Reading The Multiverse: A Marvel Comics Journey

S1E16: Fantastic Four #57-59 - Dr. Doom Steals The Silver Surfer's Powers

• Earth's Mightiest Nerds • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Send Joe a message through the Negative Zone

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In this week's episode of Reading The Multiverse: A Marvel Comics Journey, I go over 3 issues of the Fantastic Four that mainly center around Doctor Doom stealing the Silver Surfer's Powers and if the Fantastic Four or really anyone else can stop him!

Stories Covered In This Episode

Fantastic Four 57, Enter… Dr. Doom!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, and Lettered by Artie Simek

Fantastic Four 58, The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, and Lettered by Artie Simek

Fantastic Four 59, Doomsday, written by Stan Lee, Penciled by Jack Kirby, Inked by Joe Sinnot, and Lettered by Artie Simek

Resources, Episodes, & Links Mentioned In This Episode:

S1E16: Fantastic Four #57-59 - Dr. Doom Steals The Silver Surfer's Powers

Speaker

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 the podcast. If you are listening to this the day that it drops, it is Monday, May 18th. Um, man, it has been two months, two months, two and a half months since the last episode. I truly apologize that I have fallen off. If you were listening before, you knew like the last few episodes, I was struggling with some sort of I don't even know, some sort of like sickness where my throat just kept getting sore, and I was like losing my voice like every week. I had no idea what was happening, and I just couldn't get over it. So I kind of fell off the horse of of recording, and then just life happened, and it was just easy to be like, I'm just not gonna record right now and other things, and you know what? And I've been wanting to record, and then this happens, and then that happens, and work and kids get sick, and people are home, and all this other stuff. Anyway, I'm throwing out a bunch of excuses. We are we are back in the podcast saddle, folks. We are back in the podcast saddle, and uh yeah, we're gonna continue our run of the Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. All that to say, again, if this is your first time listening, we are running through uh one legendary comics run at a time, and I figured why not start it off with the the one that started the entire Marvel universe, which is the Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. We are more than halfway through this run. We have three issues that we're gonna go over today issues 57, 58, and 59. So without further ado, let's

Fantastic Four 57 - Enter… Dr. Doom!

