Week of Doom: Unthinkable Part II

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

Dr. Doom shows why he's Marvel's TOP villain.

Doom begins his plan against the FF using his new mystic powers.

1st, he taps into his *familiar*, who happens to be the young Valeria Richards.
Talk about traumatizing the kid... strong grown men have fainted under the gaze of Doom's scarred face.

Using her as his mystic eyes and ears, he gets through their high-tech defenses.

He launches an assault on the FF headquarters.
Then he sends their eldest child Franklin to hell. Yup, just like the movie.


Since the Ghostbusters aren't available (and Reed never bothered to think about creating weapons and defenses against inter-dimensional threats).


The FF go to Latveria to force Doom to return Franklin back to them.




The FF throw everything they can at Doom. Nothing works.






Doom tortures the FF in particularly gruesome ways, then tortures Reed with the knowledge that as smart as Reed may be, he doesn't know enough to figure out how to stop Doom.

coming up... Reed gets humbled, and the villain gets his due.

*For the mods, FF Series 3, issues #68-70

Comments

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

What always bugs me about this story is the same thing that bugged me when Hudlin presented Doom as a racist, or when Bendis had Doom direct a juvenile and sexist tirade at Ms. Marvel. Inevitably when Doom fans argue that this kind of thing is out of character for him, there comes the reply, "But Doom is EVIL! Why shouldn't be be a racist/sexist/child-torturing complete monster?"

Thing is, you can be evil without being evil ALL THE TIME about EVERY GODDAMN THING. It is entirely possible to be a very bad person while still having some good characteristics, or at least not having some bad characteristics. How many times has a murderer been captured, and his neighbors say "but he seemed like such a nice guy?"

Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of writers out there who simply can't seem to grasp the fact that a person (or character) can be "evil" without being completely vile in every single detail. And so, my basic problem with this story is that it seems like an obvious attempt to present a Dr. Doom of the later sort of villain, who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

And a Doom with NO redeeming qualities... IS NOT DOOM.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Well, the Ms. Marvel argument misses the point entirely, because the sexism in that scene wasn't the Doombot calling her a piece of furniture or whateverthefuck, it was that Carol actually cared, and Wonder Man had so little respect for her that he immediately tried to reassure her that no, she wasn't a cow, and then Carol got that much more insecure. The idea that Victor von Doom calling Carol fat was some kind of meaningful blow to her ego and self-confidence was a million times more insulting and sexist than anything Doom himself could have said.

Other than that you're spot-on, though. "What's wrong with an evil character acting evil?" as though all evil were interchangeable is such a shallow, juvenile way to write a villain. See also: Magneto, Deathstroke, and to some extent Barbara Minerva.