Doctor Doom in Avengers: Children's Crusade

[nomadicwriter]

This miniseries is one of the main reasons I ended up founding this comm, since it's getting a lot of well-deserved love all over the place, but everyone else is talking about the Young Avengers or the fallout from House of M, and I just want to talk about Doom all the time. :)

I wasn't originally planning to pick this series up at all, but I ran out to grab the third issue when someone mentioned the Doom/Wanda angle. I've thought for ages that somebody should do something with the amount of potential common ground between them, and it turns out Heinberg's version is about as good as I could possibly have asked for.

It's obvious from the splash page where Magneto sums up Doom's origin story that this take is very influenced by Books of Doom, which is an excellent sign so far as I'm concerned. Awesomely, Cheung clearly did his research into BoD for the art as well; I especially love that he included the image of teen Victor standing shirtless in the blazing pentagram, because that's one of the iconic images that really stuck in my head from Books of Doom. And he draws a mighty fine-looking Doom mask, which is always impressive considering how many otherwise good artists just can't seem to get a decent look for it.

(The black and white art for the splash page is online here. Pretty...)

It's also a neat little bit of continuity having Magneto be the one to give Doom's backstory. He's one of the few people who would actually know it, since he and Doom once traded some memories via a telepathic plot device back in the day. Plus, we learn that Magneto considers Doom 'the most powerful man alive', and the second most powerful person next to Wanda. :)

And then we get the fantastic end-of-issue reveal that Wanda's not Doom's prisoner, at least so far as she thinks, but his fiancée. I really love how Wanda's part in this is portrayed. She's clearly not a helpless damsel doing whatever Doom demands; she's strong-willed and determined enough that she wouldn't be going along with it unless she genuinely wanted to marry him. It might all be an act on Doom's part, but it must be a pretty convincing one.

And it's fascinating to get a glimpse of how he acts with her: none of the usual raging at his word being questioned, and he even suggests that she's trusting him too much and should think twice about the wedding. Manipulation, sure, but really the fact that he's using persuasion rather than commanding is intriguing when it comes to Doom. (Conversely, I love that Wanda isn't at all snowed by this so soon after a display of violence towards Wiccan, but goes off to investigate for herself whether perfect hubby isn't quite what he seems.)

I was also deeply amused by the fact that Doom makes a bit of an optimistic play to adopt Wiccan when he shows up. Because hey, Doom's made several attempts to acquire a ready-made heir to the kingdom before, and you know he'd love to have one that comes with built-in magical powers he can train up. That Doom. Always the opportunist.

Which is why I lean towards believing this is a scheme of opportunity, and he honestly did first discover Wanda when she turned up on his doorstep asking for help. (A pretty interesting concept in itself, since it suggests that Doom has a reputation among the Gypsy peoples of the area as someone who might be an ally.) Doom would absolutely believe that he's doing both Wanda and the world a favour by being the one to guard against her recovering her memory. Making other people's decisions for them for their own good is what Doom has for breakfast.

So, that leaves the wedding angle. Evil plot, or genuine attraction? This being Doom, I would happily bet 'both'. I'm sure he charmed Wanda into trusting him for entirely tactical reasons, but I can also buy that he totally would fall for her. Going by his previous love interests - a list overwhelmingly populated by strong-willed magic users and hot brunettes - she pretty much ticks all the boxes on his 'perfect woman' list. (We will politely ignore how many of those boxes are labelled 'mommy issues'.) I love that Doom looks kind of down in the panel where he says, "She was happy here. We were to be married," to Magneto. Aw, he was so hoping it would work out.

Anyway, now that Wanda has her memories back, I'm really hoping that we'll get to see another scene between the two of them, and some sort of insight into Wanda's POV of why she agreed to marry him. I'd like it if they were to part on a note of Wanda being a bit conflicted over how much of the man she knew was actually the real Victor and whether it was really all an act. (And then there can be future meetings with inappropriate hero/villain UST! Always fun.)

Also, Marvel should get right on writing the What If issue where they actually do get married. It would be epic.

This whole thing feels like a really old-school take on Doom - in a good way. And Cheung's art is fantastic. The worst thing about this comic is that it only comes out every other month. Is it June yet?

Comments

[iridania.livejournal.com]

To be honest, even though I've always liked the idea of him, I haven't read that many Doom comics. But the thing with Heinberg and Cheung is that they make you care about their characters.
I love how the relationship between Doom and the Scarlet Witch is being handled in Crusade. You can't NOT being interested in it. And I like how Doom treats Wanda as his equal (I actually smiled when she confronted him in issue #5).

Also, Marvel should get right on writing the What If issue where they actually do get married. It would be epic.
...Now I need this to be written. It'd be fantastic.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, btw. It was a very interesting read :)

[nomadicwriter]

Yeah, the trouble with being a Doom fan is that he's not really tied to any one comic, so it's tough to keep up with his appearances unless you're reading a little bit of everything. Which is why I decided he needed his own comm for me to ramble in, since I feel a bit bad running round hijacking the discussion in different branches of comic fandom all the time.

Heinberg's take on Doom in this series is awesome. I really appreciate that he's keeping the possibility Doom has honestly fallen for Wanda on the table, because like I say, with Doom's history it is pretty believable. And Wanda seems to retain some sense of devotion towards him even after she's learned he's been keeping things from her, so I'm madly curious to see how she's going to feel now she's remembered everything. Wanda's always seemed pretty fair-minded, and I think she's the kind of person who would honestly try to weigh up the Victor she knows against the supervillain reputation instead of instantly writing him him off as trying to trick her. There's the potential to set up a really interesting future relationship between the two of them once this series is over.

And that What If story has to happen. If Marvel doesn't write it, I may be forced to. I would be sorely tempted to write some Doom/Wanda fic for this series if I only knew Wanda's character a bit better. I need to brush up on my X-Men and Avengers back issues.

[iridania.livejournal.com]

Hijacking can be good. I found out about a lot of titles thanks to it XD Plus it's always nice hearing from someone who has a different point of view on the matter. Plus, the MU is so BIG that you're bound to miss something :/

There's the potential to set up a really interesting future relationship between the two of them once this series is over.
Right now the thing I'm most curious about is what Wanda will do about 'Victor'. She seemed pretty much in love with him - so it'll be interesting to see how things will evolve from here. Will she resent him or will she be grateful to him? Anything could happen.

The best thing about What If stories is that there are so many alternate realities in the Marvel universe that literally anything could become canon at some point. I'm pretty much addicted to that. ♥