom, leading the resistance to declare victory.
Or not.
That is an AWESOME image. Can you imagine seeing THAT colossal hologram, especially during an earthquake!?
The resistance retreats, but Doom has lost his castle thanks to the Faceless One.
There’s still the problem of controlling the Doomsman, something that Doom has been doing this entire time through sheer force of will (!!!), as he explains once he summons the android to his subterranean chamber.
Since his other robots are unable to contain the Doomsman, the plans to use an entire army of these robots is now scrapped.
The Doomsman is rather formidable, but the last time that Doom called his robot army “invincible” it turned out he was way, WAY overestimating them.
Considering everything that went down, Doom is just tired and falls asleep, prey to the Doomsman.
Or not.
He ends up teleporting the Doomsman into another dimension, from which he will never return.
The Doomsman will return in 1975, but despite this awesome introduction it will amount to nothing.
The Faceless One will return in 1973 in a story where Dr. Doom meets Luke Cage, of all people.
Next issue: Dr. Doom fighting nazis!
Doom significance: 2/10
You’d expect this to have larger repercussions: both the Doomsman and especially the Faceless One are set up to be major antagonists of this series, but they’re completely forgotten. And once they show up again, they’re basically footnotes. Even the destruction of Castle Doom is basically meaningless.
Silver Age-ness: 1/10
Aside from the insane speed of the plot, this has almost no Silver Age tropes.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
Despite the frantic speed doing its best against it, this was really good. Doom is prefectly in character, the Faceless One and the Doomsman (to a lesser extent) are great adversaries, and while the action isn’t anything spectacular there are some great visuals.
It was a Doombot all along
Unlikely, considering the mental battle with the Doomsman. Interestingly, his trouble controlling this android might be the basis for how he will program the Doombots.
Take over the world & Destroy the FF!
No, Doom is just interesting in saving himself this time.
Crazy tech
The Molecular Expander ™ is always great, but the weapon used by the Faceless One against Doom is the best. No idea on how it can magnetize stone walls, but why did he never use this against the Fantastic Four?