S1E2: Fantastic Four #5-8 - The First Appearance of Doctor Doom

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In this episode, I dive into Fantastic Four #5–8, where Doctor Doom makes his first appearance, Namor returns for a diabolical team-up, Reed Richards’ “genius” starts to blur the line between hero and antihero, and we meet the Puppet Master and Alicia Masters.

Stories Covered In This Episode

"Prisoners of Doctor Doom" - Fantastic Four #5, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, Color by Stan Goldberg, Lettered by Artie Simek

"Captives of the Deadly Duo" - Fantastic Four #6, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot and Dick Ayers, Color by Stan Goldberg, Lettered by Terry Szenicks 

"Prisoners of Kurrgo, Master of Planet X" - Fantastic Four #7, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot and Dick Ayers, Color by Stan Goldberg, Lettered by Artie Simek

"Prisoners of the Puppet Master" - Fantastic Four #8, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot and Dick Ayers, Color by Stan Goldberg, Lettered by Artie Simek

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Transcript

Joe: What's going on Marvelites? Welcome to Reading the Multiverse, a Marvel Comics journey presented by Earth's mightiest Nerds. I am your host, Joe, and welcome to episode two of the podcast. We have four fantastic four books on today's docket. We are reading Fantastic four, five through eight, and um, yeah, we don't have much to really carry over from the first four issues.

We got some really great introductions to characters. We've got Namor. We got the Skrulls and we got Miracle Man, there's not much to know from those issues with the exception of Namor and Sue kinda have a little thing going on between them, which we're gonna see that carry over into one of the books today.

But without further ado, let's get into from April of 1962, the Fantastic four issue. Number five, prisoners of Dr. Doom. Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnot Color by Stan Goldberg. And lettered by Artie Simek. This is one heck of an issue because it is the first introduction of quite possibly and arguably the greatest villain of all time.

Victor Von Doom, AKA Dr. Doom. Now with this being doom's first appearance and a lot of things have changed over time, there's a lot of stuff in this that we haven't seen in a very long time. Maybe if ever, um, he's got this like interesting helicopter plane thing that he, he is riding around in. He's got like this vulture that you can see on the cover.

And he also had like a big game cat. I don't think we've seen any of those things. However, there are some really, uh, first things that we're gonna see in this issue that have stood the test of time that Dr. Doom still uses today. So anyway, doom goes to capture the Fantastic Four and does so by dropping a net over the Baxter Tower.

He then demands that Sue be his hostage and the team obliges so that they can live another day. We also learned that as Doom speaks, Reed recognizes his voice and we get some of the origin story of Doom. We do learn that Reed and Doom went to college together, but Doom was always doing forbidden experiments, which then one day caused a terrible accident and left his face badly disfigured doom, then left the school for Tibet seeking forbidden secrets of Black magic.

So back to the present, doom takes Sue and the rest of the team to his castle and he asks Reed, Ben and Johnny to go back in time and retrieve Blackbeard's treasure. For him, the reward is that he sets Sue free when they return with the treasure. Pretty much immediately doom sends them back in time as the entire time Reed, Ben and Johnny have been standing on Doom's time platform, which again, this is one of those things that's been sticking around since the first introduction of Dr. Doom, which I think is so amazing that we still see that Doom has this time machine and it's, you know, obviously stood the test of time. Uh, with that being said.

We then have Reed, Ben and Johnny finding themselves back in time, but out of place in their blue uniforms. And lucky for them, there's two pirates who happen to steal some clothes. So our heroes just steal it from them after they run away, uh, after they see Ben, and then they run away. And we probably get one of the best panels and quite possibly one of the most iconic panels of the thing where he has this pirate hat on a yellow bandana and an eye patch as well as a black beard.

And he feels pretty good about himself in this costume, which is, uh, actually a nice change given the fact that he's been so down on himself in the first four issues about, you know, going from a human to the thing. So our heroes find themselves. At a pub and these other pirates see them and they say that they want them to join their crew.

So they send over some quote unquote grog, and the next thing you know, the three of them are passed out and they're locked up. Now, once they wake up, they're locked up in the whole of a pirate ship, but that doesn't last long as the thing breaks through and pretty much single handedly takes on the entire.

