EXCALIBUR #37 (1991)
by Scott Lobdell & Mark Badger
The cover is a fair warning about the artwork on this one. Let’s say Badger is going for a more… abstract look, to be gentle.
We begin with a cute scene of the domestic life of Excalibur.
I never really understood Meggan or why she’s in a mutant team, but her innocence can be quite hilarious.
Joke’s on them, the doctor is doing a house call today! Literally, it’s in the title.
The rest of the team is understandably worried, but Shadowcat remembers that Doom actually saved her life back in Fantastic Four vs X-Men.
Plus, he DID call.
So why is Doom here? Well, for extremely complicated reasons Shadowcat has inherited the Soulsword, a very powerful mystical weapon that can be used to access Limbo… and its extremely valuable resources.
It doesn’t take all that much to convince Shadowcat to help, once Doom gives his word.
Sounds legit.
While the rest of the team argues whether to help Doom or not, we get another funny background moment: Doom realizes the team owns a very valuable piece of art… and then proceeds to thrash it.
Remember, Doctor Doom is a patron of the arts… as long as HE gets to own said art.
Doom has a very easy way to make himself trustworthy: have his mind read by Excalibur’s resident telepath Rachel Summers (the current host to the Phoenix Force… looooooong story there).
That’s enough to convince Excalibur to help. And maybe Doctor Doom is growing a little… he even admits he can’t do EVERYTHING.
The team is going to travel to Limbo through a combination of Doom’s magic and Shadowcat using the Soulsword.
The interaction between Doom and Shadowcat is the highlight of this storyline. These two have the best banter!
Shadowcat is technically the Sorceress Supreme of Limbo (again: long story), but thanks to the Inferno storyline Limbo is not what it used to be.
Also, despite being so far relatively prudent, she’s missing some blatant red flags from Doom.
In fact, once she’s put in danger by the armor canceling her intangibility powers, Doom wastes no time whatsoever taking the Soulsword for himself.
Yeah, Shadowcat is CLEARLY out of depth here: Doom has her wrapped around his finger in no time.
Doctor Doom has been written perfectly up to this point, so I’m a little disappointed by how he rationalizes his words. Despite what he says now, that is NOT what he gave his word about.
We then cut to the West Coast Avengers having a pool party. Because if Mark Badger wants to draw Scarlet Witch in a bikini he’s going to, dammit!
That’s because the Lady of the Lake… yes, that one from Arthurian legend… is recruiting the team to rescue Excalibur and defeat Doctor Doom.
Oh yeah, I forgot: the rest of Excalibur tracked Doom and is trying to rescue Shadowcat with… honestly predictable results, considering this is Doctor Freaking Doom.
The fight is interrupted by the arrival of… uhm… THESE things.
EXCALIBUR #38 (1991)
by Scott Lobdell & Mark Badger
Because nobody demanded it: Excalibur vs West Coast Avengers.
The twisted copies of various heroes end up fighting each other, instigated by a demon that takes a particular interest in Doctor Doom.
His speech balloons are black with yellow text, which makes them rather hard to read. Even switching to the digital version it’s still awkward.
The West Coast Avengers reach Limbo (courtesy of the Lady Of The Lake teaming up with Scarlet Witch). I’m not sure I like the implication that Doom stole mind torture technology from Iron Man.
Naturally, with all the twisted copies running around, this turns into a Misunderstanding Fight ™.
Luckily that only lasts a couple of panels before the two teams cooperate.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the issue is taken up by the rather uninteresting fight between the heroes and the demons.
The artwork makes a great job at showing the warped forms of the demons, but since everyone has weird proportions throughout the story it doesn’t stand out as much as it was probably intended.
More importantly for this retrospective, the hard-to-read demon reveals he has a personal connection to Doctor Doom.
And Doom doesn’t give a crap about him!
EXCALIBUR #39 (1991)
by Scott Lobdell & Mark Badger
Clearly the highlight of the storyline has been the random fights between heroes and random demons, so sure let’s double down on that.
We start with a bang because the FIRST thing Doom does on page 1 is break the entire dimension of Limbo!!!
