Doctor Doom is currently dead… again… but the Fantastic Four are not done with him.
Fantastic Four #501 (2003)
by Mark Waid & Casey Jones
cover by Mike Wieringo
Don’t let the fairly generic cover fool you: this a rather dark and bleak story.
Every member of the cast is traumatized to a degree, but Franklin has it the worst: after being trapped in Hell, he’s now refusing to speak.
The scene where Susan (but not the reader) sees his drawings is just chilling.
Reed was scarred by Doom at the end of the Unthinkable storyline, and I guess the question on everyone’s mind was how this would work considering his elastic powers.
I thought the problem was this is a magic wound so scientific solutions don’t work, but apparently that’s not the case.
It’s also possible that Reed is too traumatized about what happened to Franklin to seriously try.
The obvious solution would’ve been having Susan or Ben being the ones to help Reed deal with his depression. But Waid has the novel idea of involving Johnny.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Especially since Johnny has taken Reed back in time, specifically to the flashback from Fantastic Four #67 where Doom was reminiscing about his time with Valeria during their teenage years.
Fantastic Four #502 (2003)
by Mark Waid & Casey Jones
cover by Mike Wieringo
As great as the Waid run is, I have to say it does have quite a few covers that really don’t mix well with the story.
So why did Johnny go back to Doom’s teenage years? To have Reed BLOW HIS BRAINS OFF.
I think everyone saw from a mile away that Johnny was just trying to knock some sense into Reed.
But I don’t think anyone seriously expected Reed to ACTUALLY SHOOT!!!
Nobody is more surprised than Johnny!!!
The entire point was, however, to get a sample of Doom’s hair. Now I’m not the smartest guy on the planet[*] , but there HAD to be a simpler way to do that!!!
[*]citation needed
The Franklin part of the story has nothing to do with Doom, but it’s very touching. Especially the part where the Thing talks to Franklin about the struggle of his first years after the transformation… great stuff.
Fantastic Four #503 (2003)
by Mark Waid & Howard Porter
cover by Tony Harris
That is one of the ugliest covers I’ve seen in a while. Ugh.
We move to Latveria now, including an extremely rare glimpse at the non-robot members of its army.
This is happening because Hungary is invading Latveria (!!!), except they’re being stopped by the Fantastic Four.
I don’t speak Hungarian, so I wonder how accurate this is.
A quick research tells me the soldier is exclaiming “damn it” and “open fire”, but take it with a grain of salt.
Obviously a regular army is absolutely no match for the Fantastic Four, who are going all out to avoid ANYONE from taking over Latveria.
Turns out the whole reason why Reed needed a sample of Doom’s hair was to trick the defenses of Castle Doom.
Never change, Johnny, never change.
Doom definitely expected someone would try to take his stuff if he was absent for too long, so it makes perfect sense he’d instruct his robots to get rid of everything.
The Thing is surprisingly okay with how Doom handled things in Latveria.
Reed has a different perspective.
While the rest of the Fantastic Four only wants to get rid of all the weapons Doom has stored in his castle…
…Reed has a different idea: the Fantastic Four effectively take over Latveria.
Again.
And that’s where we stop for now, because the following issue go A LOT deeper into the Latverian side of things.
Doom significance: 0/10
All things considered, this won’t have a ton of impact down the line.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
That is some serious casual time travel. But the heavy Franklin stuff brings down the score considerably.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
On the story side, this is still top notch Waid. I especially loved the idea that Johnny is the one to understand what Reed is going through, you don’t normally see this side of the Human Torch.
The Franklin stuff, while I haven’t talked much about it, is extremely effective… a little TOO effective, honestly, to the point it’s unbelievable he’ll be perfectly fine the second the storyline is over.
However what really lowers the score is the artwork. The last issue with Porter pencils is perfectly fine, but the Casey Jones artwork feels very rushed!
Times Latveria has been conquered: 13
By the Fantastic Four. Again.