As soon as that battle is done, their ship is attacked by another ship. Johnny Flames on and gets the other ship riled up, and then Reid stretches out to act as a bridge, and the crew that they just defeated is now 100 supporting the thing. So they all rush over attacking the attacker ship and it doesn't take long to defeat that crew.

And as they're celebrating, they're calling Ben Blackbeard. And Reed comes to the realization that Ben is technically Blackbeard. Our heroes then find a treasure, and Reed says they're leaving the actual treasure behind because they said they were just going to bring back the treasure chest, not necessarily the treasure.

Which Reed here is a liar because when you go back to the panel. He agreed that he would bring back the treasure, not necessarily the chest. So with that being said, we got, we got some, some morally wrong issues here with Reed. We'll, we'll talk about that a little bit later. But Ben says he's not going back because he likes being blackbeard.

A twister then shows up causing a shipwreck, and our heroes are wash ashore and pretty much immediately doom brings them back to the current time. As Doom opens the empty treasure chest and then threatens the Fantastic four Ben Bops him on the head. But it turns out that that doom wasn't actually doom.

It was a Doom bot. Again, another thing that has stood the test of time, like absolutely amazing, we see Doom Bots absolutely everywhere throughout the entire Marvel universe. And the fact that they were introduced, uh, in this first appearance of Dr. Doom, and again, that they've stood the test of time is absolutely incredible, in my opinion.

Doom then reveals that he is hidden elsewhere in the castle and Sue escapes and releases her team and they break free. Johnny then sets the castle ablaze, but Dr. Doom is able to escape with a jet pack. That is how we end issue five. Again, first introduction of Dr. Doom. If you don't know anything about me or anything along those lines, which you may not, I am a huge fan of Dr.

Doom. So this of course is a great issue according to, to, you know what I like. Um, but the fact that we got this intro to Dr. Doom again, we've got a crazy story. I'm loving. You saw that kind of change through. As the stories got crazier from episode one of Issue one through four, the storytelling gets crazier and crazier, and I absolutely.

Uh, really enjoy that so, so much about these. Um, we got a, a crazy story, right? Going back in time. They, we learned that Ben is actually Blackbeard and then, you know, we're back and we get, we get dune bots, we got time travel, all these great things in this story. Plus the introduction of, again, the greatest villain of all time, Dr.

Doom. With that being said, we're gonna go and kind of. Shift gears a little bit. We're gonna see Dr. Doom again. But from June of 1962, the Fantastic four issue number six, captives of the Deadly Duo, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnott and Dick Ayers. Color by Stan Goldberg.

Lettered by Terry Snicks. Johnny has been looking out for any clues if Dr. Doom has been nearby. And what's interesting is that the first few pages is that we're starting to build in some of this public perception of the Fantastic Four. There seems to be people who aren't even sure that the Fantastic Four are real, and then there's people who don't necessarily agree with what the Fantastic four do.

And then of course there are people who absolutely love. The Fantastic four because when Johnny and Sue, Johnny and Sue return home, they're reading fan mail. I also think it's worth mentioning that as they're reading the fan mail, we get two more major things that have been carried forward in Fantastic four lore, and that's the first mention of unstable molecules, which allows Reed's uniform to stretch, as well as the Yancy Street gang, which is always terrorizing Ben.

Meanwhile, Dr. Doom has been spying on namor and catches up with him via plane and says they need to chat, and that's when said plane casually turns into a submarine again. Absolutely wild, wild imagination and creativity, which I absolutely love. So doom and namor are chatting it up. And I also gotta say how much I love Nam War's interior decoration, like his throne is made out of shells.

His ottoman is a sponge. It is a little diabolical, but he's got this like jellyfish in like a snow globe looking pearl thing. Either way, doom sees Namor has a picture of Sue's storm and convinces Namor. He needs to get revenge on humans for destroying Atlantis and Namor agrees as long as Sue stays safe.

Then we have a display of Doom's newest invention, which again. I know a fair amount about doom. We're going to see that this guy is, uh, Uber smart and he's like a master inventor. He's always inventing stuff. And again, just one of the, the things that we get to see of doom and that has just stood the test of time and continues to build to like the doom lore.

Anyway, he invented this cleverly named invention called the Grabber because basically it'll grab anything of any size and weight thanks to a magnetic force. Doom gives the device to Namor and he goes out in search of the Fantastic four. Meanwhile, back at the Baxter building, Johnny is rooting through Sue's stuff like any little brother would and finds a picture of Namor.