Or at least he tries.
Though Iron Man is not going to sit this one out…
…as do the others. Ten against one? When the one is Doctor Doom, it’s almost fair.
Now this should be pretty entertaining when… oh no. Bad demons! Stop ruining this storyline!!!
Fortunately the hard-to-read demon returns us to the actual story.
This three-part has… problems… but I just adore Doom’s dialogue throughout all three issues.
And the hard-to-read demon is revealed to be none other than… Darkoth?
Remember this guy? From Fantastic Four #142?
We last saw him on Fantastic Four #194 where he died. But before showing up in Excalibur he actually had a rather random appearance on Thor, where he ended up in Hell and becoming a pawn of Mephisto.
I have no clue how the heck he ended up in Limbo. Especially since this storyline takes care to explain that this dimension is not really the afterlife one.
Doom’s armor is severely damaged, but that doesn’t matter because all this time he has been mentally blocking the Soulsword from providing him an armor made of Promethium®.
The Prometium® Armor is remarkably similar to the new armor that Doom will show off in an upcoming Fantastic Four issue. That Walt Simonson story was actually published slightly before this one. It’s a matter of debate which one comes first in the chronological order.
Whatever the case, the Prometium® Armor is AWESOME and Doom’s fight with Darkoth is infinitely more interesting than the generic demon fights.
Then again, I’ll freely admit my bias about all things Doom.
The fight ends up seriously damaging Limbo itself, and Doom quickly excuses himself from the dimension and quits the story.
Turns out that, in addition to getting away with a nice Prometium® Armor, Doom’s actual plan was all a scheme to stop the demon S’ym, who was one of the major players behind the Inferno crossover.
Darkoth ends up eating S’ym… (!!!!)
…and plans to kill himself, destroying both S’ym and all of Limbo in the process.
But Meggan convinces to avoid suicide. So he just erases Limbo, sends the heroes back to Earth and decides to spend the rest of eternity alone in the void.
How did that work out for him?
Well both Limbo and S’ym will eventually return, but this is the last Darkoth appearance, so…
Doom significance: 2/10
Doom will deal with Limbo again several years later, but no link to this story will be established. And I think even he completely forgot about Darkoth five minutes after this mission. Still, the Prometium® Armor shows up again, so that’s something.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Some of the banter, particularly with Captain Britain, feels like it’s out of the 60s Thing.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
This is tough. The first issue is particularly strong since it stays on the subject: it’s about Doom manipulating the team. The second and third, on the other hand, are all over the place!
Far too much time is dedicated to the fight with the doppelganger demons, which are just dumb. That’s where the weird artwork actually suits the story… or it would if it was JUST the demons or Limbo that looked weird, but everything is distorted.
The Avengers don’t really fit in, and the focus on Darkoth is really out of nowhere! Especially since he’s barely in the first two parts. Not only he wouldn’t mean anything a regular Excalibur reader, he’s barely a footnot for Doom completionists. Considering he doesn’t even look or act anything like Darkoth, his presence here is just baffling.
Doom’s master plan being about getting rid of S’ym would be impressive for a regular X-Men reader, but some hints should’ve been brought up earlier.
I do, however, have to highlight the dialogue here, especially whenever Doom is on the scene. I’m not the biggest Scott Lobdell fan, but he did some amazing work there! It’s hard to make Doom truly hilarious without breaking character, but I think he pulled it off.
It was a Doombot all along
While I wouldn’t say it’s impossible for Doom to build a robot that can wield the Soulsword, it’s probably him.
Take over the world : 22
It’s more of a secondary side effect of everyhing else, really, but it’s there.
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 76
Nightcrawler has already met Doom. I’m adding Captain Britain, Rachel Summers (Phoenix) and Meggan. Plus I’m also adding Shadowcat, since as Kitty Pride she already met Doom but she wasn’t in the list because they didn’t fight.
Crazy tech
Doom has a device that can put out of commission someone with the power of the Phoenix Force. Double impressive because it’s a telepathic attack that works miracles against a telepath! Not bad from someone who can’t knit.