The 2000s should have much fewer intermissions in the Doom retrospective than the 90s, since Doom doesn’t stay absent that much.
But there’s a character introduced before his return that is kind of important for what’s coming, so much to my dismay I have to talk about *groan* Valeria Von Doom.
Fantastic Four vol.3 #15 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
Befitting a Claremont series, Valeria first shows up in a digression in the middle of a secondary plot nested inside the main one: things get convoluted FAST in this run.
If I got this right (honestly I have a hard time following this storyline), the Fantastic Four are trying to access the Watcher’s citadel on the Moon.
And I immediately have problems with Claremont’s dialogue and characterization.
The Thing is smarter than he typically lets on, sure, but would he REALLY remember Reed dropping the sentence “momentary disruptions in the harmonic structure of reality” years after he said it “once”? Seriously!?
Look, I enjoy technobabble as much as the next sci-fi fan, and it’s kind of Reed’s character to say things in the most unnecessarily complicated way possible… but this is just gibberish, right?
The reason that nonsense is there is to have Reed witness an alternate future where Susan has married Doctor Doom and had a teenage daughter with him.
This scene has nothing to do with the rest of the story. Also, while Valeria will soon show up, this future version of Franklin warns Reed that he should “let Galactus go!”… which if I’m not mistaken doesn’t really have any meaning in the rest of the Claremont run.
Fantastic Four vol.3 #20 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
Valeria actually shows up at Pier Four (the then-current headquarters of the FF) without even knowing HOW she ends up there.
Other than Franklin, supporting character Alyssa Moy is also there. She’s Reed’s former flame who we’ve met once. I’m not entirely sure if we’re explicitly told, but my best guess is that Franklin’s powers are the reason why Valeria ended up in this timeline.
Before we can learn too much about the situation, another character shows up: the bounty hunter Bounty (I’m sure Claremont spent a lot of time coming up with her name), who is trying to arrest ANOTHER one of the dozen characters squatting with the FF in this period…
…Alysande Stuart, who used to be from the otherdimensional Captain Britain Corps and now goes by the name Caledonia.
I feel like in order to talk about the Claremont run I have to stop talking about any subplot or character because I first have to reference ANOTHER subplot or character… and none or them are ever interesting or appealing to me, AT ALL.
This is when Valeria shows up that she has Doom technology and goes by the name *groan* Marvel Girl. I’ll have more to say about this later.
Great first impression, “Marvel Girl”. Really worthy of the FF symbol and the Doom armor.
Before this subplot can even properly start, everyone is kidnapped by ANOTHER subplot that doesn’t have anything to do with anything that’s been going on.
The Claremont run, everybody!
Fantastic Four vol.3 #21 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
Specifically they’ve been kidnapped by gods…
…and the way Valeria responds to this is the only hint that she might actually have anything to do with Doom.
Despite that admittedly badass boast… Valeria doesn’t do ANYTHING: the bad guys run away because they’re scared of the teleporting dog that Franklin keeps around.
Are you starting to understand why I can’t stand this version of Valeria?
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the dog. This is Puppy (seriously Claremont, that was the best name you got!?)… who is a teleporting dog with a fork on his head.
Despite being CLEARLY related to the Inhuman dog Lockjaw… the Fantastic Four NEVER MAKE THE CONNECTION in this entire series.
The Claremont run, everybody!
It’s been twenty years since I’ve read these issues. I remember absolutely despising Valeria Von Doom… but I’ve really enjoyed every single version of her eventual counterpart Valeria Richards, so I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, I had been too harsh the first time.
But nope! SHE STILL SUCKS.
Not only she hasn’t done anything to back her bravado, she’s REALLY annoying.
When everyone is sent back on Earth while Caledonia is kept prisoner by the gods, Valeria’s way to rally the troops is to insult everyone.
And she really likes to call women “skank”, which hasn’t aged well.
The rescue is going to depend on Puppy. Who at least has the correct reaction to Valeria Von Doom.
The dog takes them to the wrong place: they were supposed to go to the Greek underworld, but they end up in the Norse one.
