Avengers: Children’s Crusade 3-4

Before the Future Foundation saga, Doctor Doom found himself in a Young Avengers saga that requires a bit of an introduction.


This series tries to fix SOME of the damages done to Scarlet Witch by both the Avengers: Disassembled saga in particular (which you shouldn’t read, it has good artwork but the writing is absolutely dreadful) and Brian Michael Bendis in general.
If you’re unfamiliar with that story, that’s where Bendis demonstrated he knows absolutely nothing about the character Scarlet Witch went insane.
She caused the death of a few Avengers, caused House of M and later took away the powers of most mutants on the planet.

One of the most frustrating parts of Avengers: Disassembled is that the heroes had absolutely zero faith in Scarlet Witch and jumped on her at the first occasion.
It’s ABUNDANTLY clear throughout this entire series that writer Allan Heinberg thinks that’s stupid and completely out of character (and I absolutely agree).

The primary driver of the search for Scarlet Witch and her redemption is Young Avengers member Wiccan, who through convoluted magic shenanigans is her son.
He’ll bring the Young Avengers into this, especially his boyfriend (the shapeshifting Hulkling).
Which I mention only because Cap not having any problems with it is just too wholesome.

The other Young Avenger worth mentioning is Stature: she’s the daughter of Ant-Man (Scott Lang), who was one of the casualties of Scarlet Witch snapping.

The search for Scarlet Witch goes through Magneto (who at the time was still Wanda’s biological father); the team does find her in her native Transia, but…

…it turns out to be a Scarletbot.

And with that preamble out of the way, let’s see how Doom handles things.


Avengers: Children’s Crusade #3 (2011)
by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung

Even Scarlet Witch seems to have trouble untangling her own history.

The story neatly begins with a group shot of our ensemble cast.
Left to right, everyone is in the Young Avengers except when noted:

  • Hulkling
  • Wiccan
  • Magneto (not in the team; the Avengers have better standards than the X-Men)
  • Stature
  • Vision (who IS in the Young Avengers, kind of, since this is a rebooted version
  • Speed (the OTHER son of Scarlet Witch
  • Quicksilver (who is not in the team)
  • Kate Bishop (also known as Other Hawkeye)
  • Patriot

It’s interesting to note that Doom being identified as the creator of the Scarletbot is mostly based on his fame. Although depending on how you read her few appearances, the Scarletbot might have tricked even Agatha Harkness (!!!).

We get a FANTASTIC two-page spread to explain Doom’s connection to magic. No new information, although the way Mephisto is drawn really reminds me of Books of Doom.

Also: Jim Cheung is among my favorite Doctor Doom artists.
Just stunning.

The one narrating Doom’s origins is Magneto himself, by the way. I would question how Magneto knows any of this, but this is Doom we’re talking about… the man can’t stop talking about himself.
Also interesting is the idea that Magneto considers Doom “the most powerful man alive”.

Which feels off about Magneto. But he IS trying to manipulate the Young Avengers into helping him, so that may be a factor.

Quicksilver has a hilarious clue about the fact that Doom doesn’t control Wanda’s powers yet.

This is why the series is called “Children’s Crusade”: because Magneto is ready to declare war on Latveria with just the Young Avengers.

The team agrees NOT to storm Latveria, but Wiccan then decides to go on his own without anyone’s blessing… except Quicksilver.

So Wiccan uses his magic to visit Castle Doom, and we get one of the best aerial views of Latveria we’ve ever had.

His plan is very simple but brilliant: the moment he’s caught by Doom’s robots, he casts a spell to look like Scarlet Witch.

This gets him into Wanda’s room…

…which she doesn’t appreciate, leading to the first meeting between them.
Because of complicated magic shenanigans, she has no idea of who he is.

Good news: Wanda is getting married!

Bad news: to Doctor Doom.

Congratulations?


Avengers: Children’s Crusade #4 (2011)
by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung

Doom is about to have A LOT of guests at his wedding.

Wiccan fanboying about Doctor Doom is kind of hilarious.

Wiccan is ridiculously powerful, managing to keep up with Doctor Doom despite being a novice.

But raw power only gets him so far.

Doom seems to be quite serious with this relationship.

But she’s not exactly under mind control, since he gives her the opportunity to call off the wedding.

Wiccan was injured quite seriously, but Doom cures him with magic.
He seems to be both impressed and terrified at the idea that Doctor Doom knows his name.

Doom reveals some important information: that Wanda has lost her godlike powers, that she’s the one who found him…

More impressively, that the wedding was HER idea! Notice that her magic is SO powerful that even Doom is unable to resist her (despite his immense resistance to telepathy).
Another neat point is Doom immediately trying to get Wiccan under his wing, playing up the similarities between them.

But he also took away Wiccan’s powers, because of course he did.

Meanwhile, the Young Avengers have reached Latveria to free Wiccan, thanks to Magneto creating a distraction…

…and it’s ALSO when the Avengers show up. They’ve tracked Scarlet Witch by completely different means.

And while they create an even bigger distraction, Wanda gets the full story from Wiccan.

With that out of the way, we get a big dumb battle that involves EVERYBODY.

I’ve praised the writing for correcting many idiotic things that came out of Avengers: Disassembled, but it’s not a perfect fix. Because we still have Wolverine set on murdering Wanda…

…although Wiccan, once again, points out that these people should know better!

And finally, as if things were not complicated enough, one last Young Avenger returns: Iron Lad.
Who is another incarnation of Kang The Conqueror.

Yeah because that’s what we need to make things less complicated: FREAKING KANG.


Doom significance: 8/10
Fairly important considering it’s the basis of a couple of later storylines.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
“Young Avengers” is not a series without its flaws, and needing to work off the Bendis version of the Avengers means it has to consider some truly idiotic ideas as facts… but if you want to fix a mess by a previous writer THIS is how you do it. Because the plot isn’t just “let’s undo the Bendis stuff”: there’s also tons of character growth, with genuinely good interactions both between the team members but especially with older characters.
And the artwork rarely gets any better than this.
In terms of quality it wouldn’t be this high, but in terms of doing this today… no problems.

It was a Doombot all along
I’m inclined to believe it’s the real one in the first meeting with Wiccan as well, since I’m reasonably sure he’s using magic there.

Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 112
The Young Avengers add 7 heroes to the count. Wiccan is the only one to fight Doom directly, but all the others (Hulkling, Stature, Speed, Kate Bishop, Patriot and Iron Lad) do fight his robots which according to the rules still counts.
I’m pretty sure Magneto is not officially an X-Man at this point.

Crazy tech
The Scarletbot canonically tricked only Hawkeye, but depending on how you read some of her stories it MIGHT have tricked Agatha Harkness.