Featuring: Avengers
Release: December 9, 1965
Cover: February 1966
12 cents
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciller: Don Heck
Inker: Dick Ayers
Letterer: Sam Rosen
20 pages
| Previous | #442 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Sgt. Fury #25 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #44 |
| Avengers #24 | Avengers | Avengers #26 |
The blind fools! They do not realize that Doom cares nothing for them! He merely plays a role for purposes of his own! Truly, he is evil incarnate! If only the simple peasants could see it!
The Avengers fight Dr. Doom!
For maybe the first time, unless you count Avengers #1½–published in 1999 but set before Avengers #2–as canon: the untold first meeting of the Avengers and Dr. Doom.
Either way, it’s the first time any of these Avengers have met Dr. Doom.
Dr. Doom decides to trap the Avengers. Basically just because. His motivation shifts slightly over the course of the issue. At first, it’s because humiliating the Avengers will inspire fear in the Fantastic Four. Then it’s to take them prisoner and use them as bait for the Fantastic Four.
Dr. Doom recognizes Mr. Fantastic as his intellectual equal. To himself, at least. He’d have to kill anybody who heard him say that. He recognizes that Kang is his intellectual superior due to his future knowledge, and recalls that Kang is his descendant… or perhaps they are the same person. He claims Rama-Tut had proposed the theory they were the same person, but it was actually Doom himself who suggested it. Though really the first one to do so was the Thing. If you’re confused, might I suggest my recent post on the history of Kang. That’ll clear things up confuse you more.
Quick peek at all the Avengers drama. Hawkeye has a crush on Wanda, Wanda on Steve. I guess Hawkeye is over Black Widow now. Can’t love a woman who’s in the hospital. Hawkeye seeks to head out, but Captain America notes he must be dismissed first. I’m sympathetic to Hawkeye; I certainly would not take that attitude from a boss. Captain America muses about his responsibility to serve the team, despite having resigned 3 issues earlier. Remember when they used to do a rotating chair? That was perhaps a bit more fair and would solve all the tension.
Doom lures the Avengers to Latveria by forging a letter to Wanda and Pietro, which claims they have an aunt living in Latveria. They think they are orphans and don’t know of any family members, so are excited by this news. They think their aunt can tell them about their parents. They apparently don’t know who their parents are. (If you want to peek ahead in time, we’ll eventually learn their true father is the Whizzer Django Maximoff Magneto… I actually have no idea who their father is. But we dig into it in my post about Wandavision.)
Dr. Doom gives a crippled child a coin. Many citizens seem to genuinely love him, but a few recognize the kindness is an act and he’s actually evil.
In fact, the more fanatical citizens seem ready to form a mob and attack Dr. Doom’s perceived enemies for him. This is seeming familiar, somehow.
But when Dr. Doom won’t lift his dome to let the mother take her son to the Zuroch surgeon, she recognizes how heartless he is.
Perhaps the fact that his name is “Doom” should have been a hint that he’s the bad guy.
“Zuroch” isn’t a real place, but it sounds a lot like Zurich, which is an hour from Lichtenstein, and a small Balkan kingdom I think makes a good model for where Latveria should be geographically located.
The Fantastic Four want to help the Avengers, but Washington tells them no. Latveria is a valued ally and they can’t risk a diplomatic incident. If the Fantastic Four fighting Dr. Doom creates a diplomatic incident, I have bad news for Washington. And why is Latveria an ally when it’s ruled by an oppressive dictator. Just who are America’s friends, anyway? How did Jackson Browne put it.
But who are the ones that we call our friends
These governments killing their own
Or the people who finally can’t take anymore
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
I like when Dr. Doom calls Captain America a peasant.
Continuity notes
The Fantastic Four get busy. (No, I’m not talking about Reed and Sue’s honeymoon.) Fantastic Four #44-50 won’t leave them time to catch their breath, which means their appearance here is either before or after that stretch. The Official Marvel Index, often considered definitive, says after. The unofficial crowdsourced Marvel Chronology Project, which usually trusts the Index, says before. Most modern sources say before. Marvels #3 will suggest Fantastic Four #48-50 is concurrent with Avengers #30-31, so that definitely places this before.
We’re reading it before. I think it works better here, though I don’t see contradictions either way. But the choice isn’t a simple one. Avengers as a title is a center of gravity, so it would pull lots of comics with it if moved. Because Captain America appears here and has his own title, in a comic shared with Iron Man, both of which tie in to Nick Fury’s story, who shares a comic with Dr. Strange. Etcetera.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 51/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in The Avengers Epic Collection vol. 2: Once an Avenger.
Characters:
- Dr. Doom
- Captain America/Steve Rogers
- Quicksilver/Pietro
- Scarlet Witch/Wanda
- Hawkeye
- Invisible Girl
- Thing/Benjamin J. Grimm
- Mr. Fantastic
- Human Torch
Story notes:
- Avengers have recently returned from battle with Kang; Doom had been waiting for them to return.
- Dr. Doom acknowledges Reed as his intellectual equal, and so Reed must be destroyed.
- Dr. Doom recognizes Kang as an intellectual superior because of his future knowledge.
- Quicksilver excitedly watching acrobat on Ed Sullivan show.
- Hawkeye loses his temper with Quicksilver but needs to remember to curry his favor to take leadership.
- Doom gives farthing to crippled boy.
- Some peasants love Doom, and some recognize he is playing a role.
- Avengers arrested upon arrival; only then does Cap remember it’s Dr. Doom’s kingdom.
- Dr. Doom is the law and they are fugitives.
- Doom puts giant plastithene dome over Latveria. Designed to save Latveria from atomic attack. Used to keep Avengers trapped.
- Peasants side with Doom, spurred on by radio reports and propaganda.
- 77 Sunset Strip reference.
- Magnetic force field traps Cap’s shield.
- Doom’s device nullifies Wanda’s hex power.
- Hawkeye’s arrow melts Doom’s armor; same used against Iron Man.
- Mother begs Doom to open dome so she can take son to surgeon in Zuroch.
- News reports Avengers accused of spying in Latveria.
- Mr. Fantastic seeks clearance to take off in jet-cycle from Washington; clearance denied.
- Rolling Stones reference.
- Doom fires vibra-ray; Cap’s shield blocks it.
- Avengers release dome and escape; kid can get treatment.
| Previous | #442 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Sgt. Fury #25 | Reading order | Fantastic Four #44 |
| Avengers #24 | Avengers | Avengers #26 |
I first read this in an “Essential” collection in black and white, and the scans here remind me how important the colorist’s job is. Whoever did the colors here did a great job of separating foreground and background, and making characters recognizable from panel to panel with simple tricks like giving the civilian Avengers different color coats.
That’s where I’d have first read it too. I eventually upgraded to the Masterworks and have come to like the Epic Collections.
That last panel on Page 18 is evocative of many classic Avengers action shots, and it really portends the level of teamwork that the future will bring.