This is where Valeria boasts about being Doom’s daughter, and interestingly enough Hela is perfectly aware of who he is despite the fact that Doctor Doom hasn’t showed up in Asgard yet.
This is yet another pointless digression (the Claremont run, everybody!) and Hela lets the kids go once she’s threatened by Bounty.
Once again, the vague prophecy won’t have any relevance ever. I don’t even think we ever learn what Bounty’s deal was.
Going to the Greek underworld means they’ll have to get past Cerberus first. In a nice bit of continuity, he has the same Kirby design he had in Thor stories.
God is she annoying.
This results in, of course, a big dumb fight with the forces of Hades…
…where Valeria proves herself to be a powerhouse ENTIRELY OFF-PANEL.
We spent a issue and a half on this nonsense. And you know how the fight with Pluto is resolved?
The Fantastic Four recruits Hercules… whose contribution is to get Pluto’s wife to nag.
This is stupid beyond words. Hercules is one of my favorite Marvel heroes and he can be tongue-in-cheek… but this moronic resolution is just an insult to the reader.
AND THAT’S HOW YOU INTRODUCE DOOM’S DAUGHTER!?!?
Fantastic Four vol.3 #22 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
This seriously looks like a Silver Age cover.
Here’s where we get into the details: just WTF is Valeria anyway!?
Yeah I’m not buying that REED FREAKING RICHARDS can’t find a way to run a paternity test, no matter how much cosmic rays nonsense you throw into it.
Despite the fact that he can’t get a solid read of her DNA, Reed is quite certain that Valeria is actually the grown-up version of their stillborn daughter (who died during the Byrne run).
More on how that doesn’t make any sense with the rest of the Claremont run later.
Valeria doesn’t take this very well.
While I have PLENTY of criticism of this run… the scene that draws a parallel between how Valeria and Susan view Doom is actually very well done.
Valeria doesn’t share many scenes with Doom (the Claremont run, everybody!), so this is the only glimpse of what her past was supposed to be like.
And again this isn’t bad at all! I can totally see Doom having a relationship like this with his daughter.
This is also, as far as I know, the only time we’re told what Reed and Susan were originally going to call their daughter: Valerie Meghan Richards. It certainly wasn’t mentioned in the Byrne run.
Another minor detail that I appreciate: when Valeria shows up at the Latveria Embassy, we see its official name… correcting the fact that it should NEVER have been called an embassy because it’s in New York City!
If Latveria has an embassy in the US it should be in Washington DC, not in New York. It’s called an embassy in any other story as tradition at this point, but props for the attention to detail!
Unfortunately for her, at this point Latveria is still controlled by Stryfe.
But then Valeria moves to another subplot (the Claremont run, everybody!) where she fights She-Hulk who is currently mind-controlled.
And that’s when we find out something else that makes me mad about “Marvel Girl”… she has her mother’s forcefield. More on that later as well.
And I guess she has super-strength too? She’s not shown using her armor right now.
The day is saved when Invisible Woman shows up to fight a mind-controlled She-Hulk AND a mind-controlled Thing AND Titania AND Absorbing Man… ENTIRELY OFF-PANEL.
I don’t think this moment is earned, AT ALL.
Fantastic Four vol.3 #23 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
In this issue the Fantastic Four crash the San Diego Comicon.
And there’s a cameo by Claremont and Larroca.
So of course I’m going to skip that nonsense entirely.
The only point of interest for my retrospective is Reed finding out Valeria’s room from the alternate future is accessible from their regular Pier Four house, and especially him recognizing Valeria is a scientific genius.
As annoying as Valeria is, her interaction with Fraklin is cute.
Also, I wish they went with the idea that he created her rather than the nonsense they settled on.
Reed sure is giving Valeria an enormous level of trust, considering they basically know nothing about her at this point.
Whenever Valeria is around her brother or parents, they have a passable chemistry. It’s mostly when she’s alone that I find her utterly insufferable.
Fantastic Four Annual 1999 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Jose Ladronn
Obviously we couldn’t find space in the regular series to have the reaction of the Human Torch to the idea that her sister has a daughter with his worst enemy.