Yes. Then out of name, then out of nowhere, name. Oh, then, excuse me, I can't talk. Then out of nowhere, Namor shows up and it's actually hilarious because Ben says, Namor, how'd you get in here? And Namor just casually says, oh, I flew through the window. Come on, it's fantastic. Four, like, we gotta step up our security game.

What is happening? Anyway, the Fantastic Four want to fight him, and Namor has no care for fighting. So the team, except for Sue, who keeps protecting Namor, thinks he set a trap. Then the whole building lifts from the ground and into the sky. When Namor says he's teamed up with doom, as doom is in this spaceship, he pulls them obviously again with the grabber.

They go further and further into space, and our heroes are trying to stop him. Johnny doesn't get very far and Reed's hands get burnt. So much so that he needs to have them bandaged up. That's when Namor learns there's a water tank in the building. He dives to revive his powers, and that's when he jumps from the building into space and catches up with doom's spaceship.

He doesn't actually ever catch doom because doom leaves through an escape hatch and uh, happens to fall onto a meteor, which then takes him further into space. Nemore then returns the building back to its rightful spot in New York City. Trashes, trashes, the spaceship and the grabber in the ocean, which, come on man, why are you gonna ruin?

Why are you gonna ruin your home? And he goes into the ocean as well. That is the end of issue six. I felt like this was such a great team up. Between Namor and Doom, we get to see, uh, pretty standard Doom fashion that he is always thinking about himself is, and is always one step ahead of everyone else.

Um, and I just think that again, the fact that that has been continued into his lore for the most part is just great that since it started from the beginning, um. But the other thing that's quite interesting, we get a little bit deeper into the love story between Namor and Sue. It's quite interesting given the fact that we learned in issue one that Sue is Reed's fiance.

Now, we don't know much more beyond that, but obviously things aren't going so great if Sue is hiding a picture of Namor behind, uh, some books on a bookcase. That's all I gotta say. Um, so before we get into issue seven, we do have a special segment though, as we were able to receive a special page directly out of Dr. Doom's diary, and we are going to read it now. Live entry, the sixth Richards lives again, but he is on borrowed time. The submariner proved a worthy ally until I betrayed him. No matter. The stars have carried me farther than any man before. From their cold fire, I will forge my return and when next I stand.

Before Reed Richards, it shall not be as rival or enemy, but as his better. Obviously Doom has had some time to, uh, put some entries into his diary as he's floating away in space on a meteor. Uh, who knows when we will see him again, but I can guarantee you we will see him again relatively soon from July of 1962, the Fantastic four.

Number seven, prisoners of Kurrgo Masters of Planet X, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, colored by Stan Goldberg and lettered by Artie Sek we're We clearly have a theme, by the way, of all of these issues. The fantastic four prisoners of everyone, and it's going to continue again in issue eight.

This issue opens up. We see the leader of Planet X, Kurrgo has been spying on the Fantastic four for weeks and needs their help because there's an asteroid headed straight for their planet and they only have two spaceships, which is not enough. For their population to escape. So instead of just asking for the fantastic force help, Kurrgo sends his robot and one of their spaceships to Earth to capture the Fantastic four.

Meanwhile, our heroes are stating all of their excuses as to why they can't go to a dinner invite from Congress. With the exception of, of course, Reed. I mean, if I was them, I would not be wanting to go have a dinner at Congress either. In this, we also get a little bit more playful brother rivalry between the thing and Johnny, compared to previous issues, which before it seemed very, um, what do I wanna say?

Sinister is the wrong word, but not great between them. Uh, it seemed like they really hated each other. This one is a little bit more playful, which is nice to finally see that that's kind of what's building in this relationship between them. Anyway, the FF make their way to Washington, dc The ship from Planet X with the robot arrives and catches up with the Fantastic Four.

It sends out this hostility Ray, which pretty much makes everyone entirely rude. And I mean, we honestly have some hilarious panels of just like regular folks, like a female giving her male partner dinner. And he says, thanks, honey. And then she dumps it on his head and says, don't honey me. All of Congress says the Fantastic four are the greatest menace to society and chase them out of the capitol.

So they fly back to the Baxter building and the robot follows them back. The robot tells them they're needed on Planet X and Reed happily obliges. Meanwhile, the thing is like, no way. This is obviously a trap read. Why are you agreeing that we're gonna do this? Which I mean, rightfully so, because. Even when the thing confronts Reed, uh, privately.

