Fantastic Four #9 - "Nativity!"

[arbre_rieur]

Miffed, Ben decides to get revenge by sabotaging Von Doom's equipment:





The present day versions of the Thing and Mr. Fantastic go back in time to investigate and determine if Ben's meddling is what caused the equipment to blow up in Doom's face, but they discover that they're not the only time travelers on site:





In the end, present day Ben can't help himself. He prevents past-Doom from going through with the experiment.









The other Dooms place the burning hot mask on young Doom's face, scarring him for life.

Reed expresses his belief that none of his and Ben's younger selves' actions that day really made a difference in the long run. In his opinion, "Doom is inevitable."

Comments

[jlroberson]

Hmm. So Fraction found a way for both the current theories about Doom's face to be true. I remember that it was Kirby who thought he only had a little scar and...was it Byrne who thought he'd competed the job with the red hot mask?

[dr_archeville]

Yup. Kirby had the idea to have the accident just give Victor a small scar, which his ego/pride saw as a huge disfigurement. Byrne later added that he was so eager to get his armor on he had the monks put on the faceplate while it was still red-hot from the forge.

[alschroeder3]

I was never a big fan of Jack Kirby's one small scar theory---it certainly didn't explain the shock Lee and Kirby themselves had at looking at his face, nor Don Blake's shocked and HORRIFIED expression at looking at his face. (Buscema didn't draw someone amazed that the face wasn't very maimed. He drew a face utterly horrified by what he saw.)

I might be able to live with this compromise to complete the deustruction of the face. But I have a bigger objection to this story. Doom pounded the mirror in horror, revolted by what he saw, when the bandages came off. He shattered a mirror and ruined his plan, in FF Annual #2, decades later, because he couldn't bear the sight of what he had become. He later became able to bear the sight of his own face, in the arc that was a take-off of the "Prisonter"---but it's clear for much of his early career, he HATED what happened to him.

You can't square this with this account that Doom KNEW what was going to happen to him, and approved beforehand. Yeah, I get they were stressing the absolute ego of Doom. But it doesn't square with the way he himself behaved in the early stories. He might want to become Doom in other ways, but he hated the disfigurement, even if some think it was mostly in his own mind.

Of course, this does bring up one pertinent question, especially after reading THE AGE OF ULTRON...

Doom invented the first working time machine (um, well, maybe Nathanial Richards was first--but one of the first.) in the Marvel Universe.

In the Marvel Universe, you can change the past.

Why didn't DOOM prevent the explosion in the first place? Go back and stop the explosion? Y'see, I have trouble believing Doom thinking the explosion defined him, molded him to what he would later be. I think he would believe he would rise to world mastery no matter what. Given his early repugnance at his own face, it seems silly for him not to prevent it.

More importantly, why didn't he go back to key portions of modern history? He's no altruist, but we know he hated what the Nazis did to the Romany people. Why not stop that?

Why not stop the murder of his own mother, since he has tried to reach her spirit numerous times?

Why didn't he put a bomb in the spacecraft the FF had their origin in, so that they'd all die and never interfere with him?

Why didn't he change key events where he is currently the ruler of the world? That's ALWAYS been his goal, right?

To the best of my knowledge, that has never been explicitedly addressed. He took over the world at least once, in the graphic novel where he used the Purple Man to make everyone obey him.

Given that he has access to time travel technology, and you can change history in the Marvel Universe---it seems to say the least odd he hasn't done this.

Perhaps he thinks it's too risky, that the space-time continuum will fragment if changed too often--although I have trouble seeing Doom's ego keeping him from risking it, and risking us all, to achieve his ultimate goal.

Or he knows something we don't. Maybe he's conquered the world multiple times in alternate timelines he created, and there's a reason he always changed it back.

I'm not sure of the answer to my question---but I bet it could make a very interesting story.

[jlbarnett]

actually in the MU you can only change the past under certain circumstances. Normally you just span an alternate reality

[jlroberson]

It's the kind of determinism you often see in the big two. The same reason the message of at least half of every DC Elseworlds is "Superman Will Out."