Speaker

get started. From September of 1966, Fantastic Four, issue 57, enter Doctor Doom. Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinnot, and lettered by Artie Simek. First and foremost, you gotta see the cover on this bad boy. This cover by Jack Kirby is absolutely incredible. I have been saying I'm gonna do this. I'm definitely going to do it. Um, if you're not part of the Earth's Mightiest Nerds Discord, it's completely free to join. The link is down below in the show notes. Um, I'm gonna put a podcast channel in there, and I always talk about these um panels and everything like that. So if you want to check this out, I will put a picture of issue 57 in there. Please take a look at this cover. It is absolutely incredible from Jack Kirby. So, in this issue, we have three basically different plots happening on this lines. And if you've been following along, you know this is relatively newer for Stan and Jack because earlier on in the Fantastic Four Run, they just did one story per issue, and then it would end, and then it would be a new story. Well, they started to create cliffhangers at the end of issues, and it was still just one story, and now they've started to interweave multiple plots into issues. So we have three plots going on in this issue. Plot A is, in my opinion, kind of out of nowhere. It involves the wizard and the sandman who are at a parole hearing, and Reed, Sue, and Ben stop them from trying to escape. How this all conspired, we don't know. It just we're there. So while they are able to stop the wizard, Sandman is able to escape. Now, in case you are wondering why the wizard and the sandman are together, it's because they formed the Frightful Four, which consists of the Wizard, the Sandman uh was Pacepot Pete, who now goes by Trapster, and originally Medusa, however, she, you know, was under some sort of control, something along those lines, and she's no longer a part of that. So there's really not four of them at this point, and Pacepot Pete is off somewhere, and obviously these two are in jail. So basically, at this point, to finish out this plot, it kind of interweaves throughout the issue, but Sandman attacks Sue and Reed at the Baxter building and is once again able to escape. And not only that, he takes some of Reed's inventions with him. So that is plot A, really, it's probably plot B. Um, you'll understand in a second. Um, so as we move to the second plot, we've been dealing with Johnny, Wyatt Wingfoot, and Lockjaw for some time now. Now, they've been traveling, basically trying to get to the inhumans who are locked at their great refuge behind a negative zone barrier that Blackbolt's brother Maximus has put up. Now, this is not the negative zone, to my understanding, it just happens to be called the negative zone barrier. And this whole time, Johnny is trying to get to Crystal because he met this girl for like five minutes and fell madly in love and wants to get it back in contact with her, basically. So the whole time they're trying to get Lockjaw to teleport them back to the Great Refuge so that they can try to break them out. Well, it's not working quite as well as they'd hope. And so in this issue, Lockjaw transports them to some land or time with dinosaur-looking creatures. They're only there for a few panels, and they pretty much transport or teleport out of there just as fast as they got there. Now, we do also see that in humans who have found Blackbolt. Now, a few issues ago, I believe, um, I forget which number at this point, but he tried to break the negative zone barrier by using his scream. And everyone there was like, we don't know what happened to Blackbolt. I mean, what do you guys what do you mean? You know where he went. Just go look for him. I don't understand the problem. Well, they apparently went and looked and found him, and um, he's kind of like passed out right now. And so we also learn though that Maximus, Blackbolt's brother, who has gone mad, uh, knows a secret regarding Blackbolt. And the only other person that knows besides him is Medusa, and that causes the rest of the, you know, like high council or the main family of inhumans, including Medusa, Crystal, uh, Gorgon, Karnak, and Triton, to kind of want to know what that secret is, and that's where that plot ends. Now we get to plot C, which is probably really plot A, Doctor Doom and the Silver Surfer. Now, we last saw the Silver Surfer in issue 55, where he was fighting with Ben pretty much the entire issue, and afterwards he was like, I need to go explore Earth some more. Well, at the end of that issue, we see him in some mountainside, and there's a silhouette looking out at the Silver Surfer from their castle, and that person, of course, was none other than Doctor Doom. So Doom sends Silver Surfer a summons to meet him at his castle in this issue. Silver Surfer goes and Doom is asking him about his cosmic powers, and of course, Doom is intrigued. So much so he has Silver Surfer create this wand-looking thing, and Doom is like, I don't think that can do anything. But then Silver Surfer gives it to him, and he's like, just tap it against your wall, which then explodes, explodes the entire wall. And Doom was like, Wow, I I need this, I need this power. But as Silver Surfer is looking around the castle, Silver Surfer senses that the power that Doom is wanting is going to be for bad and not really, you know, for good. And Doom's like, oh no, no, no, no. My people love me. I only want to bring peace to the world, which we know is, you know, in his twisted ways of what peace is like. So, and I have to mention this funny part because as Doom is trying to portray a nicer side of himself to Silver Surfer, one of the workers drops a tray of stuff near him after he like tripped on Doom's cloak. And Doom calls him a clumsy dolt and a worthless, insufferable clod. And you see like Silver Surfer peering over Doom's shoulder, being like, I knew, I knew. And then Doom kind of like fixes himself and is like, Oh no, I am so sorry. You must take the rest of the day off, and everything will be totally fine. You deserve the day off. You must be tired. And and the worker's like, What? I'm not going to have the ultimate punishment. Uh it's just it's just like one of those like classic tropes. Um, it's it was just it was funny to read. At this point, Doom then tricks the Silver Surfer into looking at this picture of space that he took, and the Silver Surfer, of course, being away from space for so long, is basically falls in love with it and is like in a trance for the most part. And meanwhile, Doom has this like weird device over him and he attaches it to the unsuspecting Silver Surfer, and the cosmic power is drained from the Silver Surfer and then given to Doom. Doom then leaves his castle on the Silver Surfer's surfboard, flying away, saying that he is going to take over the world. This was a pretty good issue in my mind. There again, there's a lot of plot stuff going on. I really felt like it was dragged down by kind of the whole thing with Sandman and the wizard. Again, it was just like kind of out of nowhere, and it really doesn't amount to anything else besides the fact that Sandman now has some of the Fantastic Four inventions. I'm guessing we might see that at some point in the future, but we're not actually going to see it in the next two issues I'm going to talk about. I really liked obviously the Doctor Doom Silver Surfer thing that now Doom has this cosmic power. It's going to obviously cause havoc and chaos. Um, so I'm excited to see where that goes. Um, at this point, too, I really feel like the inhuman plot is just getting drawn out more and more. And I'm like, how let's get them out of this this negative zone barrier here. We've been we've been doing this for a while. At least I feel like 10 issues, maybe. I could be wrong, but let's let's get this going here.

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Speaker

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Fantastic Four 58 - The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!

