FANTASTIC FOUR #350 (1991)
by Walt Simonson
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to say “the Walt Simonson run will put this into question”, and here we are.
We begin with an army of Doombots attacking Castle Doom, which is apparently being guarded by marching band.
But that’s just a distraction so that Doom can deal with Kristoff. Who must have decided that going full Doom didn’t really work on Alpha Flight, so he’s added a sweet cape.
The two fight for like the fiftieth time at this point, but they’re interrupted by a newcomer…
…the ACTUAL Doctor Doom!!!
He’s wearing something that looks suspiciously similar to the Promethium® Armor from his Excalibur fight. Despite the fact that this story was published first and there is no explicit reference to Excalibur… this is often considered to be the Promethium® Armor.
Which causes a whole other set of problems because Doom repeatedly says throughout the story that he’s been missing for a very, very long time.
But before we can tackle that, we have to deal with the one we now learn is a Doombot.
Well that was fast. But Kristoff is another matter: he’s been on the throne since Fantastic Four Annual #20, it’s not like he can be deal with in a couple of panels.
Yep. The real Doom wastes no time whatsoever fixing the Kristoff situation which, just to put things into perspective, has been in the background of FORTY-THREE Doctor Doom stories after he took over! And that’s not even counting the cameos!!!
That’s a real badass entrance for Doom, but the implications cause a lot of problems.
Even if Doom just told us that we had been following a Doombot since Kristoff took over, as I’ve examined in each review there are multiple examples where it’s quite unbelievable it was just a robot. But it’s even worse, because Doom talks as if he’d been missing for YEARS.
There’s a throwaway line about him making “the occasional sojourn home”, so really you have to decide on a story by story basis whether we’re seeing the real Doctor Doom.
But he seems completely baffled by the idea that the Human Torch married Alicia Masters.
As that happened in Fantastic Four #300, it would imply that we have been following a Doombot since at least Emperor Doom. That would mean FORTY-EIGHT appearances (excluding cameos, one of which was in Fantastic Four #300 anyway).
That’s basically impossible to believe for a number of reasons, but I do like the idea that Doom simply cannot imagine the Thing not murdering his friend for stealing his girlfriend.
That’s a VERY Doctor Doom thing to think.
But something far more important for this story is his focus on Sharon Ventura, the second Ms. Marvel and current She-Thing. Notice the low-key snark Walt Simonson reserves to Steve Englehart’s plot decisions.
When we go back to the Fantastic Four, we see that Sharon is starting to be really upset at Mr. Fantastic for failing to turn her back human. Which must be quite irritating since Ben Grimm actually WAS turned back human by a freak accident!
I’ve never really cared for Sharon, but the Walt Simonson run is one of the few occasions where she’s written well. In the Steve Englehart she was actually happy about being a Thing, but Simonson doesn’t seem to have a lot of respect for that idea.
Which, considering in the Englehart stories Sharon was happy to stay a monster because it meant she couldn’t be sexually harassed anymore… yeah I can see why Simonson wanted another perspective.
She accepts the invitation from a mysterious figure, who turns out to be Doom in his casual wear! We really should see more of him in this situation, it’s far more believable than the idea that he wears the full armor 24/7.
Doom offers to change her back to a human (which he tells her by showing a giant picture of her old body… why does he have that in his hotel?).
But what sinister motivation could he possibly have?
Sounds legit.
But it’s actually far more nuanced than that, and honestly it’s almost believable: we HAVE seen several times that Kristoff’s rule was wrecking havoc on Latveria’s finances.
Doom then takes her to Latveria. He seems to be putting up a good show, going as far as implying he’s willing to turn his country from an absolute monarchy into a run-of-the-mill dictatorship.
Nothing will come from this, but I wonder if Walt Simonson really did have plans of turning Doom into a simple President-For-Life and that didn’t happen because his run was cut short… or if Doom is, again, just putting up a show. I lean on the second.