Personally...

[glprime]

I like Wieringo's point about the horrifying aspects of Doom's presence; Doom was in the States (or the "United Kennels Of America" as he called them with hilarious disdain), dressed in a somewhat more subdued three-piece green suit, and a smoother, less bolted armor, golden mask, trying to "blend in."

A child is frightened to tears by his passing, and Doom (in a bit of nice graciousness that shows he can be noble and not just an arrogant jack-off as a lot of writers want to peg him as) apologizes for his disturbing disfigurement. The mother says it's not his fault, as the child is actually blind. Whatever was scary about Doom just came off him in waves.

Given all the attention that was given to the paranormal side of things in that run, I have to assume Doom's spirit was tainted by interacting (and bartering) with demonic hosts, this is something that unnerves people on a psychic level. So his features could be slightly marred or horribly unmade, but the reaction would be the same.

[jlbarnett]

if Doom's vanity is so damn great that a little scar is enough to make him hide his face to the point of scaring it then why shouldn't he be pissed at these other versions of himself for letting him do that?

This turns Doom's whole life into a puppet show for future/alternate versions

[lonewolf23k]

I think it's more a fact that Doom sees that, while scarred, he becomes far, FAR more powerful then before, and accepts it as a fair trade.

[crinos]

I noticed that Ultimate Doom is among the legion of Dooms.

And I presume the electric one is Movie Doom.

[icon_uk]

I don't remember Doctor Doom being in the movies... and certainly not him being a charismaless, electrically empowered void of a character... nosirreee bob... Don't remember that at all.

(And, please, don't shatter my delusions, I've worked long and hard to build them up)

[nate_abril96]

You know I'm not much of a Fantastic Four fan, and only pick up the book once in a while but I love Doctor Doom. He's just so evil and over the top that you just can't help yourself from liking him. I like how he's willing to screw up his own life just to spite Reed Richards. That is, in my opinion, the ultimate villain. I also like how he's not just a Fantastic Four villain, but a Marvel universe villain.

[benuben]

I don't know. I prefer it, when they write him as more of a complex character, rather than having contest of how evil will they make him. Like that time he made armor out of Valeria's skin, or when he made racist comments.

Gotta say...

[doc_destructo]

It looks like Sorcerer Supreme Doom decided to jump companies and picked up Dr. Fate's helmet as well.

Would've been nice to see a nod to Doom 2099, but I supposed he wasn't such a colossal jerk-face (by the time I stopped reading ~issue #25).

Re: Gotta say...

[glprime]

Motto. It was actually pretty funny to see Dr. Fate!Doom, Sorcerer Supreme.

And you can read it as him being so fucking powerful he's trumped all the other greatest magi, but I like to think this is a Doom who embraced his more noble, less egotistical traits, and became an ultimate force for guardianship and balance (more anti-villain if you will). And he's just hanging with the other Dooms to keep an eye on them.

Also, medieval!Doom with the pointy hood & nose is fun too.

Re: Gotta say...

[zechs80]

Busy going to be in Uncanny Avengers it seems.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, not sure I like the idea of Doctor Doom willingly being mutilated. Him being conceited and both mythologizing his own origin and loving the idea that he has some grand destiny in store, absolutely, but I can't see him being onboard with the scarring.

I feel like Matt Fraction is more suited to writing stuff that's on the periphery of a universe, because while this is a really, really, cool idea, it's also one that doesn't really fit with what's come before. Better that he be working with a new villain or one whose backstory is vague enough that this wouldn't contradict so much of what's come before.

[md84]

Time travel is really messed up. I'm really surprised every story involving it doesn't end with the characters saying "I hate time travel."

[zechs80]

An interesting story. Doom is "doomed" no matter what path he takes, yet he still willingly takes it. Though I'm a bit curious now. The monks are gone and replaced by Doom? The other Doom's taught Doom?

