“The Return of Doctor Doom!”Script by Stan Lee
Pencils by Jack Kirby
Inks by Dick Ayers
Letters by Art Simek
There's a two-page sequence in which Reed, Sue and Johnny all rush to the scene of the signal that is perfunctory and embarrassing in just about every way. It starts with Reed stopping Johnny from using his flame on a jammed "nuclear lock mechanism" because it's so sensitive to heat. I'd love to know what was going through Stan's head when he came up with "nuclear lock mechanism" and exactly how making a lock nuclear would be a benefit in any fashion. Especially since it doesn't seem to work. Then Reed tries to stretch his arm under the door all the way to the Fansti-car hangar, only to instead get his hand all the way to the Pogo-Plane hangar instead. Exhausted, his arm snaps back to him like a rubber band.
Having captured Reed, Doom recounts an unconvincing and rather silly rationale for his return from space. Having been last seen in issue six plunging into deep space, he found a race of aliens that are stereotypically very advanced yet totally naive. They hook up Doom with their body transfer technology and return him to Earth. Using the alien technology, he switches bodies with Reed. They fight and the rest of the FF show up and, naturally, help restrain the body of Doom and put him in a prison made of impenetrable plexiglass.
Logic completely leaves the story as Johnny uses his power to project a heat mirage of a stick of dynamite being used at a nearby construction site into the lab. The Doom mind in Reed runs, while the Reed mind in Doom tries to save everyone. Convinced the mind switch is real, Doom is shocked enough that the switch somehow reverses itself. The FF then turn the shrink ray on Doom and he dwindles into nothingness.
As you can see, nothing makes sense in this story and nothing of importance seems to happen. We learn little about Doctor Doom, and almost nothing happens among the FF either. Kirby's art lacks the scope and innovation of recent issues, and Lee's script only hampers any potential for salvaging anything decent.
They might have titled this story, "Lo, There Shall Come — A Stinker!" The previous nine issues all saw improvements of one kind or another, but this issue is truly weak in every respect. This issue is, in fact, so bad that all I can really do with it is do a quick run through and make some snarky comments about it, so here goes.
This issue begins with Reed trying to figure out how Sue's invisibility power works, using a big machine that looks like a cross between a howitzer and a vintage camera. Far from Kirby's best splash page, it's made even weirder by the fact that the Human Torch is assisting Reed by taking notes while in full flame mode. It's so odd, that it gets a mention in Sue's dialog, just before the "4" signal appears in the sky and the trio assume Ben's in trouble and rush off to help.
And it just gets weirder from there.
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| Someone needs to tell Reed nukes are unsafe to keep around the house. |
The trio finds Ben at the apartment of Alicia Masters, now officially dubbed Ben's girlfriend in a caption, and find he just wants to show them the statues she's made of their villains.
Then we get to what I'm sure was the scene that most motivated this issue, as Lee and Kirby themselves appear for the first time in a Marvel story. Doctor Doom shows up at their studio and uses them Reed to a trap. Lee obviously loves this scene, giving himself some crackerjack dialog. Kirby, meanwhile, shows enough restraint to not even show his (or Lee's) face in the scene.
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| That's the corner of Stan Lee's head on the left. I wonder if Doom's destroying one of the famous FF ashtrays that was produced in the 1960s. And I still think Stan Lee needs to appear on Mad Men. |
Having captured Reed, Doom recounts an unconvincing and rather silly rationale for his return from space. Having been last seen in issue six plunging into deep space, he found a race of aliens that are stereotypically very advanced yet totally naive. They hook up Doom with their body transfer technology and return him to Earth. Using the alien technology, he switches bodies with Reed. They fight and the rest of the FF show up and, naturally, help restrain the body of Doom and put him in a prison made of impenetrable plexiglass.
Returning to Reed's lab, Doom starts making — of all things — a shrink ray that he tests on some animals he stole from the zoo. He somehow talks the trio into thinking that the shrink ray is the answer to all their problems, though his explanation for why makes absolutely no sense. Of course, the ray won't do what he says — instead, it'll shrink the FF into nothingness. Nice.
Back in the cell, Reed of course finds a way to escape and goes to Alicia's apartment. Sue just happens to be visiting and whacks him over the head. Ben and Johnny come over and they take the body of Doom with Reed's mind back to the Baxter Building.
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| Just thinking about how this might work makes my head hurt. |
Logic completely leaves the story as Johnny uses his power to project a heat mirage of a stick of dynamite being used at a nearby construction site into the lab. The Doom mind in Reed runs, while the Reed mind in Doom tries to save everyone. Convinced the mind switch is real, Doom is shocked enough that the switch somehow reverses itself. The FF then turn the shrink ray on Doom and he dwindles into nothingness.
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| The transfer is undone. This is not Kirby's most dramatic work |
This reminds me of those lame clip-show episodes TV series used to do when they had no decent script and the season was ending and it was a lame way pad out the episode. Lee and Kirby are lucky that their lackluster handling of Doom in this particular issue didn't undermine future stories that would secure his position as the series' premier villain.
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