Victor Von Doom: Doctor Doom Appreciation 2019

[Coatl]

Don't look now, but the beloved monarch of Latveria is due for a reunion in September with…

Squirrel Girl!



THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #48
RYAN NORTH (W) • DEREK CHARM (a)
Cover by ERICA HENDERSON
With Melissa doing everything she can to destroy Squirrel Girl, is there anything Doreen can do to survive??
Gosh, I sure hope so because it’d be nice if we actually make it to #50 BUT TECHNICALLY YOU NEVER KNOW!!
Especially when Squirrel Girl’s first villain, DOCTOR DOOM, is involved...
I don’t want to say more because SPOILERS, but trust us when we say this is a bonkers issue in which bonkers things happen, and you should definitely order it right now!!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Are you looking forward to this? Will we see some payback?!

(Odd that Henderson posed Doreen and… Tony, if that is him, like the Pieta.)

Well I have mixed feeling in this one, while I like Doom and I'm happy the he gets participation in marvel universe outside the FF, I'm not really a big fan of Squirrel girl, more clearly I was a fan on Squirrel girl when she was a funny joke who worked in her self contained universe. When writers tried to force her in the main continuity the joke loss all fun and becomes just nonsense so her interaction with other characters especially powerful villains are a bit controversial. So while the cover looks ok for me, I'm a bit worried about how Doom is supposed to be handled.

[Iron Maiden]

Totally agree with you about Squirrel Girl. It's bad enough that her appearance in a throw away story many years ago gave rise to her reputation for defeating Doom but when her character gets a revival years later she goes on to defeat other powerful villains like Thanos, mostly off panel. Her current comic is cute but I don't think she should cross over very often into the mainstream of the MU. IIRC, the appearances that Doom has made in her current comic use a Doom from the past, around the time of the first story. Had she encountered God Emperor Doom, I think she would be dispatched much like Thanos or Phoenix/Cyclops. Have we ever found out if she is vulnerable to magic? I'd think he could just turn her into a toad or something.

[Iron Maiden]

I happen to notice that the Bleeding Cool site had a preview for this week's Fantastic Four and Doom will be in at least one page. This month the art is done by Books of Doom artist Paco Medina. I see the fur trimmed cloak is back again. At least one thing Slott is doing right is that the people of Latveria are devoted to their king.


I wonder what's been happening with these rotating artists on the Fantastic Four?

[Reviresco]

Ugh. NOT Squirrel Girl again.

Just finished reading War of the Realms: War Scrolls and I think this is the best Doom story so far this year ( I know...there haven't been that many!) First of of all, it shows how Doom is still dealing with the aftermath of the recent Fantastic Four arc while facing the decimation of Latveria. Doom himself doesn't have much dialogue but I like that writer Chrisopher Cantwell lets the story be told from the viewpoint of a couple of Latverian citizens. Most of the narration is done by one of Doom's soldiers and part of it is done by a young girl. It looks like Doom's forces will not win the day and even Lady Victorious is missing in action. When death is brought to Doom's very doorstep and the people are ready to flee, the tide is turned.

I think Cantwell captures the odd relationship that Doom has with his people and also the reverse, how the people see Doom. He is like the stern father figure that they all seem to desire. They inspire each other with their loyalty to king and country. Well worth picking up except I 've one nitpick, which always irks me a bit. The colorist gives Victor blue eyes. If you're a Doom fan you should pick this up!

Will have to check this out.

[Iron Maiden]

Hi Reviresco! I hope you won't be disappointed but I know you are like me when it comes to seeing Namor and Victor performing their kingly duties with honor and diligence.

I aim to catch up on the Invaders series and join your Namor thread when I get a chance. Have there been any more worthwhile appearances lately?

[Iron Maiden]

I have to hand it to Noah Hawley. As his Netflix series Legion is winding down to a finale, he's still pitching his Doctor Doom movie.

scroll down to the last paragraph. He's still in talks with Marvel about making his solo movie.

[Iron Maiden]

After having a bit of time to digest Slott's latest issue of the Fantastic Four, I have a few thoughts on this. At least Slott has Doom interacting with his people and decides to pitch in with the clean up efforts on Mount Doom, I was concerned that Slott would zap the woman on the spot for merely mentioning Doom's face but thankfully he didn't go there. But do ya think he was trying to impress the crowd by going shirtless? Once again, the slash marks/scars are being depicted by the artist so I guess they are directed to do so by Slott. Where these are from, I have no idea unless it came from the confrontation with whatever entity was in control of the Hood. He was only touched on the face. None of the artists since FF #1 have used Bianchi's peculiar deformities, which would have required a larger helmet one would think.