Speaker

real. Alright, so issue 58 from October of 1966, Fantastic Four, issue 58, The Dismal Dregs of Defeat, written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinat, and lettered by Artie Simek. So again, as we ended the last issue with Doom flying away from Lot Veria, he is now deciding it wasn't such a great idea to leave because he's back in Lot Veria in his castle, and basically he's tormenting the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer. Meanwhile, Reed and Sue decide, you know what, we're gonna leave and go to the cottage for the weekend. So Ben is left at the Baxter Building by himself. And so literally, a few minutes pass after Reed and Sue left the Baxter building, and Doom attacks the Baxter Building and Ben. And we honestly get a really good back and forth fight between Ben and Doom, which ultimately Doom is able to stop the thing and basically paralyze him, making him this like uh statue in some nearby park. And as Doom is in this nearby park, Johnny, Wyatt, and Lockjaw all show up at the Baxter building, and Lockjaw warns them of trouble. We then get taken, though, to Reed and Sue at their cottage, and guess what Reed is doing? Working as usual. Um again, this is why Reed Reed folks, he just I don't he's not my favorite character. He can't he can't relax. Although I can I can relate to that. I have a hard time not relaxing, but I don't know if I would be doing work. Um anyway, at least Sue does give him a piece of his mind. Uh sorry, Sue gives him a piece of her mind, and that doesn't last very long because then they are interrupted by Dr. Doom, who of course gets into a really good fight with primarily Reed as he pretty much wraps Sue up immediately. Johnny, as he's like flying throughout the city, comes across Ben and realizes he's a statue and decides to go get some metabolism accelerators for Ben, and then decides to he like checks everywhere at the Baxter building and they're not there, so he's like, Oh, they must be at the cottage, of course, right? Um, and lo and behold, as he is there, Doom is there and all this stuff. So Johnny and Doom fight, and then Wyatt then goes and finds Ben and has apparently helped him. I don't know how he was able to help him because you know we were looking for these metabolism accelerators. Um, but now Wyatt and Ben are also at the cottage, and Wyatt shoots Reed's experimental anti-grav disruptor, which does nothing, and Doom spares them, defeating them, and says, you know what? I'm just gonna fly away and let you all live in fear for my next attack. And that is pretty much the end of that issue. Another really good issue, in my opinion, lots of good action and fighting, along with just like dialogue and plot progression um for this Doom kind of cosmic power arc. Uh, I am glad that we skipped over the inhuman stuff at this point for the most part. Again, I feel like that's just been getting dragged out, so it's kind of nice to not really spend any pages just adding more stuff, waiting for them to get out of the negative zone. Um, I am curious though to see what's going to happen. I do like that Doom just like left them. That is very doom. Uh, just being like, you know what? I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna do anything to hurt you. I'm gonna let you just live in fear and just wait for my next attack because clearly you can't defeat me.

