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

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Doom should not be a two-dimensional cardboard baddie. In the reality, statements along the lines of "s/he would never do that" are never absoulutes. People are too nuanced and complex for that. That person who is "always" practical and frugal will be willing to exorbitant prices for one specific thing because of its sentimental value. That person who is "always" level-headed and rational has his one or two sensitive topics that he simply cannot be rational about. Reed has always driven Doom to extremes of behavior. In one of the last Doom stories Lee and Kirby wrote, he was pushed so far off the edge that he even tried to blow up an entire Latverian town full of innocents just to kill the F4.

This is perfectly believable behavior on his part.

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

Doom should not be a two-dimensional cardboard baddie.

I totally agree.

Which is why this story sucks.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, who does that Lee and Kirby think they are, getting their own creation wrong?

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

I'm reasonably sure that Lee and Kirby did not, in fact, write Unthinkable.

As for the actual Lee and Kirby story you mentioned... well, Doom has had several decades of character development since then.

Besides which, villains back then really were pretty two dimensional. Wasn't that around the same time as PURE EVIL!Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Motto: "No, actually, we don't mean that ironically")?

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

"Besides which, villains back then really were pretty two dimensional. Wasn't that around the same time as PURE EVIL!Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Motto: "No, actually, we don't mean that ironically")?"

Except the Lee and Kirby story I'm referring to happened after they had already gone to lengths establishing the honorable, noble side of Doom. Clearly, they didn't see that side as necessarily contradictory to the idea that his hatred for Mr. Fantastic would drive him to perform the, er, unthinkable. They were portraying a man who, underneath his cloak of honor, had that sort of monstrousness within him. And I think they'd know, being Doom's two daddies.

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

Fair enough, but I stand with my comment that that was decades ago, and so is not exactly the final word on Doom.

Similarly, William Marston's Wonder Woman run included all kinds of bondage. Clearly, William Marston thought that Wonder Woman getting tied up every issue and occasionally expressing her appreciation for bondage and domination was not necessarily contradictory with her being a strong and capable woman.

Does this mean that it would be a good idea for a current Wonder Woman run focused on Reform Island, where the prisoners are bound and dominated and really, really like it?

Obviously the answer is "YES." But my point is... okay, I forgot. Stupid sexy Wonder Woman bondage...

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

A buttoned-down CPA blowing the family nest egg in Vegas is not on a par with wearing your girlfriend's skin while you're holding little children as hostage. Nice try, no cigar.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Is blowing up an entire populated village under your rule on par with that?

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

It's not about the body count. It's about being ruthless while still maintaining a high amount of class, and prancing around like a second-string Thomas Harris villain just isn't classy.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

I really don't see how blowing up a village, which would contain plenty of innocent little children, is classier than holding one little child hostage.

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

It's classier than skinning his girlfriend and wearing her skin.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Well, I suppose, in the same way slitting someone's throat is classier than stabbing them repeatedly with a butcher knife.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Doom should not be a two-dimensional cardboard baddie.

Directly contradicts:

This is perfectly believable behavior on his part.

Doom can perform atrocities, but not out of cackling villainy.