Time to start a new decade of Doctor Doom’s publishing life with his very own series.
Doctor Doom #1 (2019)
by Christopher Cantwell & Salvador Larroca
cover by ACO
On a purely technical note, this is a 2019 story given the cover date of December… but it would have made little sense to put it in a separate section just for that.
The main cover is alright, but nothing exciting… it’s just a closeup of Doom’s mask.
They should have gone with this Mike Deodato variant! I’m not even a big Deodato fan, but this cover is awesome beyond words.
We start with a really high-concept idea: the inauguration of a lunar base that will create a black hole (!!!) that will suck all the excess carbon from Earth’s atmosphere (!!!) to stop global warming.
On one hand, this sounds like THE MOST DANGEROUS WAY IMAGINABLE to deal with climate change.
On the other hand… coming up with an extremely risky easy fix instead of long-term solutions?
Yeah that’s humanity for you.
The concept of a news program cutting to a commentary from Doctor Doom is simply amazing.
Guys, when DOCTOR DOOM says you’re being reckless and extreme, that’s bad.
I would watch more news if Doctor Doom was a regular guest.
I can’t wrap my head around just how awesomely stupid and stupidly awesome that scene was.
They called the self-appointed absolute monarch of a foreign nation that has been declared a war criminal multiple times, who has threatened to conquer the entire planet multiple times, who HAS conquered the entire planet multiple times… as an opinionist.
I desperately want Doctor Doom to spend his spare time waiting for the news to call him and ask his opinion on anything.
Only Doom could manage to make this sentence sound ominous.
The woman keeping Doom informed is a new addition to the Latverian cast.
This is Petra, who we learn is actually the daughter of Boris!
You’d think that Boris having children would’ve come up earlier… but then again, I can believe Doom never bringing them up.
However I find it REALLY hard to believe that Doom wouldn’t know that Boris has grandchildren.
He’s probably making conversation and preferring not to show that he cares enough to remember.
Doom retires for the night in his study. I’m kind of shocked that he bothers to take the armor off before going to bed.
And then Kang of all people shows up unannounced. This has apparently been going on for quite a while.
Doom and Kang are showing a weird relationship. Doom is surprisingly fine with Kang not respecting his privacy, and while Kang talks about being adversaries…
…but Doom is comfortable enough around him to REMOVE HIS MASK.
It this was the pre-Secret Wars Doom, when he still had his original scars, I would be screaming about this. But he currently only has the inexplicable scars he received at the ending of the Infamous Iron Man storyline… so I don’t think he has the same emotional attachment to those, and frankly neither do I.
Doom is also uncharacteristically moody today.
Is… is Doctor Doom developing depression because he’s losing his drive?
That is a FASCINATING concept!!!
Once Kang vanishes, Doom retires for the night.
I’m kind of shocked he doesn’t actually sleep wearing the armor, plus I would have imagined he’d sleep in a ridiculously large bed.
Also, in my headcanon that’s a portrait of his mother.
While he continues his nightly ritual… pouring ointment for his face bandages… he keeps hearing someone singing.
That’s one of the two visions he receives. One is a vision of another version of himself, singing and playing with his children, happily married and in charge of the world…
…and the other is the black hole destroying the Moon.
We then jump to several weeks later, with a scene that neatly summarizes Doom’s relationship with Boris despite the latter not showing up yet.
Despite Doom’s criticism of the black hole, the system has been working just fine for weeks now.
Doom might be one of the most overconfident characters in fiction, but honestly he does have a point here.
Although I would trust his claim of not bothering about the opinions of journalists if he didn’t hang one of them for interrupting him.
Doom is clearly very much still bothered by the whole deal.
Notice the reference to the Aged Genghis from Triumph And Torment.
He’s also still having visions about that other reality.
And then Latveria attacks the lunar station… WITHOUT Doom’s orders!!!
Several nations mobilize against Latveria, with a speed so ridiculous that Doom even swears.
I don’t think he has EVER done it before.
Then again… this is kind of the equivalent of Latveria launching a nuclear strike, so it makes sense that this would trigger instant retaliation.
Well it DOESN’T make sense, but… you know what I mean.
When one of Latveria’s cities is hit, Doom has a plan to claim victory.
While on the surface this looks like it goes completely against Doom’s history… I’m fine with it for two reasons.
One, Doom doesn’t have the upper hand here: he’s up against the whole planet when Latveria’s defenses have been deactivated.
Two, and more importantly, it’s abundantly clear that Doom has already a plan in motion.
Yes, how dare you Victorious, do you seriously think Doctor Doom would launch a military strike for selfish reasons… WITHOUT announcing it first?
Since the warrant for Doom’s arrest was sent to European heroes first, it makes sense that the first one to show up is Union Jack from the UK.
What doesn’t make sense is people being sent to arrest a head of state, or is diplomatic immunity no longer a factor???
I can totally see Doctor Doom supporting Brexit and then getting angry because the United Kingdom didn’t submit to Latveria after leaving the European Union.
The next to show up is Agent Zero (better known as Maverick to X-Men readers), who shoots Doom with some kind of high-tech rifle that pierces his armor.
Doom is not impressed with either.
“Will you guys please stop losing to me? I’m trying to surrender here!”
And after Doom has another vision of the perfect life he could have had…
…Doom allows himself to be captured.
Doom significance: 5/10
Obviously this sets up the rest of the series. Beyond its 10 issues, however, it doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Doctor Doom on the news as an opinionist AND using a black hole to fix globar warming!!!
Will it stand the test of time? 8/10
Mostly on the strength of everything before the attack. We have seen Doom’s day-to-day life before, but never this up close: you really get the feeling that we’re witnessing a typical day for him. Plus it’s neat to finally learn something new about Boris.
I also really like this more introspective side of Doom; he doesn’t have to be bombastic all the time if he still manages to put some reminders of why people fear him.
And of course the whole bit with the reporter is classic Doctor Doom.
This is probably the closest thing we’ll ever see to Doctor Doom having a midlife crisis.
Where the comic starts to lose points is that EVERYTHING after the attack is WAY too rushed!
Obviously someone has outmaneuvered Doom, sure, so I can buy him not having access to countermeasures… but the speed at which everyone immediatealy reacts to the attack is not belieavable. I don’t even mind the specific actions taken by the characters, but they go buy way too quickly to work.
Although I do appreciate that the one time Doom is actually innocent of the war crime he’s being accused of, he actually ends up acting as noble as he can, taking the blame to de-escalate the situation and spare his people from more suffering.
I’m also ambivalent on the Larroca artwork. He’s WAY better than when he was drawing Fantastic Four during the Claremont run, and there are a couple of beautifully detailed pages, but some of the faces are a bit weird and he doesn’t seem to have the best grasp of Doom’s mask.
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 142
There’s no doubt that Union Jack counts as a superhero. Agent Zero typically would not, being a more straightforward mercenary… but while acting for selfish reasons he IS trying to arrest someone for Interpol, so he’s close enough to count.
Times Doctor Doom has been arrested: 4
It’s also the first time when he voluntarily surrenders himself to the authorities.
The doomy land of Doom
We learn the names of several Latverian cities (Nzovi, Subot and Relaskic), which I don’t think have ever been mentioned before.