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The Son Of Doctor Doom!
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It's a massive relief to be back in the comics after that dreadful excursion into the 1978 cartoon series last time, and things are better right from the off with a thrilling cover and an even more exciting splash/recap page, showing Doctor Doom masterfully mixing metaphors around two of his favourite hobbies - chess and music!
He's disturbed by his lackey Hauptmann, who rushes in to tell him that "the peasants are up in arms - led by the rebel Zorba." Doom does not take kindly to this news, and very much blames the messenger.
If anyone's not already sure which version of Doom we're dealing with, it becomes abundantly clear in the next two panels, with Doom appearing on the balcony to address his people in wheedlig terms, which instantly turns to abuse when he realises they're onto him.
I must admit that it's hard to remain Academically Objective about this story, especially having recently sat through the cartoon series, because it is SO BRILLIANT! Enraged, Doom fires on the crowd with his finger lazers, leading Zorba's rebels to fight back with "weapons smuggled into our tyrant's country."
This was first published at a time when the USA was covertly funding rebellions all over the world, seeking to remove governments who disagreed with them. The only difference between that and what appears in this comic is that in our world these governments were often democratic, and not usually run by super-villains. I wonder though, did Zorba get his guns from SHIELD?
Doom reacts with more wheedling words, begging forgiveness and - bizarrely - promising to retire to do some gardening.
Throughout this issue Doom acts as a satire on East European communist governments who claim to love their people and only want what's best, while carrying out dictatorial policies and, according to US commentators at least, loathing the peasantry. It's all very different from the early version of Doom as a genuinely caring revolutionary leader.
He next visits the dungeons, where Alicia is working on the sculpture we saw in the previous issue. He removes his mask to allow her to feel his face, giving us a glimpse of the back of his head which differs markedly from previous versions - usually he's shown as having a full head of hair, with only the face disfigured, but here it looks as if his whole head is damaged. It's not unlike the brief glimpse we get of Darth Vader in "The Empire Strikes Back" a couple of years later.
While he's busy the Fantastic Four escape and manage to get into a fight with Doom's "Servo Guards".
There's always been confusion about whether these are robots or human beings in robot-like uniforms, but calling them "Servo Guards" does tend to point to them being robots. The FF fight their way through to the dungeon, but are forced to surrender again when Doom threatens to hurt Alicia. "It looks like Doom has finally won", says Sue.
We're then treated to an utterly splendid splash page, showing Doom wearing a crown, stood on top of a flight of stairs with his "son", while down at the bottom Zorba and his men plan their revolt. This is a glorious page from Keith Pollard, showing Doom's arrogant delusion that he's better than everyone else, raised above the teeming mass of furious Latverians who, this time, seem to be dressed as modern East Europeans rather than the extras from "Hans Christian Anderson" we've seen before.
The coronation ceremony goes ahead but, just as Victor Von Doom the Second is crowned, Zorba bursts in with the FF, announcing that Doom's son is really his clone! Doom unleases the Omni-Bots (more killer robots) for a Big Fight, and then sets in motion the process of transforming his son/clone into a kind of quarter-strength Super Skrull, with milder versions of all the FF's powers in a single body. Unfortunately for Doom this also awakens his son/clone's consciousness, making him realise that he is actually a perfected version of Doom - a version who was never disfigured and turned to evil!
As I said earlier, this is bloody brilliant! The two versions of Doom fight, until the "son" tells his "father" the truth - that he is an evil being who has lost his own humanity.
Doom refuses to accept this and is driven into such a state of madness that he ends up murdering his own son/clone to shut him up!
Crikey! That's where it ends, with a promise that the next issue will be "possibly the most important story in the Marvel Age of comics!" If it's anything like this one it's going to be a corker!
link to information about this issue
posted 13/11/2019 by Mark Hibbett
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