Fantastic Four #15
Dec. 19th, 2013 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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doomfansTwo Doom appearances this week. Fantastic Four first:
We resume where the last issue left off, with our the F4 in the alternate universe, where they've just met their AU counterparts. AU Reed reveals that the reason their powers have been going haywire is that they've acquired the AU team's powers on top of their own. He goes about correcting that, but just before everyone's back to normal, AU Scott Lang interrupts the process, throwing one of Kang's time devices to freeze the AU F4. He explains that he's working under duress for Doctor Doom, who has promised he can bring Cassie back to life.
Meanwhile, Doom retrieves this universe's Jean Grey from where she's being held prisoner; it seems that she's a time anomaly who creates a blind spot in Kang's powers, so he can use her as a sort of human shielding device to stay off Kang's radar. With that advantage, he makes it back to his time platform. He returns seconds later, but his time travel trip doesn't seem to have changed anything; Reed says Doom knows better than to try to alter the past.
The F4 free Jean from Doom, and have her use her telekinetic powers to disable the time device and resume the transfer of powers from one F4 to the other. While both F4s are temporarily out of action thanks to this, Doom pulls out a gun from somewhere and tries to shoot at Jean, which is a pretty blatant plot device to allow AU Scott to jump into the path and die sacrificing himself to stop Doom killing another teenage girl. Doom claims that technically he's kept his word to Scott since Scott is now reunited with his daughter.
AU Ben's desire to smash him in the face for this is interrupted by the arrival of Kang, who's finally got a full grip on his new powers and can now find Doom despite Jean's blocking. Kang zaps Doom and seems to be winning the battle, demanding that Doom say that he's won. Doom manages to get out the words, "You... ...lose..." Kang's new powers suddenly vanish, and Doom reveals that he used his time-travel trip to program a time limit into his power siphon, which would drain both sets of powers and transfer them to Doom. He rises up as Doom the Annihilating Conqueror. (Also, for no particular reason, this model of power siphon is apparently also a costume siphon, so he ends up wearing a mix of all three villain outfits.)
Again, not a bad issue, though a bit rushed. It's Ienco on art again, and it still looks lovely, especially with Paul Mounts' colours. Ienco draws great versions of both Doom and Kang, and despite the hectic plot the action's always very clear. Doom's trick with the time platform is suitably smart and sneaky, and siphoning others' powers into himself is definitely his thing, even if the combining of names and costumes comes off overly daft and Silver Agey.
As I say, his attempt to kill Jean (and the fact it's done with a random where-did-that-come-from gun rather than a straightforward energy blast) definitely comes off like a plot device without much logical motivation; I guess you could reason that his plan was to kill Jean to remove the temporal anomaly so Kang would find him and show up, but that's not explained anywhere in the comic, and given that he could just as easily have programmed a teleporter into the siphon or whatever it just comes off as a lazy way to set up Scott's redemptive sacrifice.
But aside from that clunky bit it's a pretty decent outing for Doctor Doom, and Kesel writes good dialogue for him. My main concern now is that with just one issue to go before the relaunch and Doom only just powered up, I can't really see how they could wrap this all up in a way that won't seem rushed and anticlimactic.
We resume where the last issue left off, with our the F4 in the alternate universe, where they've just met their AU counterparts. AU Reed reveals that the reason their powers have been going haywire is that they've acquired the AU team's powers on top of their own. He goes about correcting that, but just before everyone's back to normal, AU Scott Lang interrupts the process, throwing one of Kang's time devices to freeze the AU F4. He explains that he's working under duress for Doctor Doom, who has promised he can bring Cassie back to life.
Meanwhile, Doom retrieves this universe's Jean Grey from where she's being held prisoner; it seems that she's a time anomaly who creates a blind spot in Kang's powers, so he can use her as a sort of human shielding device to stay off Kang's radar. With that advantage, he makes it back to his time platform. He returns seconds later, but his time travel trip doesn't seem to have changed anything; Reed says Doom knows better than to try to alter the past.
The F4 free Jean from Doom, and have her use her telekinetic powers to disable the time device and resume the transfer of powers from one F4 to the other. While both F4s are temporarily out of action thanks to this, Doom pulls out a gun from somewhere and tries to shoot at Jean, which is a pretty blatant plot device to allow AU Scott to jump into the path and die sacrificing himself to stop Doom killing another teenage girl. Doom claims that technically he's kept his word to Scott since Scott is now reunited with his daughter.
AU Ben's desire to smash him in the face for this is interrupted by the arrival of Kang, who's finally got a full grip on his new powers and can now find Doom despite Jean's blocking. Kang zaps Doom and seems to be winning the battle, demanding that Doom say that he's won. Doom manages to get out the words, "You... ...lose..." Kang's new powers suddenly vanish, and Doom reveals that he used his time-travel trip to program a time limit into his power siphon, which would drain both sets of powers and transfer them to Doom. He rises up as Doom the Annihilating Conqueror. (Also, for no particular reason, this model of power siphon is apparently also a costume siphon, so he ends up wearing a mix of all three villain outfits.)
Again, not a bad issue, though a bit rushed. It's Ienco on art again, and it still looks lovely, especially with Paul Mounts' colours. Ienco draws great versions of both Doom and Kang, and despite the hectic plot the action's always very clear. Doom's trick with the time platform is suitably smart and sneaky, and siphoning others' powers into himself is definitely his thing, even if the combining of names and costumes comes off overly daft and Silver Agey.
As I say, his attempt to kill Jean (and the fact it's done with a random where-did-that-come-from gun rather than a straightforward energy blast) definitely comes off like a plot device without much logical motivation; I guess you could reason that his plan was to kill Jean to remove the temporal anomaly so Kang would find him and show up, but that's not explained anywhere in the comic, and given that he could just as easily have programmed a teleporter into the siphon or whatever it just comes off as a lazy way to set up Scott's redemptive sacrifice.
But aside from that clunky bit it's a pretty decent outing for Doctor Doom, and Kesel writes good dialogue for him. My main concern now is that with just one issue to go before the relaunch and Doom only just powered up, I can't really see how they could wrap this all up in a way that won't seem rushed and anticlimactic.
