Fantastic Four 10

The Return of Doctor Doom!

by

Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

In the laboratory of the Fantastic Four's headquarters, Reed Richards is conducting experiments with Sue Storm to better understand her powers. With her brother Johnny standing by to aid their leader in his research, the room starts getting too hot for Sue. Johnny forgot to turn his flame off. Looking outside, Sue spots the Fantastic Four "4" flare in the sky. They realize it must be Thing shooting an emergency, since he isn't there. As the three of them try to exit, Reed struggles opening the nuclear lock he has built on the lab door. Johnny prepares to flame on to fix it, but Reed has to remind him that nuclear, plus fire, equals bad. Reed stretches his arm into a vent, but ends up in the wrong room trying to find the Fantasticar to save them. Luckily, Johnny has learned how to flame his finger on without causing heat in his fight against Paste-Pot Pete, which he can use to open the door.

Outside, the team rushes through the crowded Manhattan streets. They inadvertantly cause chaos as they rush over to the apartment of Alicia Masters, where the Thing has shot the flare from. There is no real emergency, Thing just wanted to show off Alicia's talents to the group. Despite being blind, she is a very gifted sculptress. Her latest work is creating busts of all of the Fantastic Four's villains. Sue wonders why Namor is included since he isn't really a villain, just misunderstood. This sparks Reed to contend with her thoughts of Namor and where he stands, but Sue makes it clear she's not ready to have a conversation about it yet.

In the studio of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, creators of the Fantastic Four and many other Marvel features, the pair have only gotten as far as the past two paragraphs of this story. They struggle to come up with a dynamic new villain for the piece. They lament having stranded Dr. Doom in space, when suddenly he enters the room. Lee and Kirby stare dumbstruck, when Doom demands that they phone Reed Richards. He wants them to say they want to discuss a new story idea with him and then when Reed arrives, Doom will capture him. The creative team complies.

Back at the Baxter Building, Reed recieves a phone call. It is from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Apparently, Reed and them have been working together to create new stories for awhile now. Thing thinks they need to stop drawing him so ugly. Reed heads over to the studio. The moment he arrives, Doctor Doom springs his trap. He shoots Reed with a gas that knocks him out and they leave to Doom's fortress by means of Doom's mental teleportation.

Now in his captivity, Doctor Doom explains to Reed his newfound powers. While he was drifting through space clutching onto the meteor, he was rescued by an alien race called the Ovoids. To them using their mental powers is an everyday occurence. They can teleport, lift objects and transfer their mind to prepared bodies to virtually live forever. They are a very trusting race, which Doom took advantage of in order to learn these mind tricks himself. The Ovoids used their mental energies to send Doom back to earth. With these new powers, Doom plans to dominate the world. His first step is exchanging his mind with Reed Richards's.

With the transfer complete, Doctor Doom, whose mind now possesses Reed's body, attacks Reed Richards, whose mind is now in Doctor Doom's body. As the two of them battle, the rest of the Fantastic Four show up. Not privy to the mindswap, the team quickly rescue "Reed." The fake Reed rips a mechanism off of "Doctor Doom's" body, so he cannot teleport. They then quickly imprison "Doom" inside a glass dome, that "Reed" says has enough oxygen in it. After the team is out of earshot, "Reed" reveals it only has enough oxygen for one hour. "Reed" leaves, gloating in his triumph over his foe.

Shortly, the Fantastic Four laboratory is overflowing with tiny animals stolen from the local zoo. As Sue, Johnny and Thing try to gather them all up, they become suspicious of Reed. Reed explains that he has created a device to shrink organic beings. He had to test it on live animals first to make sure it would work on people. He goes on to give a bizarre story about the dinosaurs and how they simply got too big and grew themselves out of existance. If they had remained much smaller, they might have been able to colonize other planets. He wants to use this device to shrink the four of them and then when he resizes them, their power will increase. The three of them are completely won over by this absurd notion. What "Reed" has failed to tell them is that the ray will shrink them, but he won't be able to resize them.

Meanwhile, "Doctor Doom" has escaped. Using the metal mask of Doctor Doom, he makes a small crack in the glass dome. He then grabs one of the oxygen capsules and stuffs it in the crack. He takes another oxygen container and flings it into the other, causing an explosion strong enough to shatter the glass. From Doom's lair, "Doom" makes his way to Alicia Master's apartment. As he tries to explain the situation to her, a visiting Invisible Girl slams a vase over his head.

