This series was published for the 40th anniversary of the Fantastic Four. A lot of effort was given to make it fit into continuity, which worked rather well.
All artists working on this did their very best Jack Kirby impression, which also worked surprisingly well… most of the time.
I do have some reservations about the writing, but we’ll get to that.
I won’t cover all the issues in detail: there are 12 issues in total and A LOT happens, so I’ll focus mostly on what applies to Doctor Doom.
Even then, I’m going to split this into multiple reviews for the sheer number of stories to cover.
In terms of continuity, everything explicitly takes place between Fantastic Four #100 and #101. For the sake of our retrospective, this translates to being between Sub-Mariner #20 and Astonishing Tales #1.
ISSUE 1
Writers: Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson
Pencilers: Bruce Timm, Keith Giffen, Jorge Lucas, Erik Larsen
Cover by Erik Larsen & Bruce Timm
The Fantastic Four are busy doing Fantastic Four things.
These panels are drawn by Bruce Timm.
Doom has returned to his castle in upstate New York (the one from his first appearance).
As if you couldn’t tell, this entire sequence is drawn by Keith Giffen.
Doom is still upset about having spared the FF in their last encounter in Fantastic Four #87.
Then, as soon as the FF leave the Baxter Building to attend to Reed and Sue’s son Franklin, Doom sends a squad of robots to trash their headquarters.
This was all so that they could recover all the Doom technology that the FF have stolen.
Helping Doom are the super-scientists from the Enclave, mostly known for creating Adam Warlock.
We won’t find out why until later: this is the last part of the first issue having to do with Doom.
Out of all the artists, Jorge Lucas is the one that really doesn’t work for my tastes. It doesn’t help that nothing interesting happens in his part of the story.
Erik Larsen gets to draw a big dumb fight against a rather unimpressive android. He’s no Giffen or Timm, but his Kirby impression isn’t bad.
The android fight leads to them suspecting the Mad Thinker is behind everything, instead of Doom.
That’s an interesting twist, but a bit out of character for Doom who typically shouts his name in every possible way whenever he’s behind something!
ISSUE 2
Writers: Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson, Chuck Dixon
Pencilers: Ron Frenz, Keith Giffen, Paul Ryan, Frank Fosco
Cover by Michael Golden
Aside from the classic costumes, this looks like it could be a cover form any FF period.
If you want anyone to drawn a Kirby impression of people in the regular world, get Ron Frenz.
It’s the faces. Nobody does Kirby faces better than Frenz.
But if you want Epic Doom, Giffen is the way to go.
The “revenge-driven Doom” reactivates the alien robot Sentry…
…and sends him to fight his bro Namor.
I swear Doom really needs to make up his mind if he wants to kill Namor or to get him as an ally!
This leads to, you guessed it, a big dumb fight.
This was all to steal an Atlantean mystical relic, and Reed deduces that the same person who ordered the attack to the Baxter Building is also behind all this.
SOMEHOW. I bet he read the script.
ISSUE 3
Writers: Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson, Tom DeFalco
Pencilers: Eric Shanower, Ron Frenz, Tom Scioli, Keith Giffen
Cover by Jae Lee & Bruce Timm
This is my absolute favorite cover from this entire series. It’s just awesome.
What did Doom steal from Atlantis? A horn.
You would think people would stop saying stuff like this around Doom!!!
I typically prefer Doom to be a little less over-the-top evil, but I have to admit this is pretty funny and totally in-character.
Also interesting: Doom is actually impatient about Reed figuring out that he’s behind everything.
I have to imagine that the worst possible insult to Doom is not acknowledging him.
All of these panels were by Eric Shanower. Pretty good stuff, despite Doom’s very awkward poses.
The rest of the story is a Fantastic Four / X-Men team-up.
The setup is pretty flimsy: in exchange for helping the X-Men with an investigation on who tried to steal Cerebro (we’ll learn it was Doom), Reed wants to borrow a couple of deactivated Sentinels to use them to protect the Baxter Building. It’s pretty hard to believe he needs those!!!
Of course you don’t throw around the words “deactivated Sentinels” unless you want them to be re-activated. So… big dumb fight.
The fight is extended to the rest of New York so that we can have pointless cameos by Spider-Man and Daredevil.
The Sentinels are defeated and it turns out that is was all Doom’s plan.
Remember when I said that if you want Epic Doom you should get Giffen?
Also: Crystal gets teleported back to Attilan by her dog.
Despite the fantastic cover, this was rather underwhelming.
At least I got to write the sencence “she gets teleported by her dog”.
ISSUE 4
Writers: Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson, Jeff Loeb
Pencilers: Erik Larsen, Ron Frenz, Keith Giffen, Shannon Denton
Cover by Bruce Timm
I love the way Bruce Timm can imitate Kirby… within the comic itself. His cover is very weird, with everybody looking a little off-model.
We finally discover why Doom went back to his New York castle and ordered the assault on the Baxter Building in issue #1: to recover his time machine.
Like I said, this series goes the extra mile to stay within the established continuity… but this doesn’t work. Doom claims that the time machine has been in Reed’s lab since Fantastic Four #5, but that’s simply not true.
We saw the time machine was still in Doom’s castle in Fantastic Four #19, Avengers Annual #2 and Marvel Super-Heroes #20, all of which take place BEFORE this story.
Speaking of GOOD continuity placement: Doom is using the time machine because he wants the Cosmic Cube, which at this time was presumed to be destroyed… so instead he just goes back to a time where (when?) he can steal it!
Believe it or not, this is actually the first time we see Doctor Doom use his time platform!!!
For the “we need more subplots because this thing isn’t way too long as it is”, we get Captain America and Falcon fighting A.I.M.
Which leads to, and try not to be shocked, a big dumb fight.
Captain America’s dialogue is… look, I love Steve Rogers to death, but even HE isn’t this corny!
We get one final story beat about Doom. Blame Shannon Denton for drawing this atrocity:
But it does lead to what Doom has been after this entire time.
I think that’s a good place to stop because A LOT of stuff happens in the next issues.
Much like I did for Avengers #1.5, I’m giving two separate sets of scores.
Doom significance
If this was a real 1970 comic: 1/10
This would’ve been the first time we see Doom use the time machine.
As a 2001 comic: 0/10
Don’t expect these stories to be referenced any time soon.
Silver Age-ness
If this was a real 1970 comic: 6/10
This would’ve been average.
As a 2001 comic: 10/10
How much throwback can you get?
Does it stand the test of time?
If this was a real 1970 comic: 5/10
This would’ve been fine, but I wouldn’t have counted it among the greatest hits of Lee&Kirby since it wouldn’t have intruced anything new, both in terms of action and characterization.
As a 2001 comic: 3/10
This is pure nostalgia bait. It’s well made and it’s oozing love for the source material… a little too much. It’s also very dependent on the reader being familiar with the history of the Marvel Universe and understanding the tropes of the era it’s imitating. Heck, I’m practically the target audience for this kind of project, but the characters are so shallow and the plot is so needlessly convoluted that I just can’t get invested in the story.
It was a Doombot all along
No clear indication in THESE stories, although later in the series it HAS to be the real Doom.
Take over the world & Destroy the FF!
Doom is trying to take out the FF one way or another in each issue, so I’m adding 4 total attempts to the count. On the other hand, since he doesn’t take steps to take over the world until next issue, I’m not adding the “take over the world” count.
Crazy tech
This is perhaps the most underwhelming part of Doom’s involvement: since this is a celebration of the Fantastic Four’s history we only see him use technology from previous appearances.