Fantastic Four 59 - Doomsday

Speaker

So as we head into the next issue from November of 1966, Fantastic Four, issue 59, Doomsday, written by Stanley, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Joe Sinat, and lettered by Artie Simek. This issue starts off with Reed broadcasting to pretty much all of the world powers saying that they must unite to fight against Doom. So then, of course, afterwards, Reed kind of gets down on himself saying, like, how can I be called Mr. Fantastic if I can't stop Doom? blah blah blah blah blah. And Ben says that he should take some of his own medicine since Reed is always like trying to cheer Ben up. But Reed, of course, loses it and decides to fight Ben, forcing Reed to go into his lab and say, No one should bother me for any kind of reason until he figures this thing out, right? Of classic Reed. Again, I I don't know why or how people like Reed. And and I just don't get it. I just don't get it. Anyway, right after that, we see some rockets get launched from a country, and it's kind of portrayed to be Russia, and they're headed straight for Lotveria, but there's a cloud that just destroys them immediately. We then, of course, go to see Doom, and he's of course, you know, gloating that people thought he wouldn't be ready for that. And he is then chatting with the Silver Surfer and tells him the reason that he's kept the Silver Surfer alive so long is that he wants him to see how he uses the cosmic power that he stole from him and that humanity needs to prepare for Doomsday. First and foremost, in this conversation with Doom and the Silver Surfer, we get a like of I think three three close-ups of Doom's face in the mask, and they are just immaculate drawings by Jack Kirby. Once again, I will put them in the like podcast channel on Earth's Mightiest Nerds Discord. Again, if you haven't joined, I highly recommend you do so. The link is down below in the show notes. You just have to join the Earth's Mightiest Nerds newsletter. I promise, I promise I will not spam you. I haven't written one for like two months. Uh it's completely free to join. It's free to join the Discord. Come join a bunch of nerdy friends who like to talk about fun stuff. It's a good time. I promise. I promise it will be it will be great. Okay. The only other thing I wanted to mention, by the way, which I didn't mention at the beginning of this issue, was it's Doomsday, right? Obviously, we're trying to make some connections to the MCU as we're going through some of these issues, and there's not a ton because there hasn't been a ton of Fantastic Four. But Doomsday, the movie is coming out. I'm sure that this has nothing to actually do with the actual movie, but I just wanted to mention that we have that connection. That's really it. There's really not more. There's really not more than that. So as Reed is struggling, we he gets a call from uh Wyatt saying he's worried about Johnny as he wants to take on Doom himself. And of course, Reed says, no, Johnny, don't do it. And Johnny wants to do things his own way anyway. And I do have to mention that there's this like funny thought bubble that pops up from Wyatt saying that he's happy that Johnny, Johnny is finally now focused on something other than Crystal. But literally, the next speech bubble from Johnny is that he needs to take care of Doom so that he can get back to trying to save Crystal. I'm just like, of course. Uh sorry, Wyatt, you are not the um, you are not the mind reader that you thought you were. Okay, so speaking of the inhumans, we head back to them and Black Bolt finally does the thing. Although he already did it like a few issues ago and it didn't work, and I'm kind of curious why it works this time. But he stands atop the tallest tower, he calls all the inhumans, every single one of them, says, Go to your shelters. They're all running, like there's a rush, and I'm like, you don't have maybe don't have to run. Like, I don't think he's not because Black Bolt's gonna scream, he's gonna try to break the negative zone barrier again. Again, he's already done this, it didn't work. Why it would work this time, I don't know. But I'm like, why are y'all running? Like, I know there's he he wants to do this now, but also like I'm pretty sure he would wait until everyone, till everyone was in their shelter, right? Like, come on, y'all. Anyway, he does the thing, he screams, he destroys the negative zone barrier, along with the rest of the great refuge, their city. Um, so everyone then comes running out of their shelters. Crystal is so happy she's finally gonna be able to go see Johnny again. Maximus is feeling like he'll never be king because obviously, one, he put the negative zone barrier around them, but he wasn't the one to save them. Blackbolt was, and then it was decided by again the inhuman royal family and high council that the six of them, Blackbolt, Medusa, Crystal, Gorgon, Karnak, and Triton, will go out into the world on their own while the other while the other inhumans will stay back and rebuild their city. Sounds like some typical leader stuff. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Um we then go see Doom flying around on his surfboard, pretty much terrorizing places. Um, he like makes Lot Varia go into total darkness, turns like a tropic island into a winter wonderland, and then sees this gorilla and then turns him into some like weird-looking monster. We see Reed watching Doom via some satellite camera uh doing all this, and he gets motivated again. And I imagine like this like Rocky training montage, but just like Reed doing nerd stuff in his lab. Um, but anyway, he's like created this like bat-looking invention, and Ben walks in and is like, Hey Reed, I think it's time we take a break. Um, and he's like, Oh, this is all you made. Um, and then again, this is why Reed's not a good person. Reed throws it at Ben and says, Don't drop it. And as soon as it hits Ben's hands, it like does something terrible to Ben. It makes him groggy, falls to the ground, makes him weaker, and and of course angry. And I'm like, Reed, why like why would you not just tell him that you want to test it? I'm sure Ben would be more than happy to help you test it if you just told him, but instead you threw it at him and then caught him off guard and did all this stuff. And I'm like, you just threw it at him and were like, oh great, Ben, thank you. You were just here at the right time, because you, right? But then Reed also says that the key is that even though that the like power drainage was temporary, what he really wanted to do was make Ben angry, which is what he wants Dr. Doom to become. He wants him to become angry. That's the whole goal of this invention. And I'm like, you're testing this against Ben, the man who gets angry about like the littlest thing. I don't think this is the best test, Reed. This is not the best test to test if something's gonna make someone anger angry and mad. Anyway, our issue ends with Doom feeling more confident than ever and ready to take over the world once and for all. Another pretty good issue. Again, we're it seems like we're now I'm I'm really glad that we're like have finally tied up the inhuman plot line of them being behind the negative zone barrier. I've just been waiting for this to be done. It's finally done and taken care of. Now all that we're gonna need to do is have Crystal and Johnny find each other. That is going to be something because once again, if if you didn't listen to one of the previous episodes, they like met each other for literally five minutes and fell madly in love with each other and have just needed to see each other. That's all they've been able to do or think about for the rest of the issues. And I'm just so over it at this point. I'm just glad that the negative zone is is good and done within humans, thank goodness. Um, I am still really excited to see what Doom does with this cosmic power. Obviously, I feel like I'm assuming the arc is gonna close this next issue. So we're gonna end it on that cliffhanger here. So you're gonna have to make sure you uh hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to podcasts so you get the next episode when it drops. Uh, if you've been following along and you haven't Done so, rate and review the show. It's free. It helps me and the show just get out to more people. Um, like I said, join Earth's Mightiest Nerds Discord. The sh the the link to join that will be down in the show notes. And until the next episode, Excelsior.

A Request…

Speaker

Uh, real quick, I've been thinking of adding possibly a second episode per week because I've been wanting to um talk about the current comics that I'm reading, like the ones that are coming out, just giving my reviews and thoughts on those as like a second episode per week. If you have any thoughts on that, I would love for you to send me a message. Let me know what you think of that. Would you listen to that? Would you not listen to it? Uh do you want to hear something like that? Do you not want to hear something like that? Give me your thoughts. Send me a message. I'm on Instagram, I am on threads. Um, you can send me a message via either of those. Those links are down below in the show notes as well. Uh, any feedback and thoughts on that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Joe

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