FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #15 (1980)
by Doug Moench & Tom Sutton
After all the cameos and inserts and origin stories, it’s finally time to return to the proper Doctor Doom retrospective.
Last time we saw him he lost power. How is Latveria doing under its new leader Zorba?
Not so great, apparently. Although it’s nice to see that Zorba really did respect his promise to have his position confirmed by an election.
I never expected to see a discussion about Latveria’s tax policy, but there you go.
This is actually a rather realistic take on a dictatorship. In comics we typically get a tyrant that is hated by everybody or (more rarely) is loved by everybody, when of course it’s more complicated than that.
Considering this is explicitly the first protest ever in Latveria, I’m genuinely impressed by the signs.
“Better Victor Von Doom than Zorba’s doom” is a stroke of genius.
Zorba’s right-hand man correctly points out that while Zorba shouldn’t give too much credit to the protesters, he shouldn’t dismiss them either since he came to power with a rebellion.
This makes Zorba want to check on the semi-comatose Doom.
So OF COURSE that’s a robot.
We will soon see Zorba turn into a tyrant himself, and there are shades of that in this comic… but he’s still trying to be an idealist, for example by refusing to round up the Doom loyalists.
I don’t know… I appreciate the effort, but even Captain America would allow SOME intelligence in order to find Doctor Doom.
Turns out that Doom didn’t escape by himself: he was saved by Gandalf Boris.
Boris is working with Hauptmann, of all people. Considering what will eventually happen to him, it’s kind of ironic that Hauptmann was responsible for resurrecting Doom!
Meanwhile Zorba (who apparently sleeps with his cybernetic eye thing… that can’t be comfortable!) is having nightmares about Doom.
He’s dreaming about the experiments that Hauptmann ran on him (hence the cybernetic thing), but I guess he’s also looking at the script because OUT OF NOWHERE he figures out Hauptmann’s plan!
Wait a minute… YOU LET HAUPTMANN GO when you took power!?!?
You let the Nazi super-scientist that was Doom’s right-hand man, the same guy who tortured you just do whatever he wanted because YOU TRUSTED HIM!?
How stupid can you get, Zorba?
Next you’ll open the safe holding Doom’s armor without any kind of security to back you up!
I WAS KIDDING!
Doom’s men could’ve easily killed Zorba right then, but I can excuse them since they probably figured out Doom would be pretty pissed he couldn’t kill Zorba himself.
I guess this is supposed to be a tragic moment… the idealistic revolutionary succumbs to using the same methods of the tyrant he deposed… but Zorba has been too stupid for me to empathize with him.
Hauptmann’s plan is to use Doom’s armor to stimulate his brain.
Which makes no sense but IT WORKS.
Doctor F##king Doom is back, baby!
And so we end with Doctor Doom planning his return to power…
…and Gandalf Boris apparently finds this a sad moment for no reason at all.
The more I read that panel the less I understand what the heck it’s supposed to mean.
Doom significance: 4/10
This is somewhat important since it lets Doom out of the status he was locked in Fantastic Four #200… but you can easily skip this one.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
On the Marvel scale, Zorba is WAY too stupid for a 1980 comic.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
There are problems here and there, especially when it comes to Zorba’s decisions, and since this is only 12 pages long there are a few shortcuts. But overall this is actually a pretty good comic, which is surprising since the Moench run on Fantastic Four was simply atrocious. But this time he keeps the tension high the entire time, which makes for a great moment once Doom finally gets to be Doom.
It was a Doombot all along
We have A robot duplicate. Considering this is the same Doom of his last appearance, there is no way this was a Doombot.
Destroy the FF! & Take over the world
Neither; Doom is focused on taking back his throne at the moment. It’ll be a while before he actually tries it.
Crazy tech
Nothing really stands out, considering Doom isn’t in this comic until the very end.