FANTASTIC FOUR #236 (1981)
Writer, penciler & inker: John Byrne
Doctor Doom’s retrospective reaches the arrival of who is, at the very least, in top three best Doom writers in everybody’s list: John Byrne.
This story was also the 20th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, so the cover included pretty much everybody.
The last page even includes a helpful track of everybody. I wish this was done more often in these kinds of homages… although I don’t envy whoever tries this with George Pérez.
The story is THE perfect introduction to the Fantastic Four to new readers; it kind of feels like its own little movie.
It begins with a retelling of the Fantastic Four origin story, with the first of many future little adjustments: whereas the first time it was a race to get to space, by 1981 it was to test a faster-than-light engine.
Once the ship crashes back to Earth, however, Johnny Storm wakes up.
I won’t go through the entire thing because this is a double length comic and most of what happens in the first part has nothing to do with Doctor Doom.
Long story short: the Fantastic Four don’t exist, and their civilian identities are living ordinary lives in the quite town of Liddleville.
Also important: the Thing is human, his girlfriend Alicia isn’t blind, and the Puppet Master looks even less human than usual.
That is a face that only Jack Kirby could love.
All the FF are having dreams about their origins, and Reed in particular is having a bad time concentrating on anything.
Maybe because he works at a university that specializes in John Byrne Machinery, in the form of a fancy particle accelerator.
That and Professor Vaughn, who sports a face that should be familiar to all readers of the retrospective, keeps giving him a hard time.
The plot really kicks in when Reed falls asleep in his lab and has a dream about what happened behind the scenes: the Puppet Master controlled the FF into going to Doom’s castle.
This is where John Byrne really showcases how good he is at writing Reed Richards: within a couple of panels he deduces that the Puppet Master wouldn’t have the resources to take away the FF’s powers, so the only conclusion is that their minds have been transferred into robots!
The smartest man in the world, ladies and gentlemen.
Just kidding: he’s absolutely correct and WOW is that a lot of exposition!
So they confront the Puppet Master, who explains he did this because he wanted to give “a normal life” to his stepdaughter Alicia. And he used his powers to get the help of the REAL villain of the story.
You had to be asleep not to figure out it was Doctor Doom, but he gets a gorgeous two-page reveal.
AND a splash page!
This is an AWESOME reveal of Liddleville, which really looks like something developed out of the Hypno-Persuader of Fantastic Four #85.
Although I really have to wonder… since the subjects have to stay there 24/7, how do they go to the bathroom?
Doom explains that he’s occasionally showed up as Vincent Vaughn to mess with Reed’s head, as a way humiliate him further.
So the Fantastic Four are stuck into mini-clones of themselves that have no powers, while the Puppet Master transfers his mind into a mini-robot by using his ring.
There is a reason in the plot for this distinction, but I really have to wonder why Doom did this. If he wanted to trap the FF there, why not built robots of them? It’s not like he wouldn’t trap their minds anyway: the Puppet Master is currently unable to return to his real body.
Lots of character drama on how to deal with Doom and how to return, or in the Thing’s case IF to return… since he’s human in this world, and Alicia is not blind. Good stuff, and I’m especially fond of this panel.
The rest of the team sneaks back into Reed’s university, something made easier by all the other robots being frozen in place by Doom. A nice detail is that the memories of the real and fake lives are still overlapping.
And now we’ve come at what I consider the only questionable point of the script: that particle accelerator we saw at the beginning? Unlike everything else in Liddleville, IT’S REAL.
I’m sorry but this makes no sense whatsoever.
Reed says Doom wouldn’t risk placing a fake accelerator there or he would’ve known… but why does Doom needs to place it there in the first place!?
Liddleville is supposed to be a small town out of nowhere and Reed is supposed to be a good-for-nothing failing professor! Does ANY of that sound like it needs a particle accelerator!?
Especially since the ONLY function in the story is to give the mini-FF clones the powers of the originals! Including the Thing who changed his mind behind the scenes.
Something that will be of HUGE importance in future Fantastic Four issues: the first official confirmation that the Thing’s fear that Alicia loves him just because she can’t see what he looks like… has never made any sense for anybody else.
But like I said this is a pretty long comic so let’s skip some of the action, even if it’s really really really good action.
As well as some perfect team dynamics. John Byrne really has a way to make us understand Reed’s way of thinking.
Meanwhile the Invisible Girl sneaks into Doom’s private quarters where he is (of all things) playing the piano. Interestingly, this is canonically the first time she sees Doom’s scarred face… it’s yet to happen for the Torch and the Thing.
He does manage to capture her and to make excuses for himself.
The rest of the FF ambush Doom, and with a lot of teamwork they manage to make him trip into some of the machinery that Reed modified to fry Doom’s armor.
The FF wake up in their real bodies, and when they check on Doom they find him comatose.
Except he’s actually transferred his body back to the Vincent Vaughn robot.
Except he’s ambushed by the Puppet Master, who has reprogrammed the Liddleville robots.
Okay how the f##k did he do that?!?!
And so we end with Doom being chased by an angry mob for all eternity.
Or at least until next time.
Doom significance: 4/10
This might be controversial, but just because it’s a great comic doesn’t mean it has much of an impact. Liddleville will be used again… but mostly by others. We don’t learn much about Doom and he doesn’t have a lot of history with the Puppet Master.
The upside is that I can’t imagine giving another John Byrne Doom story such a low significance score, considering what’s going to happen in the others.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
We are very far away from the Silver Age in general, you have to admit that Doom’s plan is a very Silver Age one, especially on the Marvel scale.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
The John Byrne run is held in high regard for a reason, and “Terror In A Tiny Town” particularly so. It’s just a masterpiece in storytelling and character study… even if it DOES have some glaring holes (the particle accelerator, Puppet Master randomly knowing how to reprogram Doom’s robots), but overall this is close to how good Fantastic Four gets.
It was a Doombot all along
Unlikely but not impossible. Doom’s mind is inside a robot during some of this, so maybe it was just a matter of copying a program.
Destroy the FF!
Not destroy as in “kill”, yes, but I’m still counting it as he’s trying to destroy them psychologically.
Take over the world
Surprisingly absent as a motivation.
Crazy tech
SO MANY!!! Liddleville itself is of course impressive, but we also have the mini-clones, the mind transfer ring and a fully functional particle accelerator the size of bugs. And you just know Doom didn’t just shrink a real one.