FANTASTIC FOUR #318 (1988)
by Steve Englehart & Keith Pollard
cover by Ron Frenz
Once again “Featuring Dr. Doom” is proudly on the cover, just to give you an idea of Doom’s popularity.
Before we tackle the issue, though, a quick preamble:
FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #21 (1988)
Edward L. Norton & Jackson Guice
The main story of the issue deals is Crystal leaving the Fantastic Four, but one of the back-up stories has Quicksilver contact Doctor Doom to give him a heads-up: the FF are part of a very complicated plot that links them to the Beyonder.
This is basically the last “evil guy” thing Quicksilver does before becoming a good guy again (until he inevitably gets to be a bad guy for a while, because Quicksilver can’t get enough of that).
We begin with Doom ambushing a civilian in New York City, unleashing the full power of his armor.
Except it’s not just anyone: Doom just K.O.d Molecule Man, who he knows from their time together during Secret Wars.
And I guess Molecule Man either has some weird blood or he’s transmuted it into something else.
Doom then simply strolls to the apartment of Alicia (currently married to the Human Torch).
Who apparently lived in the same building of Jim Shooter before being evicted (in a not-so-subtle reference to Shooter being fired by Marvel).
The Torch reacts predictably. By the way, Englehart is pretty much the only one who makes him call her Licia instead of Alicia, and I’ve always found that annoying.
And so we have a brief Torch-Doom fight.
Doctor Doom wins, because Doom.
Once again I have to question the tendency comic book writers to treat blind people like they’re telepaths.
Doom explains that he’s here because he knows the FF are planning to travel to what they believe is the Beyonder’s natural dimension, and since Reed Richards is currently off the team Doom offers to lead them. The Thing’s reaction is priceless.
Can you blame him? Anyone would naturally suspect Doom just wants to steal the power of the Beyonder again.
Doom is so dedicated to the journey that he uses one of my absolute favorite inventions of his: the Time-Shift Bomb©.
The way to reach the Beyonder is to go though the Negative Zone, so Doom just uses the portal housed in the FF’s headquarters to get there… and the Thing is quite angry about this.
Oh so now blind people have a Spider Sense too!?!?
And so the Fantastic Four follow Doctor Doom into the Negative Zone, going through the obligatory (and quite trippy) Distortion Area.
Unpopular opinion: this kind of way to show the Distortion Area is vastly superior to the Jack Kirby collages.
Back on Earth, we learn that Molecule Man is still alive and cared for by a surprisingly off-model Volcana (who I guess dyed her hair blue?) and an astoundingly chill doctor.
You just cannot enter the Negative Zone without meeting either Annihilus or Blastaar.
Do they take turns? Annihilus on even days, Blastaar on odd days?
Blastaar is not as powerful as Annihilus, but he’s proven several times to be challenge for the entire team. Which means Doctor Doom defeats him with no problems whatsoever.
So the FF are just stuck with Doom now.
FANTASTIC FOUR #319 (1988)
by Steve Englehart & Keith Pollard
cover by Ron Frenz
This is officially called “Secret Wars 3”.
Not as influential and remembered as the original Secret Wars, not as despised as Secret Wars II, more forgotten than 2004’s Secret War, and a vastly inferior sequel when compared to 2015’s Secret Wars.
Also note the inconsistency in the naming convention: it’s not Secret Wars III but Secret Wars 3, even though it follows Secret Was II and not Secret Wars 2.
The Beyonder was presumed dead by the heroes at the end of Secret Wars II, but the readers knew otherwise: all of his energy was dumped into a new universe.
Not THE New Universe created by Jim Shooter, though that would’ve been a much better ending.
It’s interesting to see the contrast in how each person reacts to the current situation.
She-Thing is the newbie and so is still awe-stuck at the cosmic stuff, the Thing is concentrated on the mission, Doctor Doom is thinking about how he can still murder people… and the Human Torch doesn’t give a f##k about anything except his soap opera life.
