FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #2 (1964)
by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
This issue also includes Doctor Doom’s origin, but we’ll treat that separately.
We’ll focus on the main story; sadly, it doesn’t include a giant Doombot.
Last time we saw Doom he was exiled into outer space.
For the second time.
But he’s rescued by a strange ship…
His savior turns out to be… Rama-Tut, fresh from his own defeat at the hands of he Fantastic Four.
Interestingly, he says he’s from the 25th century instead of the 30th, and he flat-out says that his ancestor was Doctor Doom.
In his original story Rama-Tut only made a generic reference to one of his ancestors building the first time-machine; it was the Fantastic Four who made the connection.
Also of interest: he’s convinced that this encounter isn’t a coincidence but fate.
I could see why he would think this… his ship left Ancient Egypt and traveled through time, it’s a pretty big coincidence that he meets Doom like this!!!
To make things even more confusing, Doom suggests that he and Rama-Tut might be the same person.
I have no idea where this idea comes from. The Thing had the same theory when facing Rama-Tut.
His origin is pretty straightforward: his ancestor built a time machine, he rebuilt it and went into the past. WHY would ANYONE suspect that he’s actually Doctor Doom!?!?
They briefly discuss the possibility to attack the Fantastic Four together, but they decide against it because it may destroy time or something.
Also: nobody came closer than Einstein to fully understanding time? Not to criticize good old Albert, but BOTH OF YOU KNOW HOW TO BUILD TIME MACHINES!!! Unless Einstein built one, BY DEFINITION you know more than him!!!
Actually, this being the Marvel universe, Einstein building a time machine isn’t so farfetched…
At any rate, Doom is back! Weirdly enough, he decides to land in New York.
Where he walks among the crowd. SOMEHOW this goes unnoticed.
And why is Doom in New York? To go to the Latverian embassy.
This is the first story to introduce Latveria. Interestingly, at this point it’s not public knowledge that Doom is actually the nation’s leader.
This will be mostly ignored by future stories set during Doom’s earliest appearances (Avengers 1.5 being a notable exception).
We’ve learned from their latest battle with the Mole Man that the Fantastic Four will go anywhere if you mail them an address, so Doom sends them an invite to the Latveria embassy to give a scientific award to Reed.
At the embassy, Jack Kirby gets the chance to show off a little.
Of note: Reed doesn’t seem to know much about Latveria. Seems kinda weird he didn’t learn anything about Doom’s native land.
Reed is the kind of guy who would look into Doom’s past, at the very least after he disappeared following his incident.
Also: WHY does everyone feel like Latveria can’t simply have a Prime Minister!?
Anyway, the Fantastic Four are served a strange drink. Reed is the only one who doesn’t drink it.
I know he’s right to be suspicious, but this comes off as more than a little paranoid.
We get an amusing panel of the Thing dancing, while the Human Torch puts the moves on a young countess.
This is a red flag for Johnny: how can she be a countess if there’s no king?
There could be a legitimate answer for that. Latveria could be a FORMER kingdom and she could still call herself a countess; it happens all the time in Europe.
In retrospect, her specific title does raise some interesting questions.
Thanks to Doom’s origin story, we know the former monarch of Latveria was a baron.
This doesn’t make much sense considering that “baron” is a rather low title in most aristocratic hierarchies, but it makes even LESS sense if there’s a countess around… which is typically a higher title than Baron.
Naturally Doom establishes himself as king, outranking everyone else, but it’s still an interesting discrepancy.
Back to the story: the Human Torch hallucinates the Thing interrupting his date, leading to a fight between the two.
Sounds kind of redundant… these two can’t go five minutes without fighting even when there’s no interference.
Susan, on the other hand, hallucinates Reed cheating on her.
And then treating her slightly worse than his 1960s usual.
All this setup was to force the Fantastic Four to fight each other.
Again, kind of redundant, but if it’s working, who’s going to complain?
Doctor Doom, that’s who.
Yes, in a surprising burst of introspection, Doom is wondering if even defeating the Fantastic Four will make him happy.
He takes off his mask, this time in a rather unique way that involves a secret compartment in his glove.
The narration tells us he hasn’t taken off his mask “in years”; we’ve seen him do it in Fantastic Four #10.
We’re also given an EXTREMELY rare view of what his mask looks like from the inside.
Turns out that taking off his mask was a really, REALLY bad idea.
