Storm / Dr. Doom sexual tension

[skemono]

From Marvel Comics Presents #48; 1/3 of a page from an 8-page story.



Dagnammit, you two, just make out already!

Comments

[espanolbot]

Pity Hudlin decided to make Doom a huge racist towards her when he appeared in Black Panther. Though she and BP don't fare that much better, what with them comparing the Latverians to Keebler Elves and all.

[md84]

Yeah, Doctor Doom's a lot of things, most of them bad, but he's not a racist. All of his irrational hatred is directed at Reed Richards.

[espanolbot]

Presumably it was a malfunctioning Doombot, same as the one that called Ms. Marvel a cow.

Personally I liked the idea that Doom disliked racism due to being a victim of it himself, due to the previous king of Latveria hunting Roma like himself for sport and the like.

This kind of makes his occasional associations with the Red Skull awkward, in the same way that Schmidt meeting Magneto is awkward. It did make his meeting with Dracula kind of hilarious though, considering the Count considered Roma to be something like a slave race to him (which Doom knew he knew), which resulted in the Doctor messing him around as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

[skemono]

As MGK put it,

Victor's far too smart to buy into petty racism disguised as pseudoscientific tripe. Besides, we're talking about Dr. Doom here. He's too self-centred to care about the race of those he considers beneath himself, which is everybody. You were probably just talking to an older-model Doombot.

[lilacsigil]

I would never say that Doom wouldn't be condescendingly racist in the same way that he is condescendingly sexist - though he'd like to think he's not - but he's not crudely and stupidly so.

[espanolbot]

I think that it's pretty much a characteristic only used during Hudlin's run,

[icon_uk]

DEFINITELY not Doom...

[darkknightjrk]

I wonder what happened when he found out his Doombot did...

"*Yawn* Ah, Doom needed that power nap. So, what did Bot #491985 did while Doom was away? ...It said WHAT? To WHO? Bring that trash heap to the chambers at once! Doom will tear it apart myself!

"Oh, if that infernal machine screwed over Doom's chances to woo her..."

[skemono]

*shudder*

[icon_uk]

I've always felt that Doom views racism as being wasteful... one of the first things he did in the "Emperor Doom" GN is integrate Apartheid-era South Africa ... and one of the first things that happened when he lost his position as de facto ruler of Earth was that Apartheid was reinstated.

[nomadicwriter]

I'm inclined to believe what he said to Dracula when they were on the moon:



The most frustrating thing about Hudlin's warping the character is that prior to that, Doom and T'challa actually had a fascinating edgy diplomatic relationship as fellow monarchs with a mutual respect. There were scenes of them and Namor consulting over a potential international incident, and once T'challa even called Doom up for some scientific advice on a problem that the Avengers were having.

[skemono]

The most frustrating thing about Hudlin's warping the character is that prior to that, Doom and T'challa actually had a fascinating edgy diplomatic relationship as fellow monarchs with a mutual respect. There were scenes of them and Namor consulting over a potential international incident, and once T'challa even called Doom up for some scientific advice on a problem that the Avengers were having.

That does sound fascinating. Can you share any scans of those scenes?

[nomadicwriter]

Conference call of Doom from Black Panther #27 (Christopher Priest's run in the early 2000s):



T'challa phones a friend in Avengers #59, from about the same era:





Way more interesting than Doom being suddenly portrayed as racist.

[espanolbot]

Don't suppose you have scans of that scene where BP refuses to share the cure for cancer with the rest of the world do you? Sure that's Hudlin's run though, not Priest's.

[nomadicwriter]

Nope, I'm afraid my collection is mostly Doom and F4-centric. But yep, I believe that was from Hudlin's run.

[espanolbot]

Ah, okey. :) It takes a special kind of hero to come face to face with doctors and leaders from all over the world after discovering the cure to cancer, and, after being offered the ability to write his own cheque as the cost of sharing, he tells them to go screw themselves.

