Doctor Doom’s AXIS

Doom doesn’t have a huge impact on the 2014 crossover, so let’s have a look at his main appearances.

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Magneto vol3 #11 (2014)
by Cullen Bunn & Gabriel Hernandez Walta
cover by David Yardin

As a reminder, the Big Bad of this crossover is Red Skull. Who is so despised by EVERYONE that even the villains tam up to fight him!

And of course if anyone had to recruit the villains, it makes sense for Magneto to be the one to do it.
Not really sure why he decided to shave his head in this period… to honor Professor X, since he’s supposed to be dead right now?

Magneto’s ally, Briar Raleigh… that’s the redhead… brings up a point that is forgotten way too easily by Magneto apologists: that he’s killed plenty of innocent people.

But that’s in the context of presenting Magneto as a sort of “necessary evil” to help mutants.
I find this angle WAY more nuanced and interesting that the tired “Magneto was right” crap.

Also you should probably be just a little suspicious of the guy who recruits FREAKING CARNAGE as a freedom fighter, I’m just saying.

Like we saw last time, Magneto also recruited Doctor Doom and (reluctantly) Loki.

So our ragtag team of villains is going to include Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth, Carnage, Absorbing Man, Hobgoblin, Dr. Doom, Loki, the Enchantress and Deadpool.

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Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #3 (2014)
by Rick Remender & Leinil Francis Yu
cover by Jim Cheung

This continues in the main book of the crossover.

Doom and Loki are having some fun watching the heroes fight some of the Sentinels, which have been upgraded by Red Skull with some Stark technology.

These guys belong in a buddy comedy.

It’s fun to see all these overdeveloped egos clash with each other, but at the same they’re not wasting any time fighting among themselves. Everyone hates Red Skull THAT MUCH.

Which doesn’t mean that Loki isn’t going to Loki and Doom isn’t going to Doom.

Red Skull is now WAY too powerful even for this weird hero and villain alliance, so Doom and Scarlet Witch are going to use a spell to remove Professor X’s powers from Red Skull by awakening his mind. I think.
Also: holy crap is Doom HUGE next to Scarlet Witch!

The spell works… and once again I must point out just how bats##t crazy the X-Men are.
This is THE RED SKULL WITH THE POWERS OF XAVIER, and they want to wake him up BEFORE making sure he can’t use his powers anymore!!!

Yeah sorry X-Men, I like Xavier as much as the next guy but you can’t ask to have THE RED SKULL around with his powers! At least WAIT UNTIL THEY SEPARATE THE TWO!!!

Even when Steve Rogers shows up… he was super-old and without powers at the time… CAPTAIN AMERICA’S WORD is not enough for the X-Men.

This is ESPECIALLY frustrating because this event is a follow-up of the “Uncanny Avengers” book, which followed a team composed by both mutants and non-mutants, with Havok as leader.
It was a great move, but apparently asking the X-Men to WAIT BEFORE AWAKENING RED SKULL WITH XAVIER POWERS is too much!

It’s moment like these that make me think back at Ultimate Spider-Man, because holy crap are the X-Men insufferable sometimes!!!

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Magneto vol3 #12 (2014)
by Cullen Bunn & Roland Boschi
cover by David Yardin

While the main villain is technically a clone of Red Skull with Professor X’s powers, he also goes by Red Onslaught because otherwise we might take him seriously.

Doom is surprisingly tame in this team. You’d expect him to either try to take charge or go on the offensive, since he has a grudge against Red Skull that goes back to the 70s, but he’s mostly in the background.

Until, as we saw, he’s needed to help cast a spell.

As we saw it works, at least for now.

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 Deadpool vol5 #36-37
written by Gerry Duggan & Brian Posehn
pencils by Mike Hawthorne
cover by David Nakayama

Doom has a couple of cameos here. Just thought I’d mention it.
(the guy with the white head is Xavier’s psyche inside Red Skull’s body)

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Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #4 (2015)
by Rick Remender & Leinil Francis Yu
cover by Jim Cheung

So why ISN’T the event over? 

Because, thanks to Doom and Wanda’s spell interacting with Red Skull’s powers… heroes and villains have been “inverted”. The bad guys are turning good and the good guys are turning bad.

Perhaps the best example of this is are the X-Men following APOCALYPSE.
So I might charitably attribute to this “Inversion” the fact that Havok acted like a jackass, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is happening way later to anyone else.

Still, the idea of switching the personalities of heroes and villains is a cool idea.
Somewhat undermined by something incredibly stupid: the Hulk transforming into “Kluh”, awkwardly described as “Hulk’s Hulk”.

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Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #6 (2015)
by Rick Remender & Terry Dodson
cover by Jim Cheung

During all of this, one question has been left unanswered: what happened to Doom? He disappeared after the spell.

We find out in this issue: he’s gone back to Latveria to ADMIT HE’S BEEN WRONG.

He even goes as far as revealing his face (!!!) and making Latveria a democracy (!!!).

Or he would if he didn’t have to fight Scarlet Witch, who is turned bad and wants revenge for the Children’s Crusade stuff.

Doom is clearly at a disadvantage, not being himself right now…

…but he’s rescued by Quicksilver and Magneto.

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Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #7 (2015)
by Rick Remender & Adam Kubert
cover by Jim Cheung

I’m skipping A LOT of stuff that doesn’t involve Doom. This is a surprisingly dense crossover.

The fight with Scarlet Witch continues.

Which Doom doesn’t really care for, leaving once Magneto and Quicksilver have been defeated.

