Doctor Voodoo #1-5

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #1 (2009)
by Rick Remender & Jefte Palo
cover by Marko Djurdjevic

Because of complicated (and not well-written) shenanigans on New Avengers, Doctor Strange had to renounce to his title of Sorcerer Supreme.
His replacement was a character I honestly don’t know much about: Brother Voodoo, who for the occasion is updated to Doctor Voodoo.

The series starts with Voodoo sealing Earth’s dimension from Dormammu and delivering a badass boast, so he’s trying his hardest to look cool.

I’ve never read any of the Brother Voodoo stories, so I’ve only seen in in a handful of team-ups (mostly with Doctor Strange). His main gimmick is that his sidekick is the ghost of his dead brother, also a magician.

He’s eventually ambushed by Doctor Doom, who is after the Eye of Agamotto… Doctor Strange’s most powerful magical deus ex machina artifact.

Doom is underwhelmed by Voodoo’s brother, to say the least.

Especially thanks to his Ectoplasmic Ionizer™ that can instantly get rid of any ghost!

But Doom is also no fan of Voodoo himself. In fact, Doom believes he has to save Earth from the new Sorcerer Supreme.

Doctor Voodoo is outmatched by Doom by a ridiculous degree. Once he tries to teleport them away from civilians, Doom redirects the teleportation spell to a dimension where Voodoo’s… ehm… voodoo magic doesn’t work.

Doom is also playing off Voodoo’s own insecurity about being chosen for the position.

Voodoo reacts by pushing both off a cliff and SOMEHOW ripping off a piece of technology from Doom’s armor.
Like I said I don’t know that much about him, but I’m preeeeetty sure Doctor Voodoo doesn’t have super-strength. WTF!?

This causes both to fall through several dimensions…

…until Doom manages to knock him out.

It’s interesting to see that Doom is trying to become the new Sorcerer Supreme not for the reasons you’d expect, but because he wants to make his mother proud.

However the Eye of Agamotto gives Doom a vision (which we don’t see yet) that convinces him to let Doctor Voodoo continue being the Sorcerer Supreme.

---

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #2 (2009)
by Rick Remender & Jefte Palo

Doom himself doesn’t show up in the second issue, which is mostly dedicated to fleshing out Voodoo’s origin story and to show he’s convincing himself he was the wrong choice to succeed Strange.

You know, there’s nothing wrong with starting your story with the hero thinking he’s way out of his league… but he should prove that assumption wrong at SOME point!!!

I mean in the first issue he was upstaged by Doom and in the second by Daimon Hellstrom. At this point, either would’ve been more interesting than Voodoo as Sorcerer Supreme.

---

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #3 (2009)
by Rick Remender & Jefte Palo

The big bad of the miniseries turns out to be Nightmare. Which is appropriate since he was Doctor Strange’s first villain.

Nightmare tends to be used as a relatively minor adversary for Strange and he’s not a big threat whenever he shows up against other heroes. But it’s good to see someone remembering he can be freaking awesome.

Nightmare’s plan is to replace reality with his realm of dreams, and by this point it’s working.
Except in Latveria, which is protected by an Actuality Shell^{(patent pending)} that keeps the place from being replaced by a fantasy! That is an AMAZING concept that I could see showing up in a Grant Morrison story.

This technology is so absurdly advanced that Nightmare can’t even EXIST in Latveria!!!

And keep in mind that by this point Nightmare is so powerful that he’s not only controlling Daimon Hellstrom, but TWO GHOST RIDERS.

---

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #4 (2010)
by Rick Remender & Jefte Palo
cover by Marko Djurdjevic

Now THAT is a Nightmare cover!!!

So now we have Nightmare controlling every single magic-based hero and villain, sending everyone to fight Doctor Voodoo.

I’m skipping a lot of stuff, but basically new visions of Voodoo’s origin story give him the resolve to fight Nightmare instead of helping him feed off his insecurities.
It’s played as a triumphant realization, and I guess if I cared about Voodoo I might find that interesting, but this part of the miniseries is a real snoozefest for me.

I wish more time was spent on Nightmare and his mind-controlled minions…

…especially because the very few glimpses we get into the nightmares he’s causing are HAUNTING.

Nightmare complaining that all his enemies are doctors genuinely made me laugh.

There’s this interesting dynamic with Nightmare being presented as an absolutely terrifying force of nature beyond man’s understanding… and Doctor Doom not giving the slightest amounts of f##ks.

Especially since he holds one hell of a trump card: if Nightmare invades Latveria, reality will cease to exist. Which would be really, REALLY BAD.

Doctor Doom is the only person who could possibly scare off a god by saying “you’re just a figment of my imagination”.

The problem is that Nightmare is just insane enough to STILL go on with his plan.