He says, we're smart enough. We could have figured something out at home. But Reed says it's great, it's too great of an opportunity to pass up. So leave it to Reed to put the entire team in danger because you know, he wants to tickle his little brain. So when they get to Planet X, they are briefed on the situation from kgo.

But come to find out, they only have 24 hours before the planet is destroyed. So the FF needs. To help basically, or they're also going to be dead. So luckily for the Fantastic four, planet X is actually light years ahead of the humans in terms of technology. So Reed has basically whatever he wants at his disposal, and with only a few hours to spare, Reed figures it out.

He creates a reducing gas that will be able to make the entire population smaller so they can all fit into one of their spaceships. When they land on another planet, he has this reversing gas that will return them to normal size. So the Fantastic four are free to use the other spaceship to get back home.

And while doing so, the reducing gas has been put out by, uh, you know, the planet to their citizens, and they all shrink down. But Kurrgo holds onto the antidote, the enlarging gas canister, as he plans to be the only one who uses it so he can rule over his citizens when they get to this new planet. However, greed is his downfall because his planet is crumbling around him as he's thinking and saying this, and he doesn't let go of the canister and the spaceship leaves without him.

That's when we find out that Reed never actually made any enlarging gas. He only said that there was some that, so that they would agree to his plan and says it's okay, because they'll all be the same size when they get to this new planet. And size is relative. That's the end of the issue, but. It is honestly a perfect time for a Reed Richards morality check, where the Universe's stretchy scientist once again proves that ethics are optional.

When you are the smartest guy in the room, Reed faked an antidote to get everyone on board. That's right. Our man literally saves billions by lying through his teeth, and while it is a clutch move, because he saves billions of people, saves the Fantastic Four and makes kgo look like the galaxy's biggest chump.

Here's the question. Is that a genius strategy or just the world's most elaborate cheat code? Either way, Reed walks off with a W, but on the scoreboard of morality, I think we're still very much under review. This was a good issue, a little nice departure. I really like the fact that we got, uh, an introduction to some cosmic kind of stuff, and that's kind of really what the Fantastic Four are known for, uh, is kind of like their.

Crazy adventures, especially into space, and it's, it's, it's pretty cool that we're starting to see that kind of evolve a little bit right now into our last issue of this episode from August of 1962, the Fantastic four number eight prisoners once again of the puppet master, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, colored by Stan Goldberg and lettered by Artie Simon.

Johnny and Sue are trying to keep Ben from seeing what Reed is working on, and given that Ben thinks they're trying to keep a secret from him, he of course pretty quickly goes into one of his typical toddler tantrums and leaves before Reed can explain himself. Reed suggests that Sue follows him, but obviously be invisible, but I don't really see the point in this because once again.

Sue, all she does is talk to him the entire time while she's invisible. Like why even, why even do that again? 'cause people think Ben is now crazy 'cause he's like talking to himself and obviously he's not. So while they're out on the street though, they see a person climbing the bridge. So Sue, Sue. Shoots the Fanta flare.

So Johnny goes out there and is able to save them. We learned that this guy is climbing the bridge, but he doesn't know why. And that's when we cut to a man recreating this exact moment on a scale model, and his finger is also burned at the same moment. When Johnny saves the man in real life, and we learned that this guy is the puppet master.

And I gotta say, he's probably one of the ugliest villains I've ever seen. If you've never seen him and you're listening to the audio podcast, uh, he's got a big old forehead, which is kind of typical of like Jack Kirby drawings. By the way, at least initially. He's got a big old forehead. He's got some glaring eyes.

His, he's bald. He just looks like a menace. He's got this big, you know, menace, menacing grin on him. He's just, he's just not a good looking guy. He's not, he also looks like a puppet almost. He kinda looks like a puppet now that I think about it. Like one of those ventriloquist puppets. That's what he looks like.

Anyway, we learn that he has a stepdaughter, Alicia, and clearly their relationship is not so great because he de, he dismisses her relatively quickly. And not only that, he says that he's lucky to be able to hide his villainous work from her because she's blind. And then we see him mold the thing out of this radioactive clay, which is honestly pretty interesting.