So as not to spoil things the issue ends with spoilers:

with a visit to Phillip Masters' cell in the Raft as Doom brings him a deadly offering of a couple of pound of radioactive clay from Mount Doom. The mountain's soil was contaminated with cosmic radiation after Galactus was fused with it.

end of spoilers So I guess this alliance will be developed at some point and I'm curious to see if anyone else has any thoughts about this.

I just have some reluctance to going along with the hatred of the Fantastic Four that Slott is trying to sell. Granted, Slott has had them provide a lot of fuel for this but I really think that going over old ground like this doesn't make for interesting storytelling. The situation with Sue is a bit odd when you think about it. Victor was married to her alternate universe version and one would expect some conflicting emotions there instead in sentencing her to death for simply coming to Latveria along with the others. Even with Ben and Johnny....here he was dealing with them and not some AU versions. Yet he was ready to kill them for a flimsy reason. If Slott and TPTB were resolved to hit the reset button than I think the means they've come up with to bring it about are weak.

I regret not writing to the letters page about the recently concluded arc in Latveria but even one of the fan's wrote in to say that he felt there was no explanation given for Doom wanting to kill the Fantastic Four. Tom Brevoort gave the answer that it was because they violated Latverian airspace and that it was "an affront to Latverian sovereignty that Doom could not allow to go unaddressed" . I find it very contrived since they did provide assistance, which he did not reject . IMO Doom would take that into consideration and let it slide with a stern warning. I found it funny that the writer of the same letter let them have it about Doom not being able to find that switch that was right in front of him a second ago before Sue turned it invisible. I guess reading the letters page brought this all out again for me since I'm betting that one letter writer isn't the only one that called B.S on Slott's writing.

I'm curious to see if anyone else has any thoughts about this alliance on the last page?

[DoomScribe]

I don't buy the hatred either. Doom's evolution has gone so far beyond that. I never really liked the Puppet Master character either, and he's really not in Doom's league. That Doom has used him in the past is simply that … he's used him. Not a partner. A shame that Marvel can't do any better than resurrect old plot lines.

[SuperiorIronman]

I don't buy the hatred either. Doom's evolution has gone so far beyond that. I never really liked the Puppet Master character either, and he's really not in Doom's league. That Doom has used him in the past is simply that … he's used him. Not a partner. A shame that Marvel can't do any better than resurrect old plot lines.

Well a lot of the reason that happens comes back to writer preference and bias. Where a writer is first introduced to a character genuinely will affect where they are used later no matter what the writer's intentions are in the following stories. First impressions are really that important. And a lot of the writers who've written Doctor Doom over the years have come from meeting the character in the early runs of Fantastic Four. The nostalgia of the ground work takes precedent over where the character is now which is why we see so much regression in their dynamic with Victor and the four.

At the very least Slott played lip-service to it but that's about it (Doom's recent escapades). And at the end of the day I don't know if that's so much a problem with Slott not getting where Doom is now (or just pushing the script out), his editors, or an unknown co-writer who is desperately trying to push this out the door considering Slott's chronic lateness. Regardless Slott does have an obsession with the Silver Age and the sort of camp that came out of it.

[Iron Maiden]

Well a lot of the reason that happens comes back to writer preference and bias. Where a writer is first introduced to a character genuinely will affect where they are used later no matter what the writer's intentions are in the following stories. First impressions are really that important. And a lot of the writers who've written Doctor Doom over the years have come from meeting the character in the early runs of Fantastic Four. The nostalgia of the ground work takes precedent over where the character is now which is why we see so much regression in their dynamic with Victor and the four.

At the very least Slott played lip-service to it but that's about it (Doom's recent escapades). And at the end of the day I don't know if that's so much a problem with Slott not getting where Doom is now (or just pushing the script out), his editors, or an unknown co-writer who is desperately trying to push this out the door considering Slott's chronic lateness. Regardless Slott does have an obsession with the Silver Age and the sort of camp that came out of it.

There's even been some disgruntled FF fans that are giving up on Slott's FF from what I've seen in last issues' review thread here. Funny that you mentioned a co-writer for Slott. For some reason I wondered the same thing about why Mark Waid had a co-writer for the issue of the Avengers where Infamous Iron Man guested. I figured that Waid couldn't bring himself to write a Doom that didn't do something "unthinkable" to Nadia.

I don't buy the hatred either. Doom's evolution has gone so far beyond that. I never really liked the Puppet Master character either, and he's really not in Doom's league. That Doom has used him in the past is simply that … he's used him. Not a partner. A shame that Marvel can't do any better than resurrect old plot lines.

