Doomwar #3 (2010)
by Jonathan Maberry & Scot Eaton
cover by John Romita Jr.
What is it with Doctor Doom and playing chess with custom pawns?
Shuri starts the issue with a recap of the storyline. Although it’s a bit of mischaracterization, since Doom didn’t really “trick” T’Challa… he asked him to meet in person.
And it’s not like T’Challa didn’t know Doom would attack him, he simply overestimated his chances.
Also, while it was already touched upon in the first issue, it’s important to remember that T’Challa is starting to combine science and magic in his plans. That’s going to be crucial.
What do you mean with “only three (X-Men) answered the call”?
We saw FOUR leaving Utopia for Wakanda: Nightcrawler, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Psylocke.
Although we haven’t seen Psylocke for a while… what, she was in the plane but left?
Because that was the only reason I included her in the count.
The recap is for the benefit of the Fantastic Four, who join the story only at this point.
There’s still the mystery of HOW Doom managed to steal the Vibranium reserves, since it was guarded by a magical lock.
This shows how little T’Challa knows about Doctor Doom.
I don’t think you need to be a Doom superfan to agree that describing him as “corrupt” is a gigantic stretch. He called him duplicitous and evil earlier, and those definitely fit Doom, but corrupt?
Leave it to Reed Richards to think that HIS ego is to blame for Doom being his nemesis, and not Doom’s monstrous ego.
Now that Storm has her powers back, it’s time to redeem her time spent as a damsel in distress.
During this, T’Challa and Reed are brainstorming a way to find the stolen Vibranium.
This is a good scene between the two, with a good balance between T’Challa being a friend and being a head of state.
I very much prefer THIS approach to the idea pushed by the Priest and Hudlin runs, where T’Challa was basically more paranoid than Batman.
In addition to being humble, Reed also has enough self-awareness to recognize he’d done exactly the same thing.
The idea of there being FIVE types of Vibranium is an interesting one.
In addition to the most famous one from Wakanda, we’ve known for decades about the Antarctic Vibranium of the Savage Land… the one that liquifies metals.
Other kinds will be explored in the next Black Panther series, but won’t have much of an impact.
For the record they’re “Reverbium” that repels kinetic energy and “Living Vibranium” which becomes sentient.
I don’t know what the fifth form is.
This is also the first hint we really get on the sheer extension of Doom’s network.
We’ve always known he has immense wealth and a gigantic net of spies, but now we’re glimpsing at his infrastructure.
We’ll return soon to how Doom passed the test.
In the meantime, he’s making preparations towards enchanting the stolen Vibranium to make it even more dangerous than it already is.
He’s being helped by the Power Broker, who you might remember was already recruited by Doom to handle Shuri.
Power Broker must be REALLY impressive at this stuff, because Doom doesn’t like to delegate.
Okay I’m starting to see why Doom hired the Power Broker if he has GIANT ROBOT DOGS WITH LASERS at his disposal!
During all this, the revelation on how Doom stole the Vibranium was spread throughout the issue. I’m concentrating this part of the plot here, since it’s the most important part.
Doom’s secret weapon? Exhibitionism.
This means that his intentions will have to be judged personally by the Panther God.
Not that this is a surprise to Doom.
The background images seen in the background as the Panther God examines Doom’s soul are interesting.
We see him doing something to Silver Surfer, no doubt a reference to their most famous encounter, but what about the others?
We can see the Destroyer armor, in the top right. Probably a reference to Thor #605; the hand grasping what could be a heart is probably from the same storyline, where Doom was harvesting Asgardian organs.
Those two fit with the theme of Doom’s lust for god-like powers, but if so who is the woman?
Valeria would make sense for a reference to Fantastic Four v3 #67, but it doesn’t look like her. She doesn’t look like Doom’s mother either.
The Panther God does NOT like what he sees.
His choice of words makes me wonder… how many people has Doctor Doom killed so far?
We’ve seen him murder lots of people with his own hands, several dozens at the very least.
If we’re counting those murdered by his regime and during his schemes that’s in the thousands, but how many? Latveria is not that big and very few of Doom’s plans have large bodycounts… although lots of people definitely died under his regime when he conquered Planet Doom, so who knows.
Could be in the millions by now.
Doom has a different vision of this. He claims that you should judge him not as a man, but as a country. Which does follow his twisted logic, since in his mind him and Latveria are the same thing.
Doom laments that his foes never ask him why he does what he does, which I find absolutely hilarious.
It might be TECHNICALLY true, but only in the sense that DOOM NEVER SHUTS UP ABOUT IT, so they wouldn’t need to ask!!!
It’s not that they don’t know you think you’re doing the world a favor, Doom, it’s that they don’t think it’s true.
Although, to be fair… yeah he does have one point: several real-life people are worse than him.
Doom’s argument goes deeper than that.
Notice he has a very predatorial concept of the human species. That’s not just true to his character, it’s probably appealing to a Panther God.
More controversially, Doom brings up his time travel experience. According to him, all futures turn out to be a complete disaster…
…except in ONE timeline, where the entire world becomes as oppressed as Latveria.
This is sometimes mischaracterized as Marvel basically agreeing with Doom about his absolute dictatorship being the only possible good outcome… but that’s not exactly what’s being said.
First of all, while Doom states he’s looked at a hundred thousand futures, that’s a far cry from saying he looked at ALL futures.
And second, the main point of the Panther God is that Doom truly believes this is the ONLY path to saving the world.
To him, the fact that Doom is not lying is more important than whether he’s right.
Not to get too philosophical, but that’s the risk of relying on the morality of a god, it’s not always guaranteed to be the morality of a human.
Whether the Panther God agrees that there is only ONE future that doesn’t suck… that’s a bit more nebulous. He says he has seen “the one path” that leads to a peaceful future.
Does he mean he has seen the one that Doom is talking about, implying it’s not the only option?
Or is he confirming Doom was right?
Whatever the case, the Panther God allows Doom to keep the Vibranium he stole.
Also, if the Panther God really can see the future, he might also be aware that *spoiler alert* Doom is going to lose.
Doom significance: 3/10
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
As per the previous issues.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
I continue to be impressed at the level of complexity of both Doom’s plot and the countermeasures.
This one has the advantage of T’Challa being more his classic self and to have Storm have her own scene, even if that’s brief. As mentioned, I really appreciated the moment between T’Challa and Reed, balancing both their friendship and their responsibilities in a believable manner.
The elephant in the room is whether you believe the story is 100% agreeing with Doom about world domination being the only way to peace.
I’ve seen the story being interpreted that way, but I think it’s overblown.
Notice that while Doom preaches about how perfect his world is, he also boasts how harsh the punishment for any crime will be, no matter how small… which has been a well-established status quo for Latveria (even if writers go back and forth on whether Doom only threatens these draconian punishments or if he actually delivers them). Hardly an endorsement from the story!
But I can see how that could be a detriment for some.
It was a Doombot all along
I’m sure Doom thinks he can build a Doombot that can fool the Panther God, but come on.
Crazy tech
Not this time, since Doom is focusing on magic at this moment and I think the flying robot dogs are not his design. They have his color scheme though, so who knows.