Meanwhile Molecule Man has fully recovered, and he realizes it was Doom who tried to kill him in the previous issue.
Only in New York.
The FF’s expedition continues, with their ship jumping through dimensions, including one full of Celestials (!!!!).
Englehart just loves making reference to his other series, so by sheer coincidence the ship runs by Reed and Susan who were hanging out with Silver Surfer in his own title (also written by Englehart).
Just in case you’re wondering: that was Silver Surfer fighting Invisible Woman while she was being possessed by one of the Infinity Gems.
I love comics.
But that incredibly random encounter will have to wait: the FF have reached their destination.
You just have to love the absurd confidence of Doom: he’s facing an entire living universe and he doesn’t seem to care.
The Beyonder was often treated like an allegory for God, but Englehart doesn’t really do subtlety.
Doom doesn’t want to steal the Beyonder’s power, this time: he wants to propose.
Just kidding: after a lengthy recap, Doom explains that due to the time loop discussed in Fantastic Four #288, he doesn’t remember HOW he was able to steal the Beyonder’s powers.
This makes no sense whatsoever: Englehart is making the time loop sound WAY more complicated than it actually is!!!
Doom explains that, in that story, the Beyonder sent Doom back in time to participate in the Secret Wars, erasing memories Doom had accumulated between his “death” in Fantastic Four #260 and #288.
But that simply means that Doom STARTS Secret Wars without knowledge of the future: he just figures out a way to steal the Beyonder’s power, steals it, loses it, and then he’s sent back to the last page of Fantastic Four #288. Which means Doom shouldn’t lose ANY memory relating to the Beyonder!!!
*sigh*
Then two new players show up: the Shaper of Worlds and Kubik.
Both are former Cosmic Cubes who have evolved into sentient beings. Kubik is actually the evolved form of the Cosmic Cube created on Earth; obviously Doctor Doom doesn’t remember he’s already had the powers of that Cube because World’s Greatest Comics Magazine is a continuity insert that hasn’t been published yet.
Still, this means that they are at least as powerful as the Beyonder himself (at least according to this story, which is grossly retconning the Beyonder into being a much weaker being).
And since the situation isn’t complicated enough already, Molecule Man also shows up.
Molecule Man tries to join the fight, but the Shaper Of Worlds intervenes MELTING Volcana…
…with Molecule Man resurrecting her from nothing!!! Needless to say, at this point he’s VASTLY more powerful than in Secret Wars.
We learn that the reason why Doom wanted to restore his memories is that, if only he could remember everything from Secret Wars, he might be able to keep the Beyonder’s powers THIS time.
This makes no sense whatsoever for the reasons explained above (Doom should remember everything already!) and watching Doom’s mask deform itself into a sad face is cringeworthy… but I have to admit it’s funny he treats attempting to scam three practically omnipotent beings as “sure why not, let’s try it”.
While the rest of the story has little to do with Doom, let’s just finish it.
After we learn a little bit about what the Beyonders are…
…we get a lengthy infodump on how they’re connected to absolutely everything the Fantastic Four have been investigating throughout the Englehart run.
A nifty thing is that this is where we learn how exactly the Cosmic Cubes are created.
The fact that Doctor Doom knows how to build one is interesting, and we could probably discuss why he never bothered to actually build one for himself… but I’m more confused by the idea that it takes 32 years to build one.
I have no clue whatsoever where Englehart is coming from with that idea. There was no indication that A.I.M. that much time to build the first Cosmic Cube… and while the canon is inconsistent, I’m pretty sure A.I.M. is not that old.
While the big revelation that is about to come leaves me unconvinced, I do like one connection that Englehart makes: the Cosmic Cubes and Molecule Man basically share the same origin, as both derive their powers from the Beyonders.
(also: I get Molecule Man is short, but how freaking tall is Volcana!?!?)
On the other hand, what I really don’t like is the idea that the Beyonder is just an incomplete Cosmic Cube himself: the accident that gave Molecule Man his powers only took PART of the energy of a Cosmic Cube, and the rest formed the Beyonder.