And then Doctor Freaking Doom CURES THE THING!!!
Well okay it’s She-Thing, but this is HUGE news since Reed has never been able to do this.
While this is going on, Ben Grimm exposes himself to a dose of Cosmic Rays that will slowly change him back to the Thing. That’s a sweet gesture, Ben, but you REALLY need to work on your timing!!!
And speaking of timing: guess who just invited the Fantastic Four to an European vacation!
Apparently it takes the Fantastic Four three hours and fifteen minutes to reach Latveria. It’s not like they’re in a rush, considering Doom gave him a four hour deadline before he kills Sharon!
The first thing Doom does to deal with the FF… after a bunch of Doombots are thrashed… is set the up with four different traps. Classic Doctor Doom.
It’s a trap, of course, but a deceptively simple one. There’s water for the Human Torch…
…sleeping gas for Invisible Woman (kept busy by some weird robots)…
…and just a empty corridor that gets smaller and smaller for Mister Fantastic.
The smartest man in the world, ladies and gentlemen.
There’s no specific trap for the Thing: Doom wants to fight him one-on-one.
This comic is often cited as Doom claiming we have been following only Doombots since Fantastic Four #40, but that’s a misconception… Doom simply states that he’s never forgotten that particular defeat and that he’s not telling whether we’ve been following robots or not.
That’s a good call. It’s already a stretch to claim we’ve only seen Doombots since Kristoff took over, but everything since Fantastic Four #40!? Which I remind you was just Doctor Doom’s TWELFTH story!?!? That’s RIDICULOUS!!!
I don’t believe for a second that was Simonson’s intent, and the text of this story is deliberately vague about it. What is actually happening is the completion of something that John Byrne started with Fantastic Four #258: giving us the chance to pick and choose which Doom story is the real deal and which is a Doombot story.
Doom’s rematch with the Thing doesn’t go as well as he planned, because the hero rather randomly reverts to the form created under the Englehart run. So even if my suspects that Simonson didn’t care for most of the creative decisions, he’s still paying his respects.
Fortunately for Doom, his brainwashing of Sharon worked just fine.
The Thing is down for the count, but Mister Fantastic managed to escape from his trap. Don’t trust his word on HOW he did it, though, there’s more on that later.
Everything orchestrated by Doom so far, however, was just so that he could have a time traveling duel with Reed thanks to his Null-Time Sequencers™.
A duel so epic that it had to skip issue #351, since it was a fill-in.
FANTASTIC FOUR #352 (1991)
by Walt Simonson
Not only is the cover giving us a frankly badass Reed Richards, it’s actually integrated into the story in a genius way.
How so? Well, the story works two ways. On the left side of each page (the one in color) there is the timeline experienced by the Fantastic Four, but on the right side (the one in black&white) there’s the timeline of the fight between Doom and Reed… which jumps back and forth, so you have to follow the time stamp in the “ftzztp!” sound effect.
It’s both more complicated and more simple than I can describe… it’s a neat gimmick.
Since this is the Doom retrospective I’ll naturally follow his timeline and only talk about the rest when the two timelines intersect.
Despite the fact that Reed JUST learned about the existence of the Null-Time Sequencers™, he IMMEDIATELY manages to trick Doom into jumping into the wrong moment.
This buys Reed enough time (pun intended) to get himself some weapons!
Doom finds him, but it’s a game of cat and mouse.
As a testament to Simonson’s storytelling, even with the short amount of time (pun intended) he dedicates to the Doom vs Reed fight AND the fact that it’s being told out of chronological order… this is actually a very enjoyable fight!
Their fight intersects with the Thing having to deal with a hostile robot that is NOT working for Doom (more on that soon).
There’s even a little philosophy integrated into the fight! This story has everything!
Doom finally has had enough of the chase and delivers a fatal blow… which Reed sends back in time to 12:33 AM.
That moment is a neat trick that can escape the first read (I didn’t notice this until like the third read). Remember when I said that to follow the Doom & Reed story you have to jump to the page with the correct time stamp?