The special kind of hero being someone with the sadistic mindset of Stardust the fucking Space Wizard. Seriously, the richest nations in the world offering ANYTHING for the ability to cure one of the worst conditions plaguing mankind, and he refuses to even consider sharing? What?!?

He could have asked them to help out people in Africa by providing better healthcare, jobs and famine relief, things that he berates from for not doing anyway, but his myopic view is far more important than the millions of lives he could potentially save.

And really, if, say, England discovered penicillin at a time when no one else could replicate it and refused to share it with anyone else, how long before every other country in the world gangs up on them and declares war?

[skemono]

Here you go.

[skemono]

Way more interesting than Doom being suddenly portrayed as racist.

Quite right. Thanks for the scans!

[robinzegblu]

Did he just refer to himself in the third person as "Von Doom?" Since when does he do that? It was always just "Doom."

[nomadicwriter]

Embarrassed as I am to have this fact immediately to hand, he called himself "Von Doom" in the "Doomquest" story arc in Iron Man #150. ("An open drawbridge and no guards. I've researched Morgana for months, and carelessness is not her way. But then, neither is it the way of Von Doom!") So it's rare, but there is precedent.

In fact, hilariously, it's just occurred to me that "Von Doom" could be what he calls himself when he's intentionally talking about himself in the third person. Because, you know, "Doom" is just for regular everyday talking about himself in the third person, so he needs to bump it up an extra level of formality when he's actually using that rhetorical device for a reason.

[freezer]

Would pieces of the True Cross fall under the same rules as other religious artifacts: i.e. you have to have faith in what that artifact represents to give it power over a vampire? Or would be like holy water - the power is independent of the wielder's faith?

[espanolbot]

Would it be kind of weird if Doom had such faith in himself that he ended up being anti-vampire material through shear egomanical stubbornness?

[nomadicwriter]

Interesting question. Doom was clearly raised to believe in a literal hell (and being an Eastern European Gypsy of a group roughly analogous to the Romani, most likely the Christian one) and he does seem to believe that saving his mother's soul has sent her on to some better kind of afterlife. So I guess it's possible he qualifies as having some pragmatic degree of faith in the power of religious symbols, though I can't quite see him identifying as a Christian.

[randyripoff]

Hudlin's Black Panther never happened. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, T'Challa's tale ended with Black Panther #62

[biod]

There's this weird, awkwars sexual tension going on here that somehow fits the characters perfectly.

[nomadicwriter]

Doom is oddly emphatic about making sure she realises he's not treating her as a servant there. He's not usually big on trying to clarify that he doesn't think that people are beneath him.

[skemono]

I know, right?? Doom's rapid back-pedaling here puts me in mind of when a guy is trying to impress a girl, then when he realizes it had the opposite effect he starts babbling, "Wait, no, that's not what I meant, that's not what I meant!"

[moetushie]

Oh wow, where's the fic.

[donnblake]

I wrote a fic once where Storm became Queen of Latveria, but it's gone now.

[vspope]

(a) Doom(bot) and Storm have a... small history together.

[skemono]

Aye, I read that post recently.

The title/credits page for this comic has small blurbs for each of the stories inside, and for this one it says that Storm and Doom "renew their long-dormant friendship."

[darkknightjrk]

"Dagnammit, you two, just make out already!"

They can't! His mask is in the way!

[nightauditguy]

This is Doom, you think he hasn't figured something out?

[darkknightjrk]

...Man, that has to be uncomfortable for both parties.

[skemono]

Doom's armor is full of useful devices.

Unfortunately, since Storm hit him with lightning earlier, some of them were shown to be fried.

...maybe that's why their make-out session has to wait.

[lucky_gamble]

KISS HIM. KISS HIM.

[amaniwolf]

So the excuse for Doom being written poorly is,....it was a Doombot that was malfunctioning? Well, guess they had to come up with some way to clean up the mess.

[selke]

Doom is in my top three for Storm, I think. <3