Thor #605 (2009)
by Kieron Gillen & Billy Tan
For some reason Straczynski doesn’t stick around for the finale.
Will Kieron Gillen deliver?
Thor, I get you’re justifiably angry but you shouldn’t interrupt Doom’s monologues like that!
Doom is in full boasting mode, even more than usual (WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING).
If you’ve ever wondered what Doom thinks about having gods in his universe, when he can’t consider anyone to be better than him… he’s not happy about it. AT ALL.
While Thor is busy fighting Doom, in a rather poetic touch Balder’s thoughts are about the lives of the Asgardians Doom slaughtered to turn them into cyborg zombie slaves.
This is a very nice contrast: while Doom sees the Asgardians as tools to exploit, Balder sees them as people.
Tracking Doom’s morality over the decades is complicated. We’ve seen him as a noble figure and we’ve seen him as a complete monster.
This storyline DEFINITELY leans on the monster side.
There’s a method to hid madness: he wanted to make Thor absolutely furious with him and hit him with everything he’s got…
…or rather, hit a Doombot that can channel all that energy into something MUCH worse.
Then Loki shows up with a glimmer of hope: if they recover the heart of the goddess Doom murdered, she could be revived.
Said heart is obviously in Doom’s laboratory, where he greets Thor with a badass response.
And now we get to the final revelation of Doom’s plan, and it’s a doozy.
First of all he’s stolen the Destroyer, which for Thor readers is A BIG FREAKING DEAL.
The Destroyer is an Asgardian doomsday weapon built like Odin to fight the Celestials, and DOCTOR DOOM IS REVERSE-ENGINEERING IT.
The gimmick of the Destroyer is that can be animated by the soul of a mortal or of a god, and that it’s basically invincible.
Doom figures out what powers it: the Odinforce, the bulls##t magic mystical energy that Odin uses to whatever the plot needs rule Asgard. And every single Asgardian has a tiny amount of it.
So, to recap, THIS is the full extent of Doom’s plan:
1) reverse-engineer a divine doomsday weapon
1) vivisect gods to extract their power
2) turn their corpses into an army zombie cyborg gods
3) harvest the souls of the gods he killed as an energy source
4) provoke Thor into giving him enough energy to jumpstart the Destroyer
5) turn the Destroyer into his newest armor / personal mecha
6) mop the floor with Thor with his *deep breath* divine doomsday magic mecha powered by the souls of murdered gods
Thor #606 (2009)
by Kieron Gillen & Billy Tan
This is REALLY bad for Thor: he’s managed to trick whoever was “piloting” it in previous issues, but he’s basically never defeated the Destroyer in a fair fight.
Even Doom is a fan!
Although I have to say that the fight itself is more fun in concept than in execution.
Doom’s problem is that the Destroyer is currently running on the divine power he stole, and that won’t last forever against Thor.
Possibly also because Balder is mercy killing the cyborg Asgardians, so maybe that affects the Destroyer’s power.
It may also be the fact that Thor starts to fight back with physical blows instead of using lightning bolts, so I guess Doom can’t absorb that energy as easily.
Doom’s utter disdain for the gods is in full display here. Him criticizing ANYONE for being selfish is just hilarious, though.
Is Thor’s speech about “little men in little suits” also a jab at Iron Man? This is after Civil War, and the two had an uneasy relationship.
With the Destroyer now out of energy and… well, destroyed… Doom has no chance but to escape.
The goddess is resurrected once she has her heart back… but the mortal she loved is dead for good, leading to a bittersweet resolution.
And ALL OF THIS was apparently part of the plan!!!
I wonder if Gillen was working on notes left by Straczynski, because this is the culmination of everything he’s done with Loki in his run… and it’s great!
There’s some fun banter between Doom and Loki. These two don’t interact too often but they really work well together; you can tell that they have respect for each other AND that they just love one-upping each other.
Even though Loki can get on Doom’s nerves sometimes.
In the end, Doom didn’t get to keep the Destroyer or to gain immortality… but why do I get the feeling neither of those were his real goal, and that he ultimately achieved everything he wanted?
I absolutely love stories where it’s not entirely clear whether Doctor Doom lost or won.
Doom significance: 2/10
There’s a later story where Loki implies Doom has ways to clone him, which is POSSIBLY a callback to this ending. But probably not.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Nope!
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
A mostly satisfying ending to the whole saga. The only flaw for me was that the fight with Thor has an introduction so masterful that the actual fight can’t help being kind of a disappointment.
Doom does mention that he was interrupted before he could complete his work on the Destroyer, and of course there HAD to be a reason why he wouldn’t ultimately murder Thor… but all this seemed like too much trouble (even by Doom standards) just to fight Thor or to prove himself superior to the gods.
It really makes me think that Doom was aiming higher… absorbing the Odinforce from ALL Asgardians, perhaps?
Thor is also, shockingly enough, the least interesting character in this. Balder musing on the tragic deaths of the Asgardians was great and it fits him, but I would’ve preferred giving that scene to Thor.
But the story still gets a 10/10 simply because it can easily be done today without much changes.
It was a Doombot all along
On one hand, Doom would want to use the Destroyer himself. But on the other hand, the Destroyer typically absorbs the soul of whoever is using it… so either this version is different, or Doom’s magic stopped it (a bit of a stretch since even Odin couldn’t do that), or… maybe it couldn’t because that’s a Doombot inside the Destroyer?
Crazy tech
Doctor Doom’s masterpiece: his own personal divine doomsday magic mecha powered by the souls of murdered gods!!!