The Last Time Doctor Doom Took a Consort

[shakalooloo]

From back at the dawn of the year 2000, back when Salvador Larroca still put some effort into his art, and Chris Claremont was allowed to write a monthly title:

Comments

[thezmage]

Even though I know it was unintentional, the fact that Daredevil is the only person on the cover not looking at the couple still cracks me up

[donnblake]

While Iron Man's pretty close to sneaking a peek up Doom's robes.

[bravest_spinja]

For some reason I always thought the reaction shot of Gambit was pretty funny, just because...why Gambit? He does not have notable history with either character, or some in-universe geopolitical prominence. I know he had recently got his own series, but his popularity had definitely cooled down by then.

[thezmage]

Well judging from the picture he seems to be trying to look at something beyond them and they keep getting in his way

[phantomfo]

That picture of Peter on the Bugle's front page looks like he's pulling a Linda Blair.

[shakalooloo]

He's wearing his mask backwards just to mess with Jonah.

[thezmage]

That's just Spider-man 101, I thought. They always draw Spider-man in a contorted position that looks neither comfortable nor functional

[donnblake]

"Back when... Chris Claremont was allowed to write a monthly title."

As opposed to these days, where Marvel appears to be paying him *not* to write comics.

[angelophile]

That was certainly the case five or so years back when they had him under exclusive contract but wouldn't give him work.

[gnarll]

What is the situation now?

[scorntx]

-"Is Spider-Man Involved?"-
Yep, that's a Jonah editorial alright. Two people are getting married, it looks odd. Spider-Man must be involved!
(A man tragically born decades too late to capitalize on clickbait.)

-"How dare you diminish me and Johnny and Ben by assuming our own decisions were cavalier and facile?"-
... Sue, you goaded Ben into flying that damn rocket by calling him a chicken. Because he was worried about them cosmic rays, and you were worried about the commies getting into space first.
So, yes, your decision was cavalier.


... now, my knowledge of appropriate titles as regarding aristocracy and marriage to heads of state is... pretty dang fuzzy, especially as regarding an entirely fictional country ruled by a man who seized power rather than inheriting it and who isn't a monarch, but last I checked a baron/ baroness is as low down as you get on the aristocratic scale.
Surely duchess would be more apt?

[donnblake]

Turns out Doom being aggressively humble isn't just for when he's in space! Gaze in astonishment at how humble he is!

(Especially given that at this point, he was ruling a whole other planet).

[gnarll]

It is a morganatic marriage, after all.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I'd love a little background on what the precise nature of Reed's predicament is, and maybe even how he wound up in it.

Is he stuck in Doom's armor? Doom's body? One part makes it sound like he's not even there, but more manipulating it from elsewhere.

[dr_archeville]

The Dreaming Celestial stuck Reed inside Doom's armor, two issues prior. (Victor was sent, naked, to Counter-Earth, as seen in the three issue Doom miniseries.) He gets out about six issues later.

[super_fly]

Reed and Doom teamed up to thwart a Celestial's plan to do... something and as a last act of revenge it stripped Doom's armor and crammed Reed into it while Doom gets sent to Doomworld

Reed's stuck in the armor for a while and it starts to make him think he's Doom so they have to get the real Doom back to get him out of it.

[donnblake]

Leading to a moment, if I recall, of Doom very nearly saying something nice about Reed- along the lines of "As Richards, he had no equal. As Doom, he had no chance."

[mazway_75]

Oddly, I just binged the two-volume "Heroes Return: FF" books from the library and notable how Scott Lobdell had some promising ideas but gone after just three issues so Claremont reuses a ton of old X-Men stuff with way too much text on stuff and building to this nutiness.

[kirayoshi1]

Fun fact; he wanted Kitty Pryde to be Franklin's nanny (this was just after Excalibur got canceled) but then-X-Men editor Bob Harris wanted her back in the main X-Men team.

[gnarll]

I remember Kitty wanting to apply for that position once, when she saw all the cool gadgets the Baxter Building has. Roughly X-men #180 or so.

Kitty & Franklin

[steverodgers5]

Well they did develop a nice bond in the original Fantastic Four vrs X-Men limited series. As when Kitty was fading away Franklin was pretty much the only one keeping her company.

A story that was also written by Claremont. (And it was a pretty good FF story too.) So he probably was laying the groundwork even back then.

[mastermahan]

*looks at the final page*

Goddamn it, Barry, what did you do now?

[velacron]

I'm curious; is there any reason why they don't simply explain this situation to others, at least to the Avengers?

[shakalooloo]

Supposedly, they can't risk it leaking, for fear of Doom's four generals (including an Atlantean and a Technarx) learning as well and going on an uncontrolled rampage. Considering the four generals conquered Counter Earth, it's a legitimate consequence to fear, even if they're going a bit far.

[leahandillyana]

The scenario would be mildly interesting only if the consort was a guy.

[cygnia]

Doom taking Reed as his consort?

[thanekos]

You look at Chris Claremont scripting everything being spelled out in text and thought bubbles in the year 2000, and you pinch the bridge of your nose and you groan.

[bravest_spinja]

Post bankruptcy Marvel was such a strange, innocuous time in the company's history. It was I think maybe the most culturally irrelevant Marvel had been since the 60's, and probably will ever be until the collapse of western civilization. The output had been largely pared down. Their cartoons were very shot-lived and sporadically aired. Bob Harras's tenure was almost an apology tour for helping usher in the 90's, so we got a lot of revival books and of course, this F.F. run which seemed to be about buying the hatchet with Claremont. Very very quiet and under the radar until the X-Men movie hit, and Quesada spending his first few years really throwing everything at the wall to court mainstream attention.