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The World According To ... Faustus!
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This issue of Marvel Team-Up claims to be a team-up between Spider-man and The Fantastic Four, but it's not really that at all. It's partly a continuation of the previous issue's team-up with Mr Fantastic, with the rest of the FF appearing as helpless victims of the main villain Dr Faustus, who is the real star of the issue with the main story concerning his creepy relationship with a character called Anna.
We're meant to think that Anna is Faustus' wife, but (SPOILERS) when we reach the end of the story it turns out that she was never there at all - she was some mysterious projection of Faustus' mind! OOooOOooOh!
This is not quite as surprising as it was probably meant to be, largely because this is an extremely common story point used again and again, notably in "Psycho". The very end of the story even goes so far as to say that Anna was actually the main character's mother all along!
As shown above, Doctor Doom doesn't really appear at all, despite being shown on the cover. He's actually a robot used as part of Faustus' incredibly complicated scheme to drive Mr Fantastic mad through screwing about with his mind.
The scheme fails because Mr Fantastic was able to tell the difference between his actual wife and the robot that Faustus used on him - I'm only surprised that this gigantic flaw doesn't bring down more Evil Schemes. For instance, Arcade is forever fooling people into mistaking robots for loved ones they interact with every day, which doesn't seem hugely likely however amazing the robot is. Actually, this story does very much remind me of Arcade stories, as all sorts of impossible and weird things happen which get explained half-heartedly at the end as down to mirrors, robots, or, in this case, suction cups.
It's all a bit crappy to be honest, but better things lie ahead for us as next week we embark upon a three-part story back over in the pages of Fantastic Four that is full of Doctor Doom, kicking off with an entire issue all about him - next time!
link to information about this issue
posted 29/10/2020 by Mark Hibbett
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