This the one instance where you can’t do that, because the story begins at 1:00 AM. So if Reed sent the blast to 12:33 AM, where is it?
IT’S ON THE COVER.
Not crazy enough for you? The cover actually depicts Reed freeing himself from the trap (he was lying about using the belt buckle).
Which means Reed sent the blast back in time TO THE PREVIOUS ISSUE!!!
And yeah that’s a time paradox because it means that Reed freed himself, but who cares? This is AWESOME.
That’s the final intersection with the Fantastic Four timeline, because the Null-Time Sequencers™ are out of juice.
The fight with Reed is interrupted (luckily for Doom since he was definitely losing) by the arrival of additional hostile robots.
They’re from the Time Variance Authority (we’ve seen them in Timequake), which really don’t appreciate Doom messing with time.
Doom makes short work of them thanks to an awesome weapon he was saving for a rainy day, the Quark Instability Condenser (patent pending).
Aaaand the T.V.A. kills Doom before taking the Fantastic Four away.
OR IS IT? We’ve actually been following Kristoff the entire time!!!
And so we end with Kristoff seemingly dead (he won’t return until 1995, by which point Doom was presumed dead), and Doctor Doom avoids having to deal with the T.V.A.
Doom significance: 10/10
The ending of the Kristoff storyline. Poor kid… it wasn’t a bad idea to have Doom exiled by someone with a copy of his mind, but they reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally dragged the entire thing.
It was frankly getting ridiculous that Doctor Doom couldn’t retake Latveria; perhaps it’s a bit excessive to make him do it in about four panels, but it’s a very Doctor Doom thing to do.
Plus, as already examined in the review, this is the final piece to establishing the Doombot gimmick the way it still works today.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
The Thing returning to his monstrous form exactly when his girlfriend is doing exactly the opposite is at least a little bit Silver Age-y.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
The Simonson arc is ridiculously good, and these stories are among the best. His Reed Richards is perfect, as I’ve already said he’s the only one who can make me care for Sharon Ventura. Admittedly the rest of the team is more subdued, but still well written.
His Doctor Doom is likewise fantastic; great dialogue and a domineering presence through and through. And while the first part is light on action, the second one picks up the pace.
The time jump gimmick is REALLY hard to review without posting the entire page: you should really experience it for yourself, it’s a brilliant idea executed perfectly… even if the time paradox is a little iffy, how often do you have people shooting plot points into a previous issue!?
It was a Doombot all along
So, the elephant in the room: IS Doom telling the truth? How long have we been following a Doombot? The often cited idea that this story retcons Doom having been a robot since Fantastic Four #40 can be easily dismissed: not only it’s not really what Doom says, I hope I don’t have to explain why it would be ridiculous. (and if I have… just re-read all my reviews!)
But Doom quite explicitly says that we have not been following the real one since Kristoff took power. That’s still ridiculous: it happened in a story where Doom was facing Mephisto. And while Doom might say he can build robots that can fool the Devil himself… sorry, not buying it.
What I can believe is that the majority of the post-Kristoff appearances have been Doombots, and that Doom is mainly surprised that one of his other Doombots didn’t take care of Kristoff while he was away. Due to his time travel shenanigans it’s possible he’s not experiencing these stories in the same order we’re reading them!
And, to make things even more confusing… who’s to say that the Doom wearing this new armor is not a Doombot himself? After all… there is no explanation given for why Doom has glowing red eyes during the entire story!
Destroy the FF! : 48
It’s been AGES since the last time he tried!!!
Times Latveria has been conquered: 8
Crazy tech
Quite the competition here!!! In addition to his spiffy new armor, there’s the useful Null-Time Sequencer™ or the devastating Quark Instability Condenser (patent pending).
But the real winner is whatever machine he’s using to CURE THE THING. I know there’s a psychological aspect to hit, but still, talk about upstaging Reed Richards!!!