The Return of Doctor Doom!
Another stellar tale starring the Fantastic Four, this time seeing them up against Dr. Doom, and themselves (in a way), with a little help from Stan and Jack themselves! Featuring heedless fourth wall breaking (which, admittedly, I’ve always been a sucker for ever since seeing Gremlins 2 as a kid and being like “Hulk Hogan’s in the cinema!”) that introduces the writers within their own story is kind of crazy, but kind of cool at the same time. It happens just at the point where Mr. Fantastic confronts Sue about her feelings for Namorand BAM, we cut directly to a frustrated Lee and Kirby as they try to figure out what to do next before Dr. Doom walks into their studio. Genius.
Moving on from here, we get another “oh no, the Fantastic Four are doing bad things!”story (only this time, it’s just Mr. Fantastic, and yeah, once again, it isn’t really him, it’s only Dr. freakin’ Doom inside his body.) Once again though, it works extremely well and highlights several key elements to both Doom and Richards’ personalities that clash and in turn create some decent drama. My only complaint once again is that the villain here slips up too easily in the end in order to wrap things up, but then, he does vanish into thin air which is interesting! Is this the end of Dr. Doom? Most likely not but I’ll definitely be staying tuned to see just how Lee and Kirby get themselves out of this one by the time they realise they need him back.
A terrific issue. Perhaps the best yet.
