Fantastic Four #375

Fantastic Four #375 (1993)
by Tom DeFalco & Paul Ryan

 Yep, we’ve reached the 90s alright. The gimmicky prismatic foil on the cover is actually not that bad on a physical copy, but on a scan you can’t appreciate how bad the rest of the cover is.

Here’s the digital version, which allows me to address the stripper elephant in the room from this run: the “costume” that Invisible Woman is wearing.
I’ll defend its INITIAL use: Susan is not currently herself, thanks to her “evil personality” of Malice gradually taking control. So there was A reason to have Susan run around in full Psylocke cosplay… at first. Then it just became “let’s keep her wearing that because it’s hot”.

The fact that she’s wearing a jacket over that ridiculous costume is just pure 90s. The best part is that she wears it for absolutely no reason!

We begin with the Watcher having teleported the Fantastic Four on the Moon at the very end of the previous issue. Together with Sharon Ventura, who doesn’t recognize the Watcher despite MEETING him when she was part of the Fantastic Four as She-Thing… and Lyja, despite the fact that she was in the middle of trying to murder the team!

(also: man I hate how forced DeFalco’s fourth wall winking feels!!!)

To make a loooooooooooong story short, Lyja is a Skrull who impersonated Alicia for years; she’s the one who ended up marrying the Human Torch. Now she hates him and has laser powers for basically no reason.

Guys, guys, I know you’re going through A LOT of subplots, but can anyone focus!?

Thank you, Reed, at least SOMEONE gets it. Now the Watcher can just get you guys up to speed, it’s not like he’s going to… immediately leave!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

I swear everyone in this comic has ADHD. Can you please go through ONE scene without pivoting to another subplot!?

Doom, please, I beg you, save this comic.

Ah, you can always count on good^{(citation needed)} old Doctor Doom.
Even the Thing gets it!

Anyway, Doom FINALLY kickstart the plot by going “Would you please stop fighting each other for five minutes and fight a supervillain?”.

Doom easily wins the fight against the Torch and Lyja. He could kill them immediately, but then just leaves… which is really in character for Doom, since he’s been consistently doing this kind of thing throughout his career.

He then moves to attack the Richards, finding that Susan has become far more violent than before.

She stops bickering with Reed for a couple of panels (a record in this period!), concentrating on her force field…

…which just BREAKS. That is SERIOUSLY impressive: I can’t think of a single time this happened before! Sure, she’s failed to keep up the barrier many times, but the problem is typically that she can’t keep up the mental strain. The fact that it physically breaks goes to show the absurd level of power Doom is playing with.

This seriously hurts her, and Doom being Doom he doesn’t push the advantage.
Interesting that he’s still using the armor to control the Watcher’s power, instead of absorbing it into his body like he typically does.

After a few more subplots (again: DeFalco run), we rejoin the Thing as after he’s punched through a few robots. And new he’s wearing the helmet he originally discarded waaaaay back in Fantastic Four #3 to cover the facial scars caused by Wolverine.

That’s when the Inhumans join the fight; they lived on the Moon in this time, so they just went to the Watcher’s house to tell him to keep the noise down.
And I cannot express how happy I am to see them here!!! Not because they contribute much to the story, but because now Black Bolt and Triton are part of the list not only thanks to a continuity insert, but from the main timeline as well!
Medusa has been on the list since Fantastic Four #143, while both Karnak and Gorgon were added during Acts of Vengeance.
Now I just need Havok and Polaris to fight Doom and every single person in the list has fought Doom regardless of retcons!

Leaving behind my mission to categorize superheroes, Mister Fantastic has spent the whole time coming up with 90s gimmicks gadgets to help the FF fight Doom.

Lyja is pretty insufferable in this storyline, but I have to admit this exchange got a chuckle out of me.
Notice this doesn’t make ANY sense since Susan was already wearing her jacket before they got to the Moon.

Even Doom is not above cracking jokes! As a preamble to cracking bones, but still!

Which means, you guessed it: big dumb fight.

We interrupt this superhero romp for philosophical debate.

Doom destroys the gadget Reed’s been working on, and everything seems lost.

Okay, I’ve criticized DeFalco quite extensively so far, but I have to give him credit: the twist that Reed is genre savvy enough to give Doom decoy devices to blast is absolutely perfect, expertly played and totally in character!

But wait, it gets better: DOOM WAS READY FOR IT.

Too bad Doom is taken by surprise by both Black Bolt and the Thing’s massive gun.

Doom has one last ace in his sleeve: continuity! Remember how last issue we learned he infiltrated someone to destroy the Fantastic Four? It was obviously Sharon Ventura, who is in his debt because he cured her in Fantastic Four #350.

She doesn’t take kindly to be outed as the team’s traitor. She makes it okay out of this story, but we’ll see next time that she WILL pay for betraying Doom’s trust. HARD.

Reed’s plan to focus his wife’s powers into the gizmo failed because she couldn’t generate enough energy, but there’s a backup: he can use Black Bolt to shout into it.
Yes, not whisper… which is enough to level mountains. SHOUT.

AND IT WORKS.

That’s a cool moment, but the reasoning behind it is dubious as well. The goal is to overpower Doom’s armor… which would be fine if A) he didn’t already have the full power of a Watcher, which is RIDICULOUSLY more than Black Bolt’s B) he hadn’t absorbed FAR more than a Watcher’s power in the past (the Beyonder, anyone!?)

Any thoughts about this resolution, Watcher?

Yeah that’s about what I was expecting.

After more subplots (again, I can’t stress it enough, it’s the DeFalco run), in the epilogue we see Doom teleported himself to safety.

Like I said last time this is just the beginning of a very long string of Doom appearances, but we’ll take a look at a bunch of Fantastic Four stories next time.

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Doom significance: 6/10
Surprisingly enough, Doom never brings up the fact that he once stole the power of a Watcher. But it bleeds into the next storyline which is quite important.

Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Poor Doctor Doom, he’s the only one going for the 60s attitude against everyone else being in the 90s.

90-ness: GUNS!!!/10
As 90s as the FF gets. Mercifully, because I don’t think I could bear more than this.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Beneath the 90-ness, the needless drama and the frantic pace (seriously DeFalco, SLOW DOWN SOMETIMES), there’s a rather by-the-numbers Doctor Doom story enhanced by a couple of clever moments. You can definitely tell in which decade this was made, but it’s not unsalvageable.

It was a Doombot all along
Just like last time, it COULD explain why he keeps all that energy in the armor.

Destroy the FF! : 50
Definitely the main drive of his plan. And hey, a nice round number for the occasion!

Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 81
Lyja is for all intents and purposes a member of the Fantastic Four for what feel like fifty issues. That happens later during this run, but she’s fighting alongside the team now, so I’m still counting her.

Crazy tech
The Watcher-powered armor BREAKS the force field. Still impressive.