Also the answer as to why Doom never meddles with time-line is because he realized no matter what he did as said before it just split off to another part. He had to fix whatever messes there were (his mother's soul) in THIS time. His time.

Doom has conquered the world twice (three times if you count the Heroes Reborn world). The thing about Doom is, the man loves the game more than the actual conquest. That was always the fun twist of Emperor Doom. Doom got what he wanted and decides to forfeit his conquest because the game is over.

[ozaline]

I dunno I prefer an interpretation of Doom where he really thinks the world would be better under his leadership, not that he's taking over the world for kicks. Where he does have an inner nobility that he sometimes forgets when he gets close to the goal, the goal that he peruses not out of malice but so that all may profit from the wisdom of Doom.

A Doom who is primarily interested in the game and in beating Richards reminds me too much of Waid's Doom who "would tear the head off a newborn baby and eat it like an apple while his mother watched if it would somehow prove he were smarter than Reed." And that's not the reading I prefer.

[arbre_rieur]

"Though I'm a bit curious now. The monks are gone and replaced by Doom? The other Doom's taught Doom?"

It's unclear whether the issue's events re-wrote "our" Doom's history or if it simply created a new alternate timelines splitting off from the regular Marvel universe. The vagueness might even be on purpose, a sort of "It doesn't really matter in the end. Doom is Doom."

[md84]

I don't understand why Doom is considered a complicated character. He's the ultimate egotist with a raging inferiority complex towards Reed Richards, the one person Doom knows is smarter than him. He's always known that Reed was right and he was wrong about his experiment, and all of his attempts to show up/kill Reed are his attempts to erase that knowledge. Even his "standards" are just his way of maintaining his delusion of nobility.

I like the way most Doom stories end with the Fantastic Four telling Doom to get over himself and let go of his petty grudge towards Reed, and he never listens.

[espanolbot]

The sad thing about Doom is that he subconsciously thinks that Reed might be better than him, while Doom shows that he's a master of many different fields, rather than just science like Richards is.

Doom is a character that's shown to be able to master anything that he turns his hand to, be anything magic to science to surgery, yet still worries that he might be inferior to a man who doesn't even grasp how magic works because it contradicts what he knows about science.

[bardbrain]

This flies in the face of a lot of my favorite takes on Doom and is... difficult.

Then again, I hate evil villains as a rule. If I ran a company, rule one would be nobody is evil. Not Doom. Not Luthor. Not Satan. Not by birth. Not by insanity. They have a unique perspective that makes them a hero to someone. Find out what that is.

The thing is... what does he even blame Reed for in this version?

[arbre_rieur]

If anything, he has even more reason to suspect Reed of foul play in this version of history. He just saw a future Reed go back in time and visit the room of the chair, on the day it was going to be activated.

Also, it's unclear whether the issue's events re-wrote "our" Doom's history or if it simply created a new alternate timelines splitting off from the regular Marvel universe. Reed does have a line about how "Time isn't singular. There's no paradox here." That might just be Fraction's version of DOCTOR WHO's "time is in flux."

[dr_archeville]

Wait a second...

4 YEARS AGO

Their college days were four years ago?

The F4's space flight/empowering -- which happened around the same time Peter Parker got bit and the Avengers and X-Men formed -- was four years ago?

[benuben]

Didn't the empowering happened few years after college?

Doesn't this contradicts like shitload of stories? I mean, how many times have they referred to past stories like "about ten years ago"? If we go by Fraction's Iron Man run, Tony has been gone for whole year and Civil war-Dark Reign was also one year. And Iron man came after FF, so all pre-Civil war Iron Man stories were like 1 year and half? And the most important of all: HOW THE FUCK IS FRANKLIN 7 YEARS OLD?

[zechs80]

Franklin also has reality bending powers. He's been messing with reality again. Tsk tsk.

[werehawk]

Anyone else notice that the Dr. Strange-Doom looks a lot like Dr. Strangefate from the DC-Marvel crossover?