As "Doctor Doom" stumbles to the ground of Alicia Masters' apartment, the blind sculptress rushes to him. She tells Sue that she can sense an aura of goodness about him that doesn't make sense if he is Doctor Doom. After a call from Sue, Thing and the Human Torch arrive. Outraged, Thing prepares to punch Doom's lights out, when some gut instinct holds him back. They return to Fantastic Four headquarters where they meet up with "Reed."

Bound up, the real Reed is desperate to convince his teammates that he is the real Reed Richards. He sees what Doctor Doom has prepared for his teammates and leaps into action. After Doom stops him, Human Torch comes up with a plan to reveal the truth. He uses his flame powers to create a mirage of a stick of dynamite from a nearby construction site. The real Reed in Doctor Doom's body jumps right for the dynamite, risking his life to pull the fuse out. The real Doctor Doom in Reed's body uses his stretch powers to stretch out of the room. saving only himself. This action convinces the group of who their true leader is. When Doctor Doom realizes his plan is falling apart, his grip on on their mind exchange relaxes and they both go back to their true bodies.

Doctor Doom shoots a blast at Mr. Fantastic. Reed dodges the blast, which triggers the shrinking device to hit him. Doctor Doom shrinks away to the fate he had planned for the group. Before anyone can save him, Doctor Doom becomes so small he simply disappears. Thing admits his appreciation of Reed as their leader.

Character stuff:

Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastic is more than capable of taking care of himself in a pinch. He shows that he still cares for Sue, despite her confusion regarding Namor

Human Torch - Needs to be reminded how dangerous his powers are. I don't know if his heatless flame trick is the same one he used in the Paste-Pot Pete intro story, but it seems pretty similar to how he freed himself from the rocket in that one.

Invisible Girl - She still has feelings for Reed, but clearly also has feelings for Namor.

Thing - Is very sentimental in this story. He wants to show off Alicia's artwork to his friends and he shows how much he respects Reed as their leader.

Alicia Masters - Appears to have an ability to read peoples auras. This was displayed in her first appearance when meeting the Thing for the first time. Here she seems to be able to use it on Reed/Doctor Doom too.

Doctor Doom - Doctor Doom's plan to conquer the earth is foiled yet again by Reed Richards being more clever than him.

Notes & Thoughts

Doctor Doom learned a new trick using his mind from some strange aliens.

This is the first time we see the creative team of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby within the story. We know Marvel Comics exist within the universe from FF #2 when Reed beat the Skrulls with clippings from the monster titles and in FF #5 when Johnny is reading Hulk #1.

I wonder if Doctor Doom heard of Ant-Man and this gave him the idea to shrink the Fantastic Four. He seems really outlandish after returning from space. His notion that the dinosaurs outrgrew themselves doesn't make much sense. The fact that the rest of the Fantastic Four go along with the story makes even worse sense. Maybe Johnny and Sue who don't seem to have science backgrounds of any kind, but the Thing is a smart guy. He should be able to tell this massive lie Doom is spewing.

Review & Rankings

This is a really fun story, with some well done turmoil & emotional depth for Reed. However, there are some extremely odd choices along the way. The beginning sequence of opening the FF lab door is a little clunky. The meta bit with Kirby & Lee is just on the border of being cheesy, but I think it's done in an interesting enough way that they can get away with it. The art is really good on Reed's face after the switch is made, he has more shadow lines indicating his malevolence. Doctor Doom's plan of shrinking the FF is fine, but stealing the zoo animals is a touch too far. It's funny seeing the tiny animals, but it really doesn't lead anywhere beyond some silly visuals. Doom's explanation to the FF is truely baffling. Dinosaurs would become spacemen? Where did that come from? The final caveat, the Human Torch's mirage trick is very convoluted and reeks of the sorts of strange stuff he can do with his flame in his own title. This is the biggest blunder of the whole story to me. It just doesn't work.

I consider it a classic, whenever I think of mindswap stories, this issue springs to mind. It's a must-read if you are interested in the Doctor Doom/Reed Richards dynamic. I want to put it just under Journey into Mystery 83, Thor's first appearance, right above FF #2 at ranking #12. Both fun and classic stories that get a little muddled with exposition and odd aliens.

Next Time: Ant-Man faces the red menace. Not that one.