nomadicwriter: Doctor Doom on his throne (Doom throne)
nomadicwriter ([personal profile] nomadicwriter) wrote in [community profile] doomfans2013-11-29 12:24 am

FF #14

The story picks up from where the preview leaves off. Scott hatches a plan to take on Doom; he has the team gather up various supervillains' old robots, an obscure magician from the 1940s (since Doom will be expecting them to use Doctor Strange), and a bunch of remote controlled Thing suits for the kids to control.

The multi-dimension Council of Dooms are observing events and know the FF plan to strike, but our Doom has shut them out so they can't warn him. Most of the Dooms are of the opinion he doesn't need warning, because Doom, but others are concerned. (Interestingly, the dubious two are Dooms who look like Doctor Strange and Namor, suggesting they're both victims of his mind-swap power and that perhaps there's a little bit of the other personality remaining.) Namor-Doom finally brings up the elephant in the room that hey, Kid Immortus knew and loved Scott Lang's dead daughter and perhaps that's a problem. Also, the presence of Kang's sidekick Ravonna seems to concern them, since she hasn't been present in any of the other 'cycles' (alternate versions of this story playing out in other universes, presumably) and might cause things to go differently this time.

Our Doom gives Annihilus a new cosmic control rod, nabbed from another universe. Annihilus is sceptical that other universes exist: there's only one Negative Zone and one Annihilus. Doom twigs that he might be right rather than just egotistical, and that perhaps Reed has been hiding the fact that the Negative Zone is a portal to all other universes. (There's a nice nod here when Doom references the theories of "that clod Janus", who appeared waaaay back in Fantastic Four #107 as an old college classmate of Reed's and Doom's.) Having learned this fact, Doom betrays Annihilus and siphons his power; next job, to deal with Kang.

Meanwhile, the FF prepare, and Scott makes a speech: the plan is to strip Doom of his escape routes, hostages, magics and gadgets, even his armour, and fight him man to man. Leaving the kids behind with Bentley in charge, the older members of the FF head off to the fight.

Overall, this issue was a pleasant surprise! The preview pages made Doom look like he was being portrayed as pretty dim this time out, but that improved a lot further on. A bit less self-consciously wacky than the last issue, too, and some nice character moments among the rest of the cast. I still find the Council of Dooms stuff fairly nonsensical, and I'm not really sure how/if they're going to manage to tie this up to events in Fantastic Four with only two issues of each title left, but all in all, not bad at all. Looks like this storyline is going to finish better than the draggy way it started.

[identity profile] dhampyresa.livejournal.com 2013-12-02 09:22 pm (UTC)(link)
It's funny, but I somehow get the impression that Doom is trolling someone, I'm just not sure who yet. I think it might the difference in characterisation between Prime!Doom and the other Dooms.

I did like the nod to Cassie, but since Nate doesn't seem to object too much to working with Doom, I'm going with 'Ravona is actually Cassie' until proven otherwise. (The Watcher not answering Scott about Cassie's death being for the greater good is totally because Cassie's not dead. TOTALLY.)

Doom's minions made me laugh, because they look like they're thinking 'not this shit again'. It must be a really weird job, working for Dctor Doom. I liked the interaction between Scott and the Watcher and Bentley making like a supervillian. My absolute favourite bit the page of Medusa and Ahura, though. It was just so heartbreakingly brilliant an the art was beautiful.

[identity profile] dhampyresa.livejournal.com 2013-12-03 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
i'm going to hang onto that theory until a better one comes along. And i will forgive everything bad about Fraction's FF is it brings Cassie back from being fridged.

When in doubt, Doom is always up to something, even if it's just clearing the castle so he can marathon Star Trek in peace. (I still can't quite believe that Doom being a Trek fan is canon, by the way.)

I wonder if Allred's writing last issue might have been due to time constraints. How long did he have to write the script?

[identity profile] dhampyresa.livejournal.com 2013-12-04 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that pretty seems to me that he only got Fraction's very decompressed plot outline and didn't have time to flesh it out in a non-wacky way in the short time he had. Scott's 'Ultimate Nullifier' was pretty funny, though.