Amazing Spider-Man v2 #50 (2003)
by J. Michael Straczynski & John Romita Jr.
cover by J. Scott Campbell
This is a short and perhaps a bit pointless Doctor Doom appearance, but it’s in one of the very best Spider-Man stories.
A bit of context: Peter Parker and his wife Mary Jane were separated for a long time, following a breakup caused by her presumed death (just go with it). This is the story where they reconcile after they unexpectedly meet at an airport.
Well at least that was the explanation given at the time of the breakup. Straczynski puts the spotlight on Mary Jane having trouble to Peter keeping secrets.
Peter is kind of distracted, though…
…because Doctor Doom has just showed up at the airport!
Not only that, but it’s one of the most hilarious Doom moments ever!!! Seriously, I still laugh at this exchange.
Doom is on his way on a conference on climate change, and you better believe he won’t stop complaining about everything.
I love both MJ’s casual “so that’s Doctor Doom” and her “of course you sense danger, Doctor Doom is right there!”.
And then a suicide bomber shows up to attack Doom!!!
Either that’ some SERIOUS explosives or this is a particularly weak Doombot because the attack knocks him out.
The same happens to the man who was escorting Doom, who turns out to be Captain America.
That’s when other Latverian insurgents show up with power armor.
Spider-Man thinks Doom being unconscious means he’s powerless, but assuming this isn’t a Doombot… I still wouldn’t be so sure these guys have weapons capable of damaging his armor.
Spider-Man is not exactly sympathetic towards Doom, but he’s going to Spider-Man this.
You have to love Spider-Man believing he doesn’t make the same mistake twice despite constantly making the same mistakes over and over.
Having Captain America around sure helps.
Cap believes there are reinforcements coming up, but there’s enough of a break to have what is easily the best part of the story: the conversation between Spider-Man and Mary Jane.
THIS is how you write Mary Jane. The fact that incompetent writers insisting on writing Peter as a complete loser because it makes him “relatable” robbed us of decades of moments like this makes me FURIOUS.
The conversation is interrupted by more insurgents, and Spider-Man has to save Doom again.
Straczynski’s humor can sometimes be hit-and-miss, but this issue is full of hilarious bits that fit the story perfectly.
I need to be serious for a moment.
No matter how a story or a series turns out, I always keep an eye on the positives because I just love superhero comics. Whenever you see me upset in my reviews, it’s very nearly exclusively because I hope it makes the review more entertaining.
But.
We had THIS.
We had the best romantic relationship in comics being written in an entertaining, compelling, heartwarming, funny and enjoyable way.
And then an immature man-child decided THIS should be thrown away by Spider-Man making a deal with the freaking devil because “being married makes him old”.
F##K. THAT.
THIS is my Spider-Man and I will never forgive them for squandering him.
So anyway, wasn’t this a Doctor Doom story?
Doom and Spider-Man don’t interact often enough. These two are just great together.
And that’s all Doom has to do in this story.
We had THIS and they… no, I’m not going to ramble anymore, you got the point.
Well there is ONE last Doom thing, and it’s nearly as meme-worthy as his first scene.
Does it make any sense for Doctor Doom to carry spare change?
Of course not.
Is this still funny? You bet!
Doom significance: 0/10
Nope.
Silver Age-ness: 1/10
So we’re not going to explain just how a bunch of Latverian manages to get their hands on tech that can hurt Doom? No? Thought so.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
We could’ve had THIS for years. YEARS.
F##k Joe Quesada and anyone believing his crap.
May he step on a Lego and stab his toe against furniture every single waking moment of his life.
It was a Doombot all along
This is 100% a Doombot. Not just because he’s knocked out way too easily, but I don’t see Doom going in person to a meeting he deems extremely boring.
Crazy tech
By necessity, nothing to see here.
Thank you.
Thank you for this.
You expressed my disgust with the forced separation of Peter/MJ far better than I could.
That said… I believe I’ve hated Quesada longer than you have.
My Quesada-hate started in 2001, when Quesada was writing IRON MAN and had his armor turn sentient due to Tony Stark not having prepared for Y2K.
Remember Y2K? That event that promised so much mayhem and delivered so little?
I was infuriated about the sheer stupidity of it and it resulted in the only letter I ever sent to Marvel, in which I explained that Quesada’s plot made a brilliant man look like a clumsy fool, and that Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom would mock Stark for decades if they ever found out and that Y2K had very little impact on the real world.
Quesada replied by email. His reply was pithy and slightly insulting, but admittedly I’d started that by telling him that artists shouldn’t be allowed to write.
The lessons I took from that were “People who don’t know anything about technology shouldn’t write Iron Man” and “Just because you can draw doesn’t mean you can write” (though we already learned that with Heroes Reborn).
The funny thing is that, aside from that Y2K nonsense and some disappointing stuff about Whiplash, that story wasn’t even that bad.
I believe the Y2K thing has been retconned by the armor becoming sentient thanks to a virus created by Ultron.
I was never a big fan of the Straczynski era of Spidey but he really knew how to write the Peter-MJ relationship.