Doctor Doom has been lucky enough to skip most of Heroes Reborn: he mostly showed up on Fantastic Four, so he missed every single Rob Liefeld story!
Try to argue he’s not a genius after THAT.
Iron Man vol.2 #10 (1997)
by Jeph Loeb & Terry Shoemaker
Iron Man has teamed up with his old friend Rebel O’Reilly (who turns out didn’t die in his origin story) to fight Hydra, which in this version seems to be controlled by some weirdly shaped alien that doesn’t have any internal organs.
Either that or Terry Shoemaker can’t draw women.
Wait, no, Hydra is actually controlled by the Mandarin.
Wait, no, both Madame Hydra and Mandarin are actually robots created by Doctor Doom?
Look I’m not going to pretend this makes any sense or is well-written, okay?
Iron Man vol.2 #11 (1997)
plot by Jim Lee & Jeph Loeb
pencils by Whilce Portacio & Terry Shoemaker
cover by Whilce Portacio
I think Portacio might be a good artist if only he didn’t have to draw faces.
Seriously, everyone’s face looks WEIRD. Even Doom, and we don’t see his face!!!
It’s a tradition at this point that a fight between Iron Man and Doctor Doom has to incorporate time travel…
…but can we PLEASE visit a time more interesting than Onslaught ?
No, the time when the Thing became Blackbeard doesn’t count, ESPECIALLY if you call him Bluebeard!!!
This story is utter nonsense: Iron Man and Doom meet a bunch of people from the original timeline, they don’t recognize them and have to listen to some stupid dialogue, then they move on.
This is LITERALLY a waste of time: as soon as they return to the present, Doom lets Iron Man go to bury Rebel O’Reilly. Yeah he died at some point, I guess, did ANYONE care!?
Fantastic Four vol.2 #10 (1997)
plot by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi
pencils by Ron Lim
At the end of the story, Doom is chilling out in his castle trying his Invisible Man cosplay when a future version of him shows up, hands over some data, and vanishes.
Doom’s security isn’t what it used to be.
Alright, that’s an intriguing setup: what did information did Doom send to his earlier self?
Fantastic Four vol.2 #12 (1997)
plot by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi
pencils by Bret Booth & Ron Lim
Doom skipped the previous issue where the Fantastic Four were fighting the heralds of Galactus, but he’s keeping tabs on them.
Doom skips most of THIS issue as well… told you he wants to get through Heroes Reborn as quickly as possible… showing up at the last second with a truly ugly armor.
He absorbs the powers of Terrax AND Silver Surfer, only to get swatted away by Galactus.
The heroes completely fail to save Earth (!!!!), but Doom escapes with time travel right before Galactus eats the planet.
Bummer.
Avengers vol.2 #12 (1997)
written by Walt Simonson
pencils by Michael Ryan & Anthony Winn
You can tell the relaunch was a complete failure because the big names from Image Comics have already left. You already saw Marvel mainstay Ron Lim at pencils, but they had to get Walt Simonson to fix the writing.
This is where Doom arrives, getting the Avengers to help in the fight against Galactus, with the knowledge he gathered from his first failed attempt.
That’s actually a pretty good premise. And to the surprise of nobody, Walt Simonson writes a great Doctor Doom.
He even takes the time to show Doom regretting he doesn’t have the time to kill the Fantastic Four personally.
Unfortunately, throwing Russian nuclear weapons at Silver Surfer (!!!!) wasn’t enough.
This is Doom at his most brutal, sparing little thoughts for the millions of casualties.
The plan fails, AGAIN.
Bless Walt Simonson, he’s honestly trying to turn this wreckage into a good story. It doesn’t work because the foundations are still shaky, but he’s still Walt Freaking Simonson.
Iron Man vol.2 #12 (1997)
plot by Jim Lee & Jeph Loeb
pencils by Ed Benes, Terry Shoemaker & Mike Miller
Doom has traveled back in time AGAIN, this time to recruit Iron Man.
These two have some of the best banter. Obviously the best superhero for a Doom team-up will always be Namor, but Iron Man is a close second.
At this point Doom has practically recovered all his original memories, and criticizes Iron Man for being the one to bring him in this clusterf##k of a relaunch.
We also have the revelation that, in this reality, some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. tech comes from Doctor Doom. Honestly I wouldn’t mind to see this aspect introduced in the main continuity as well.
Interestingly, Doom doesn’t have a big reaction to the news that the Fantastic Four are already dead in this iteration.
He’s still obsessed with proving he’s better than Reed, though.
Aaaaaand the heroes fail. AGAIN.
There’s a metaphor for the entire relaunch somewhere…
Captain America vol.2 #12 (1997)
plot by Jeph Loeb & Joe Bennett
Doom recruits this reality’s Bucky: Nikki Barnes, the granddaughter of the original Bucky and the only character from Heroes Reborn to get SOME fans.
The reason why he’s interested in her is that, unlike the heroes that have been rebooted, she’s an original character.
Well she WILL be original… in the Liefeld stories she’s a blatant ripoff of the girl Robin from “Dark Knight Returns”… but that’s the intent.
But surprise, this won’t go anywhere. Because we can’t possibly get ANYTHING interesting in this crappy reboot.
The important thing is that Doom has the knowledge of all previously failed attempts to save Earth, and you better believe he won’t shut up about it.
Most of the characters don’t seem to give a crap about the fact that the world is about to end.
If this was the regular Marvel Universe I could understand… the end of the world isn’t even enough to skip school there… but this is supposed to be the first time the heroes face something this big!
BE IMPRESSED, DAMMIT!!!
Nikki’s role is to convince Silver Surfer he should save Earth, so he agrees to be dressed as ridiculous as the rest of them.
Galactus is defeated and this was, of course, a colossal waste of time.
And that’s it for Heroes Reborn, since next is a miniseries called “The Return” where the heroes return to the Marvel Universe… and since Doom is kind of important there, it’ll get its review.
Did I skip like 99% of the entire reboot? Yes.
Did I skip anything remotely good? Nope!!!
Doom significance: 0/10
Even the fact that Doom slowly gets his memories back is completely unrelated to what is going on.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Even the attempt to draw some parallel between Nikki inspiring Silver Surfer and the role Alicia Masters had in the original Galactus trilogy completely fails.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
I liked the idea of Doom secretly financing S.H.I.E.L.D. and the use of time travel… but other than that, this was a complete and utter waste of time and paper.
Times Doom has saved the world: 10
He sure takes his sweet time!!!
Supervillains created by Dr. Doom: 20
Congratulations, Heroes Reborn Madame Hydra and Mandarin, you’re officially the lamest ones. You’re even worse than those losers from Moon Knight #39.
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 89
I didn’t add Rebel O’Reilly because I seriously have no idea if he’s a hero or not. I also didn’t include Nikki Barnes because I would hardly call that “fighting Doctor Doom”.
Crazy tech
Despite regaining most of his memories, it’s clear Doom doesn’t recall how to build the device that absorbed Surfer’s energies… because his new attempt is VASTLY underwhelming.