'cause now he put on this like, um, special suit obviously to not be, uh, affected by the radio activity. But apparently he didn't need it when he was, uh, holding the previous puppet and we won't see him wear it again. Uh, later in the issue. I don't think so. Why he needs to wear it now. Interesting. Anyway, before you know it, Ben is now in a trance and the puppet master makes him walk to the puppet master's apartment.

So Sue follows him, obviously turns invisible to get into the apartment behind him, but she is detected by Alicia. The puppet master is easily able to take her as a prisoner because he, of course, has a switch for, uh, you know, just a toxic gas to be re released into the room and he quickly puts on a gas mask onto himself the thing.

And Alicia. Anyway, once he has Sue in his grass, he says that he, she and Alicia look very similar, so he quickly makes Alicia look like Sue, and I'm talking like the next panel, like literally, probably minutes later. She now has Sue's haircut and is in a fantastic four uniform. Howie did this so fast, I don't know.

Anyway, he makes Alicia look like Sue and Alicia goes back with Ben to the Baxter building. And while that's happening, the puppet master has taken control of the warden at a local prison again using his radioactive clay. So since Ben is in this trance, when he gets back to the Baxter building, he throws a fit and starts breaking everything.

And although, I mean, does he really need to be in a trance to do that? I don't think so. He runs into what Reed has been working on, and it's a formula to try and turn back into a human, which works, but only for a short bit unfortunately. Again, we just keep teasing Ben with all of this and he, I feel like he just gets more trauma every time he turns back to human.

He kind of probably gets a whole bunch of relief and then he just turns back into the thing. However, we do get another little love interaction here, so we get the sense that Alicia is kind of into Ben because she notices it's the same person, but felt his face when he was the thing and also felt his face when he was Ben.

So that's just something that we're setting up for the future. I want you to remember that as we move forward into future episodes. Anyway, Sue tries to get away from the puppet master as he's engrossed with the warden of the jail, and he let all the prisoners out and she's able to set off the FTA flare.

But Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Alicia are just a little too late as the puppet master flies off with Sue on his horse with wings. Yes. Horse with wings. That's what I said. Reid is able to grab her and the puppet master gets away. But the Fantastic four make their way to the prison. Obviously there's, there's a ton of action here at the prison.

All you need to know is that the Fantastic Four Save the day. And Alicia is back at her apartment. She's so upset that her stepfather was such a menace. And of course he's creepily appearing behind her. And then he appears in front of her showing off his most favorite puppet, which is him as a king ruler of.

All the world. That's when the puppet master tells Alicia his plan. But Alicia tries to steal the puppet out of his hand, and as it falls to the ground, so does Alicia. And as she reaches for the puppet, the puppet master trips over her hand and directly out the window shortly after, and I mean, literally it says seconds later, the Fantastic four show up into the apartment, Alicia is prying and they wonder if the puppet master will ever be the same again.

Uh, that's because we have this wonderful visual and supposedly they saw him outside and I don't know how that would be possible given that they were seconds into their apartment later. Anyway, we have a great visual of the puppet master, like king doll on the ground, face down, I'm assuming, indicating that that's exactly what happened to him.

On the outside from falling out of the window. Uh, another, uh, really weird and wild issue. We get an introduction again to one of their bigger foes, the puppet master, but we also get an introduction to Alicia Masters, which is going to be huge moving forward, um, especially for Ben. With that being said, again, I'm, I'm loving the wildness and the craziness to these stories and how they're building.

Um, obviously they're a little farfetched, like way too farfetched, but I love that about them. Um, but. From there. We're going to continue to see some more craziness. I know next episode we're gonna cover, we are going to see Dr. Doom once again. We are also going to see Namor and my favorite issue of the Fantastic Four, like out of all the fantastic four issues I've ever read, my favorite issue, we are going to cover next episode.

And I mean like it might even be one of my most favorite comic issues I've ever read because it is so, so crazy. If you are listening to this, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have the time, I would love it if you left a rating and a review on the show. It truly helps, uh, helps, uh, the podcast get found on podcast players because there's really no good way to get found on them for the most part.

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wonder what Sue really sees and name more 'cause he like. Proposed to her immediately. And obviously they both had kind of like love at first sight from issue four, but man, the fact that they both have a picture of each other in their homes and they're just like longing for each other, I just, I don't see how this can work out for Reed, like at all.

'cause he hasn't really, hasn't really shown much affection to, to sue all that much. And so, I don't know man.