This idea is sometimes addressed as “post-retcon Beyonder”. While there is nothing up to this point to contradict it… I think it’s a mistake that cheapens the Beyonder.
He was introduced as the most powerful being of the Marvel Universe, and even Secret Wars II… for all its flaws… at least stayed true to that.
This is just turning him into a less-powerful version of the already well-established Cosmic Cube.
Why did this happen!?
The backlash against Shooter certainly had a big part: the Beyonder was something of a pet idea of his, and the fact that Marvel’s most powerful being came from Shooter must’ve rubbed the writers who didn’t like him the wrong way. And Shooter was not exactly loved by the Marvel staff by the time he left.
The other part is the Beyonder is, almost by design, incredibly difficult to write. Shooter himself completely squandered the idea during Secret Wars II, but the Beyonder was neatly disposed of at the end of that series… if the writers couldn’t think of a way to use him, they could just forget about the Beyonder.
Instead, Englehart decides to bring back the Beyonder… just to merge him with Molecule Man to create a new Cosmic Cube, effectively killing the character.
The Fantastic Four just stay there doing nothing (!!!!), allowing Doctor Doom to recover the memories he shouldn’t be missing in the first place.
And so we end with the entire team being sent back home, having accomplished exactly nothing.
Well at least Doctor Doom has learned something… that there’s an entire race of cosmic beings just waiting to get their powers stolen.
Bonus: the surprisingly long-lasting consequences of Secret Wars 3.
The new Cosmic Cube wouldn’t last long: the following year it expelled Molecule Man and evolved into Kosmos, who later changed her name to Maker.
She only has a handful of appearances; she was last seen in 2006 during the Annihilation event, and as far as we know she’s still braindead following a run with Thanos.
Considering there are already a bunch of evolved Cosmic Cubes (she’s not even the only girl), it’s incredibly unlikely we will ever see her again.
Outside of flashbacks and parodies, the Beyonder also has yet to make another appearance… and I think he’s even less likely than Kosmos/Maker to reappear.
It’s the Beyonders, surprising enough, that show up in a big way during 2015’s Secret Wars.
After they ended up destroying the entire multiverse, Doctor Doom was able to kill them and absorb all of their power and turn into God Emperor Doom… which, to put things into perspective, was treating an Infinity Gauntlet like a minor nuisance.
Why am I bringing this up? Because that crossover undid most of Englehart’s retcon, revealing the Beyonder to be a full member of the actual Beyonders, just a child form of the same species.
I have my own problems with that storyline’s retcon when it comes to Molecule Man, but I do appreciate the effort to making the Beyonder stand out more than just another Cosmic Cube wannabe.
Doom significance: 6/10
This would’ve been a 1/10 before 2015, since nothing comes from Doom recovering his supposedly lost memories. But now this is part of the new Secret Wars and is effectly thanks to what he learns about the Beyonders in this story that Doctor Doom is able to save the entire multiverse.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Sheer cosmic nonsense through and through.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
I grew up on this stuff. In fact, this is where I learned most of what happened during Secret Wars II, and I wouldn’t be able to read the first Secret Wars until years later. So my first approach was “Okay, sure this makes sense”. But having read everything this story references… while I do understand most of what Englehart is trying to do, it really, REALLY doesn’t work.
It’s a grand tour of the Marvel Universe that doesn’t actually get anywhere. At least issue #318 has some classic Doom moments, and the artwork is mostly good… I especially like Molecule Man’s gesture of “are we doing this or what?” before merging with the Beyonder… but overall, this was pretty bad.
It was a Doombot all along
As mentioned before, Fantastic Four #350 will make a not-so-subtle reference to all appearances of Doctor Doom in this period a Doombot. But that doesn’t make any sense for this story: while I have little doubt the Cosmic Cube would work for a robot, I don’t think a robot would fool so many cosmic beings.
Crazy tech
Lots if impressive gadgets here, but obviously the standout is the Time-Shift Bomb©. I can’t wait for that thing to show up again!!!