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Avengers World #15 (2015)
written by Nick Spencer & Frank Barbiere
pencils by Marco Checchetto
cover by Kalman Andrasofszky

That was just a strategic retreat, because Doctor Doom is going to make his own Avengers team to fight Scarlet Witch.

By working with Valeria, who is basically his sidekick now.

This is BIG for Doom, as he’s basically admitting EVERYTHING that is wrong with him.

This begins a surprisingly long period of time where Doctor Doom is on a journey of self-redemption, because spoiler alert: this is going to outlast the effects of the spell.
Kind of.

His plan is to steal the powers of Scarlet Witch AGAIN, but this time he’s going to use them to “fix” his past mistakes.

Please take a moment to consider that Doom built the machine right now, but he had this McGuffin just laying around waiting to be used.

Most of the issue is about Valeria recruiting new Avengers.

And eventually she assembles Elsa Bloodstone, USAgent, Valkyrie, 3-D Man and Stingray.

Also Agent Coulson, who was introduced in the comics to… basically do nothing interesting, really.

The team ends up fighting Scarlet Witch CONTROLLING ALL DOOMBOTS.

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Avengers World #16 (2015)
written by Nick Spencer & Frank Barbiere
pencils by Marco Checchetto
cover by Kalman Andrasofszky

Look I’m not saying this isn’t an interesting team, but what is 3-D Man going to do against Scarlet Witch?

I should clarify that not ALL heroes and villains have had their personalities inverted, and as such Valeria still has actual heroes on her side.

I made fun of 3-D Man, who just has the power of being 3 times stronger and faster than a human… but he’s the one to capture Scarlet Witch! I’m assuming the idea is that he’s beneath her notice, but it’s not spelled out.

So now Doctor Doom has accessed enough power to re-write reality, but the catch is that he’s going to be able to make only ONE wish.

Specifically, he’s going to resurrect Stature (Ant-Man’s daughter) because he feels responsible for killing her during Children’s Crusade.
As I’ve discussed in that review I don’t think Doom is as responsible for her death as everybody thinks.

The issue ends with her being re-united with her father. Her return is addressed in Ant-Man’s series, where disappointingly Doctor Doom plays no part.

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AXIS: Revolutions #4 (2015)
by Howard Chaykin
cover by Ken Lashley

Somewhere in the middle of ALL THAT, Doctor Doom manages to show up in a brief story here as well.

We initially follow this guy, a Latverian resistance fighter with a plan to kill Doom.

Doom knows everything about this plot, because of course he does.

But this is after his Inversion, so he actually welcomes the regime change!

Which is actually BAD news for the resistance fighter, because it turns out that he’s not exactly an angel.

Latveria just can’t catch a break. Even when Doctor Doom is good, the country is still screwed!

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Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #9 (2015)
written by Rick Remender
pencils by Jim Cheung, Terry Dodson, Leinil Francis Yu & Adam Kubert
cover by Jim Cheung

With that taken care of, there’s still the matter of restoring the heroes to their regular state.

After a lot of fighting, Doom works with the Inverted Red Skull to undo the spell.
As I hinted before, Doctor Doom WILL go through a redeeming arc on his own… but obviously Red Skull won’t.

I should point out that Scarlet Witch is still in her Inverted evil mind when this happens; this is Doctor Voodoo possessing her.
Also that Doctor Doom just saved the world a second time.

And at the end, Doctor Doom keeps the lobotomized Red Skull clone as a trophy.

Doom needs a new hobby.

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Doom significance: 6/10
Doom has a rather small role in the event; yes he’s instrumental in casting the spell, but really any magician would fullfill the role. But it’s the first of THREE redemption arcs he goes through in the 2010s, plus it concludes Stature’s plot.

Silver Age-ness: 4/10
Kluh is a dumb enough idea to come from the Silver Age, as in theory would be the idea of switching moralities. But the way it’s treated definitely lowers the score.

Does it stand the test of time? N/A
I skipped WAY TOO MUCH stuff to give a honest score. In general, AXIS is a very weird crossover… it starts with one kind of threat, then completely changes focus and scope about a third of the way. I can’t think of another crossover who does this.
The main series is pretty forgettable, and out of all the tie-ins the only one I would recommend checking out is Iron Man, which is great.
When it comes to Doctor Doom, it feels like a missed opportunity: the idea of a redeemed Doom going around to fix his own mistakes is BARELY used here. But don’t worry, that will become the main focus of an entire series later.
Some of the heroes are fun to watch when they go full evil, in particular Captain America / Falcon’s journey is handled well. Even though, again, the breakout evil counterpart is Iron Man.
Let us never speak of Kluh again. What a dumb idea.
My biggest complain about the entire crossover comes, for the millionth time, from the X-Men.
I just find them way too unlikeable. It would be one thing if it was just during the Inversion, where every hero is unlikeable by design… no, they’re incredibly insufferable before and after as well. 

It was a Doombot all along
I’m willing to call the one in the short story dealing with the would-be assassin a potential Doombot, possibly reprogrammed by the real one who should be WAY too busy to deal with it. Besides that, given the mind manipulation and magic, is most definitely the real Doom.

 Crazy tech
Doom has a machine that can tap into Scarlet Witch’s powers and change reality. Because of course he does.

 Times Doom has saved the world: 21
TWICE! Because without Doom’s first spell, Red Skull would most likely have conquered the world. And without the second, the Inverted heroes would have.

Superhero teams Doom has joined: 2
It’s a team of heroic Avengers created by a heroic Doctor Doom, so it counts.

Times Doctor Doom has gained ultimate power: 14
Even if it’s a one-off, it does count. Ironically, he uses the power to undo the damage he did LAST time he gained ultimate power (kind of, as discussed).