I have really been quite bored with Marvel for a while. I want to say ever since Cebulski became EIC. There's been a kind of quiet exodus of talent. Remember how Jim Cheung was promoted as the artist for Marvel Two in One...and then was only on it for about 2 1/2 issues? The same with the constantly changing artists on the Fantastic Four. I guess I will check out Hickman's titles...but it's the X-Men *sigh* they've not been of interest to me since Grant Morrison

Just a quick update to say that the Doom that has been appearing in Old Man Quill appeared again in last week's issue and again was mute. Madame Masque did all the talking. Got to be a Doombot. Speaking of Doombots, the former AI Avenger Doombot in Runaways is always a guilty pleasure for me. Very curious to see what happens in the month's issue. spoilers:

and in last month's issue.... Was that a virtual reality Doom that showed up at the end???

end of spoilers

[Kintor]

I have really been quite bored with Marvel for a while. I want to say ever since Cebulski became EIC. There's been a kind of quiet exodus of talent. Remember how Jim Cheung was promoted as the artist for Marvel Two in One...and then was only on it for about 2 1/2 issues? The same with the constantly changing artists on the Fantastic Four. I guess I will check out Hickman's titles...but it's the X-Men *sigh* they've not been of interest to me since Grant Morrison

I've said before but I feel that ever since the end of Secret Wars in 2015 there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of Marvel artwork. Having Maleev on Infamous Iron Man was one of the few bright spots in recent years, truly brilliant work, but now he's jumped ship as well. I'm eager to see Hickman's X-Men run but I know that good writing alone won't win the day, without the support of talented artists for every panel even the best X-Men story in decades will still fall flat.

[Iron Maiden]

While I can understand that an artist wants to express their art in various ways but IMO, leave that for your creator owned stuff. I recall that the art of Juan Bobillo was so bad for some key issues of Hickman's FF, that later on they printed a couple of readers complaints about it on the letters pages.

If your work on a series makes it so that characters are practically unrecognizable, than you have failed in your main goal of being a key part of the storytelling. The reader should not be distracted to the point of annoyance and frustration with your work.

In these 2 examples, Doom and Dragon Man could almost be completely new characters (from FF #13) The story was great but IMO the power of it was diminished by Bobillo's extremely stylized art.

[Kintor]

This is just a bizarre image of Doom, I get a kind of weird Frank Millar circa 300 vibe from it. This kind of hyper stylised drawing can work in certain instances (like 300) but Marvel has an established look to the whole universe and different artists need to maintain a certain amount of consistency across all books.

Also, just looking it up now it seems this issue of Fantastic Four was published in 2012. Which just goes to show that Marvel was already experiencing problems years before the post-Secret Wars era began. I just don't get how one of the biggest publishers in the industry could let things get so bad. Comics are a visual medium, you don't cheap out on the graphics or let incompetent work go to print but these slip ups keep happening at an alarming rate in modern Marvel books.

[Doombot]

While I can understand that an artist wants to express their art in various ways but IMO, leave that for your creator owned stuff. I recall that the art of Juan Bobillo was so bad for some key issues of Hickman's FF, that later on they printed a couple of readers complaints about it on the letters pages.

If your work on a series makes it so that characters are practically unrecognizable, than you have failed in your main goal of being a key part of the storytelling. The reader should not be distracted to the point of annoyance and frustration with your work.

In these 2 examples, Doom and Dragon Man could almost be completely new characters (from FF #13) The story was great but IMO the power of it was diminished by Bobillo's extremely stylized art.

I absolutely remember this. It's ridiculous and beyond jarring to have this art and the art of Steve Epting in the same story. I despise Marvel and comics in general for not leaving an artist for complete story arcs. It's so distracting and actually lowers my interest and enjoyment of stories.

[Iron Maiden]

This is just a bizarre image of Doom, I get a kind of weird Frank Millar circa 300 vibe from it. This kind of hyper stylised drawing can work in certain instances (like 300) but Marvel has an established look to the whole universe and different artists need to maintain a certain amount of consistency across all books.

Also, just looking it up now it seems this issue of Fantastic Four was published in 2012. Which just goes to show that Marvel was already experiencing problems years before the post-Secret Wars era began. I just don't get how one of the biggest publishers in the industry could let things get so bad. Comics are a visual medium, you don't cheap out on the graphics or let incompetent work go to print but these slip ups keep happening at an alarming rate in modern Marvel books.

I don't know how this artist ended up getting the assignment. IMO, this was an important chapter of Hickman's far reaching tale and Bobillo just crapped all over it IMO. And you're right in that maybe the depth of Marvel's roster couldn't handle it. It had been a long time since the FF was running two titles a month. Props to Hickman for that.

I suspect part of the problem happened when Marvel began doing the Star Wars universe again. A lot of their better artists started working on those titles.

I absolutely remember this. It's ridiculous and beyond jarring to have this art and the art of Steve Epting in the same story. I despise Marvel and comics in general for not leaving an artist for complete story arcs. It's so distracting and actually lowers my interest and enjoyment of stories.

I have been having the same problem with Marvel for several years now. Marvel Two in One disappointed me. It started out well with Zdarsky and Cheung. Then suddenly Cheung was gone after being listed in the advance solicitations as the artist for the series.