Otherwise it would’ve meant cutting space from Bounty, Caledonia, Puppy, Alyssa, Charlotte Jones, Lockdown, Pluto, Hercules, Hela, the Forsaken, Margali Szardos, Forge, the Ruined, Titania, Absorbing Man and the Red Skull.
One of these does NOT show up in the Claremont run and one is a name I just made up, but I dare you to be 100% sure which one.
I’m not going into the details of the story, but… while I do honestly appreciate the idea of mixing up the characters from one corner of the Marvel Universe with the others… the way Claremont forces tons of X-Men characters into this is just infuriating.
Fantastic Four vol.3 #24 (1999)
by Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
Franklin has a dream about an upcoming apocalypse, and since it’s coinciding with all kinds of weird inter-dimensional visions the FF understand something is up.
I’m not sure WTF Valeria is talking about when she tells Franklin that her presence somehow nullifies his powers, though… I don’t think this came up earlier?
I still don’t buy everyone trusting Valeria so much.
The way Reed is planning to stop this potential catastrophe is taking inspiration from an X-Men plot. By which I mean he makes an incredibly forced reference to an X-Men plot and then comes up with a plan that has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
Seriously: WTF does “focus all the mental energies of the planet into a single telepathic blast” have to do with “create a force field around the planet”!?!??!
Valeria and Susan share a moment where the kid draws a parallel between Reed and Doom that is going to sound really, REALLY dumb once I get into the details of what Valeria is supposed to be.
Turns out the apocalypse is coming sooner than Reed calculated, so Franklin will have to rip off Superman and be sent somewhere else on a spaceship.
And that’s how we finally end the intermission, because Doctor Doom is coming up next.
And thank Doom for that because this was entirely too much Claremont.
Doom significance: 0/10
Yep! With all that buildup, this amounts to have exactly zero impact on Doom hiself because he BARELY knows this version of Valeria.
Silver Age-ness: 1/10
I can give Claremont the smallest amount of props for at least TRYING to use the Fantastic Four to explore various corners of the Marvel Universe… by which I mean 99% places and plots he created in the X-Men titles… but that’s as far as I can go because he seriously misses the mark.
Does it stand the test of time?
No proper score because this isn’t a proper review, but… man, what a mess.
There’s way, WAY too much unnecessary stuff here!!! So many characters show up, squatting at the FF headquarters for ages without doing anything interesting. And it’s quite clear Claremont is only interested in writing Susan and to a far lesser extent Reed, because I find it really difficult to remember a single significant thing that happens to Johnny and Ben throughout the entire run.
What’s the deal with Valeria?
So remember how I said most of this is not going to make any sense?
Well we’ll see more details once I cover the part of the series that involves Doom, but… from the rest it’s VERY clear that Valeria’s father isn’t actually Doom, but Reed trapped inside Doom’s armor playing the part of the real one. So it’s utterly ridiculous Valeria doesn’t recognize it’s him.
AND it makes even less plausible that Reed wouldn’t be able to figure out she’s his daughter.
Way after the Claremont run, in a truly unnecessarily complicated time travel storyline Susan will get pregnant with the same child she miscarried… don’t ask me how THAT works… all in an effort to have her second child be the same one that was supposed to have died in the Byrne run.
And “Valeria Von Doom” is TECHNICALLY the same character from a different timeline… I think? Even as a huge fan of time travel stories, that one seriously stumped me.
So why don’t I like Valeria Von Doom anyway?
One of the fastest ways to make me dislike a character is to have the child of a person with powers inheriting exactly the same power without any variation. Especially if the child looks exactly like a younger version of the original. So giving Valeria a force field was already lazy, but also why the heck would she take the name “Marvel Girl”!? It’s not original in the slightest, and if she thinks she’s the daughter of Doctor Doom would the name of an X-Man REALLY be her first choice!?
To summarize… everyone trusts her for no reason, she’s the VASTLY inferior version of her later incarnation, she’s annoying, her origin makes no sense, her retcons are nonsensical, she talks a big game but never does anything, she has an awful design, she takes away space from more interesting characters, she has zero chemistry with any of the FF except her mother, her codename is lazy and I don’t like her.