Also, MIRROR SMASH!
It’s not bad news only to whoever gets the job to clean the room: the Fantastic Four hear everything and soon discover that Doom was behind everything.
Reed continues to be… let’s just say his dialogue has NOT aged well.
“Not a fool, Sue… merely a female!”.
Ugh.
He has a plan that involves exploiting Doom’s own poisoned drink, and he tries to keep Susan out of it because it’s too risky.
Susan FINALLY calls him out on his double standard, and she’s backed by the Thing and the Torch.
Once they find Doom, they try their best to defeat him.
The Thing is first, and he doesn’t even make a scratch.
Breaking through that field requires all of the Torch’s power, channeled through one of Reed’s machines.
It works, hopefully without blinding 90% of New Yorkers.
But he’s a formidable foe even without the forcefield, as the Thing soon discovers.
Also: Doom carries around a tiny paralyzing gun! Look at that thing, it’s adorable!
Next up is the Invisible Girl, who tries to keep Doom off balance by turning him invisible and making him trip over his feet thanks to some “invisible force pellets”.
Doom has her dead to rights, but Reed intervenes.
“Why battle a female”… Reed, you’re making it really, REALLY hard to like you.
Then they take a drink together.
I know I want a drink after reading Reed’s dialogue.
They then battle through the Encephalo-Gun ™, which is… I have no idea.
I suppose it’s a device that allows them to have a mental battle of some kind?
Awesome job by both artist AND colorist, though.
The fight ends… with Doctor Doom’s victory and Reed’s disintegration!
And so, after defeating his nemesis and finding the rest of the Fantastic Four at his mercy… he leaves. He has no interest in them and they have suffered enough.
Of course Reed wasn’t killed. It was all in Doom’s head, thanks to his own invention.
And the story concludes with quite possibly the most important panel not just of this issue, but of all of Doom’s appearances so far: the introduction of his diplomatic immunity.
It’s impossible to overstate the MONUMENTAL implications of that single panel.
Before this, it was pretty much a given that the supervillain would either end up in jail, be presumed dead, or if he manages to escape he will be immediately attacked as soon as he returns.
Doom is the first villain who is, for all intents and purposes, above the law as far as his enemies are concerned.
Historical significance: 9/10
Even beyond the Fantastic Four, Latveria is a major part of the Marvel Universe. And we are also introduced to the villanous use of diplomatic immunity, which isn’t limited to Doom.
Doom significance: 10/10
Doom’s status as sovereign of Latveria pretty much redefines his entire character.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Pretty average Silver Age sillyness for Marvel’s standards.
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
Why, Reed, why? This could’ve been an extremely easy 8/10 without your constant misoginy.
Doom’s self-doubt and him wondering if victory will bring him happyness are the high point of the story.
It was a Doombot all along
No Doombots are seen. We know that Doombots can think and can even fool telepaths, but it’d be nearly impossible to have Reed’s plan working on a robot. We can be reasonably certain that this is the real Doom… which, adding to his encounter with Rama-Tut being more believable if this is the real Doom throught the story… has the infortunate implation that the Doom of his horribly written previous appereance really was the real Doom.
Take over the world
Doom is still focused on destroying his enemies. There’s no mention of what he’s going to do if he defeats the Fantastic Four (which is actually kind of the point of his mirror scene).
Destroy the FF!
Not only it’s Doom’s plan, but he succeeds! In his own mind, anyway.
Crazy tech
Doom takes things more physical than usual. His forcefield is nothing to sneeze at, as is his adorable paralyzing gun. The berry juice that creates hallucinations is probably his most useful invention in the issue, but the craziest one is the device he uses to unlock his mask.
Not because of what it does, but for how it makes taking off a mask unnecessarily dramatic.
Mirror smash!
With a literal mirror no less! Also, the introduction of Doom’s very specific way to take off his mask. It’ll be used again a few times.
Time travel doesn’t work like that
Why would Rama-Tut’s time machine end up in the 20th century, and in space no less?
And what’s up with this fixation of speculating that he’s Doctor Doom based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever!?
The doomy land of doom
New category! With Latveria formally introduced, we’ll keep track of the information we can gather.
First: there’s a prime minister. This will be ignored most of the time for many, many years. We don’t learn his name (and it’s 1964, it’s definitely not a she).
Second: as we have discussed, Latverian titles of nobility don’t make much sense.