This is going to suck, isn’t it?
Fortunately, Doctor Doom escapes the worst of the “Heroes Reborn” relaunch: he tends to stick to the Fantastic Four series, which was definitely the least worst of the bunch.
High praise, I know.
Fantastic Four vol.2 #1 (1996)
by Jim Lee (plot and pencils) & Brandon Choi (script)
Long story short, this is a reboot. I’m not going to go through the entire Fantastic Four origin, but I do have to talk about SOME of the changes.
First and foremost, Jim Lee takes care of the one aspect of the Fantastic Four origin that never made any sense: the fact that Reeds’s girlfriend and her teenage brother were randomly able to be useful on the spaceship without any sort of training.
So Jim Lee makes several changes, big and small:
A) Susan is now the one to finance the mission, because she’s the head of the Storm Foundation. Which is kind of funny considering in the original continuity Reed is the billionaire and the Storm are low on cash, but here it’s exactly the opposite. Also, she’s specifically the head of the space exploration project, so it makes sense she’s up to speed on some stuff.
B) he ages up Johnny a little.
You can see shades of these changes in the 2005 movie, where Susan is a scientist and Johnny is a test pilot like Ben Grimm.
These will have a SLIGHT impact on the main continuity: in 2020, Marvel quietly slipped a couple of minor retcons in the origin, adding that both Susan and Johnny actually trained as the backup crew of the mission. I’m not enthusiastic about it, but it’s not a bad call.
Doom doesn’t make a full appearance, but he’s behind the scenes the whole time.
The government takes over the space mission because of a space anomaly (which will turn out to be connected to Galactus), and Latveria has some agents there that screw things up.
One upside of Doom showing up mostly on Fantastic Four is that he looks fantastic in every scene he’s in… although this is the series that seems to have introduced some confusion on his eye color.
They’ve always been brown, but here they’re blue. Future comics, and some adaptations, will oscillate between brown, blue and even green.
Nothing special about the rest of the origin. I have to say that I really appreciated the attempt to tie together multiple parts of the Marvel Universe to the same origin… you have the Fantastic Four gaining powers thanks to cosmic rays, and since they’ll later fight people with the Power Cosmic, why not make the connection and ultimately link their powers to Galactus and his heralds?
Fantastic Four vol.2 #4 (1997)
by Jim Lee (plot and pencils) & Brandon Choi (script)
Doom takes his sweet time showing up, waiting for the very las page of issue 4, but when he does… say what you want about Heroes Reborn, but it was ALMOST worth it to have Jim Lee draw Doctor Doom!!!
Fantastic Four vol.2 #5 (1997)
“Retribution”
by Jim Lee (plot and pencils) & Brandon Choi (script)
I love that the cover is basically Doom going “hold the presses, I’m here, things are going to be awesome”.
Reed and Susan (at this point with powers and costumes) have been captured by Doom, and it’s where we learn his origin.
Perhaps the biggest change from the original continuity is the fact that Doom wasn’t JUST attending the same university of Reed and Ben… but also of the other super-geniuses that made it into this reboot!
That’s right, you have the most brilliant minds of Earth at the same place: Doom, Richards, Stark, Banner, Pym and even Rebel O’Reilly, also known as “who!?”.
Yeah, uhm, O’Reilly is from the Iron Man series and really doesn’t go anywhere. These flashbacks make you THINK he’ll play a major role… but other than dying on the first issue of Iron Man, he’s completely forgettable.
What does Doom think of his former college roommates?
Yeah that’s about right.
While I don’t really like the idea that all the super-geniuses know each other from school, overall I appreciate the opportunity to see how their philosophies clash.
The incident that scarred Doom is based on his first design for a super-powered armor, which literally blows in his face after Reed refuses to help.
As far as streamlined origins go, it’s fine. I’m grateful this didn’t become the actual origin story, but one thing I prefer from this version is that Doom is VERY CLEARLY scarred horribly… none of that “it’s just a very small scar” nonsense.
Doom is in such a hurry to get through this series that he has ALREADY captured Silver Surfer!!!
Doctor Doom saying to anyone to “cease the melodrama” is legitimately hilarious!!!
For all the changes made with Heroes Reborn, Doctor Doom remains practically unchanged from the original version. Out of all the writers of the reboot, Jim Lee seems to be the only one to understand the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality.
Doom isn’t in a lot of pages here, but he’s his old self… taking Susan hostage and forcing Reed to help him absorb Silver Surfer’s powers. He’s also surprisingly genre savvy!
Fantastic Four vol.2 #6 (1997)
by Jim Lee (plot and pencils) & Brandon Choi (script)
He just showed up and he’s already teaming up with the Fantastic Four in his second appearance, which is ALSO the start of a crossover. I told you Doom wants to get this done quickly!
Doom’s plan is interrupted by the Super-Skrull, who already has the Power Cosmic and has been masquerading as Wyatt Wingfoot (long story).
I’d go into more detail, but let’s be honest, while this isn’t bad Doom is not the only one who wants this done quickly.
This version of the Super-Skrull is WAY too powerful for Doom, so he has to team up.
Jim Lee seems to have a pretty firm grasp of Doom, because he consistently gets the best dialogue.
The Super-Skrull is defeated, Silver Surfer is freed and the Fantastic Four leave Latveria.
But it’s not everything that happens to Doom in this issue, because there’s a SECOND story.
“Industrial revolution: prologue”
by Scott Lobdell & Brett Booth
It begins with Doom being interrupted by one of his robots, and IMMEDIATELY ordering it to self-destruct for the audacity.
The reason for the interruption is that his robot is informing him of the Hulk’s origin.
The story is nothing special, but there’s one bit that I absolutely adore: the fact that Doom has installed in his robots a program specifically designed to grovel!!!
That is just about the most Doctor Doom thing ever.
Doom was NOT prepared to see the Hulk today!
Especially a naked Hulk!
Doom instantly comes up with a system to allow his computers to reconstruct what the Hulk looked like before the incident, and he’s surprised to see his old buddy Bruce Banner.
The flashbacks to the time where all these people were friends are probably the best part of the entire reboot. I would easily read an entire issue with those people debating.
And as soon as Doom figures out what the Hulk is… he’s like “Nope! Not going to touch that!”.
Smart move, Victor.
Doom doesn’t do much else in the series until the crossover, so this is a good point to pause.
Doom significance: 0/10
While this has SOME impact on the Fantastic Four (thanks to adaptations and minor retcons), nothin really sticks to doom.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Nothing stands out.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Like I said, it’s the least worst of the bunch. It tries to create a more streamlined universe, which kind of works for the first few issues. It’s pretty evident that Jim Lee had a good idea of how the story would start, because the setup for the mission is very meticulous… but I don’t think he had good plans for the rest of the series, because as soon as the FF put on their costumes in the second issue everything starts to happen way too quickly.
When it comes to Doctor Doom, it’s quite solid. He loses SOME complexity when compared to the original, but his personality and mannerism carry over. And while giving him history with the other super-geniuses dilutes his relationship with Reed a little, it’s an interesting idea that is handled reasonably enough.
I think this might be the second time I read these issues, and I’m quite surprised how well they hold up… this is MILES better than anything else done during Heroes Reborn.
Unfortunately, saying it’s all downhill from here is an understatement.
Destroy the FF! : 54
He doesn’t interact much with the Thing and the Human Torch, but it still counts.
Take over the world : 24
It’s what he wants the Power Cosmic for.
Crazy tech
The idea of the “grovel program” is AMAZING.