While this is going on, Doctor Voodoo and his ghostly brother are on a quest to find a weapon to fight Nightmare. They go to another magic dimension only to find they have to rush back to Doom.

So the climax is going to be Brother Voodoo and Doctor Doom against all magic heroes and villains.

---

Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural #5 (2010)
by Rick Remender & Jefte Palo
cover by Marko Djurdjevic

Doom looks weird in most of the miniseries, but in the covers he’s great.

Sadly, we don’t get to see much of the fight against magic heroes.

Which is a real shame, because this would be AWESOME to see in detail! Come on, don’t tell me you don’t want to see Doctor Doom fight TWO Ghost Riders AND Dracula AND a vampire goddess!!!

Although it is pretty funny to keep seeing Doom trash talk Dracula again and again.

Come on, this is the climax of the miniseries, is it too much to ask having Doctor Voodoo be a badass?
Not that I’m complaining about DOCTOR DOOM KNOCKING OUT GHOST RIDER, but still!!!

I’m just saying you’re not exactly helping your case here, Voodoo.

It is kind of impressive that Voodoo can survive Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare, but not as much as the fact that DOCTOR DOOM HAS A SPELL TO CURE THAT.

The plan to defeat Nightmare involves Voodoo’s brother possessing the body of Ghost Rider’s host, then use Doom’s Actuality Shell^{(patent pending)}…

…to TURN NIGHTMARE INTO A HUMAN.

You might think that I’m reading too much into Doom upstaging Voodoo… but here he is LITERALLY shoving him aside to defeat the big bad guy on his own!!!

Not only that, but Doom planned everything from the beginning: HE was the one to send him to Nightmare’s realm.

So Doctor Doom now has THE POWER OF NIGHTMARE.

Except… to Voodoo’s credit… he ALSO predicted Doom would do this.

Alright, Voodoo has ALMOST redeemed himself with this. Not only he was genre savvy enough to predict Doom would try stealing Nightmare’s power, but he also predicted he wouldn’t find it weird that he sent his own brother to die.

I’m not entirely convinced that Doom seriously need technology to prevent a ghost from possessing his body… he SHOULD be basically immune to that… but I suppose he might have been too focused on handling Nightmare’s power to protect himself.
And also Doom DOES manage to fight off the possession, but by that time it’s too late and he’s been drained from Nightmare’s power.

And I’m still convinced Voodoo has super-strength now.

Despite this warning, the next time these two see each other it’ll be in the middle of a fight with several other heroes.

---

Doom significance: 0/10
Doom doesn’t build any significant character dynamic with Voodoo like he did with Strange.
Voodoo’s tenure as Sorcerer Supreme was rather uneventful. Except he did end up dating Scarlet Witch for a while, so he can’t complain.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
The horror aspect is surprisingly tame, but still no.

 Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
As a Doctor Doom story, this is AWESOME. As a Nightmare story, it’s great.
As a Doctor Voodoo story, however? This does absolutely nothing to convince me to keep reading his stories, or to look into his past. He’s just such a boring character! He spents the entirety of the miniseries brooding and showing that he’s a very poor replacement for Doctor Strange.
There’s nothing wrong with having the new Sorcerer Supreme be a minor hero that gets the spotlight, or to show that he still has a lot to learn… but this is five issues of him being upstaged by EVERYBODY.
He doesn’t have much of a personality except MAYBE when talking to his brother… but aside from being slightly more snarky than the protagonist, the ghost brother is also equally forgettable.
As mentioned Voodoo slightly redeems himself at the end… Doom losing because he can’t conceive that not everybody is a megalomaniacal egocentric IS a classic for a reason… but it’s too little too late.
Imagine giving this plot to Doctor Strange, or heck even to one of the other potential minor candidates like Wiccan or Magik, and TRY to tell me they wouldn’t be more interesting in this role than Brother Voodoo.
And I don’t even like Magik all that much!!!

It was a Doombot all along
Considering all the magic, ghosts and dreaming, definitely the real Doom.

Times Doom has saved the world: 15
I’m fairly sure Nightmare was already planning the whole invasion, so even if Doom ended up helping him for a while, technically speaking he DID stop Nightmare from destroying reality.

Times Doctor Doom has gained ultimate power: 9
Doom gets the power of Nightmare but loses it before he can do anything with it, so it’s not being added to the count.

Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 99
Obviously adding Doctor Voodoo. I am not considering all the magic heroes fighting for Nightmare since they’re being mind-controlled.

Crazy tech
Aside from the Cosmic Power Siphon (the thing that absorbed Silver Surfer’s and the Beyonder’s power), the Actuality Shell might just be Doom’s most absurdly overpowered technology ever.
Not only it protects you from MASSIVE reality warping, but it can also turn the physical embodiment of nightmares into a mortal!!!