FANTASTIC FOUR #236

"TERROR IN A TINY TOWN" | "IF THIS BE DOOMSDAY!"
Words & Pictures: John Byrne | Letters: Jim Novak | Colors: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Reed, Sue, and Franklin Richards, Johnny Storm, and Ben and Alicia Grimm go about their daily lives in the town of Liddleville, where Reed is a university professor and Ben owns a tavern. But Ben, Sue, and Johnny are plagued by similar nightmares in which the group is bombarded by cosmic rays aboard a rocket ship and endowed with superhuman abilities.

Eventually, Reed realizes the dreams are true and that he and his friends are the Fantastic Four. He convinces the others of the truth and they confront Ben’s “father-in-law”, Phillip Masters, a.k.a. their old enemy the Puppet Master. He admits that this was all his idea as a way to give his daughter, Alicia, a happy life. But, unable to carry out the plan alone, he enlisted the aid of Doctor Doom.

Doom gloats over the FF, revealing that they actually reside in unpowered miniature clone bodies in a scale model of a town, and that he occasionally visited them as well in the guise of Victor Vaughn, Reed’s boss at the college. Doom departs, leaving the FF to live forever as prisoners of Liddleville, but Reed concocts a plan to return them to normal. He empowers their cloned bodies, which allows them to exit Liddleville and rig up a trap. Sue lures Doom back to the model town, where his attacks serve as a catalyst to restore the Fantastic Four, Alicia, and Franklin to normal.

Doom is rendered apparently comatose, and Puppet Master is nowhere to be found. The FF depart, taking Doom with them, unaware he has transferred back into the robot body of Victor Vaughn in Liddleville. But before he can return to normal, Puppet Master smashes his “transferral ring” and sics a townful of reprogrammed robot citizens on him.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Reed notes that he's been trying to restore the Thing back to normal Ben Grimm for years.

Puppet Master explains that he used his radioactive clay, with which he builds puppets in order to mind control people, to get Doom to help him in his scheme. But somehow, Doom has his own personality as well. (Or maybe I just don't understand how his puppets work; I've read precious few Puppet Master comics.)

The action in this tale takes place inside Doctor Doom’s castle in the Adirondack Mountains, first seen in FANTASTIC FOUR #5. This castle served as Doom’s primary base of operations at this point in time, as he was deposed as the ruler of Latveria dating back to FF #200.

Reed mentions that he and Ben attended college together. (Doom also went to school with them. If Marvel Studios ever gets those FF rights back, I'd love to see an ANIMAL HOUSE style “screwball comedy” take on those years. Seriously, that's not a joke.)

Sue finds Doom playing the piano in a room of the castle. She recalls that she saw him play once before, in Latveria, and reflects on how beautiful and melancholy it sounds. She also catches a glimpse of Doom’s disfigured face.

In Liddleville, “Vincent Vaughn” is drawn to resemble the standard image of Doctor Doom before his face was horribly scarred.

I've long found this interesting: This issue is cover-dated November, 1981. IRON MAN #149 – 150 were from August and September of 1981. X-MEN issues 145, 146, and 147 were May, June, and July 1981. Also from May through July of 1981 were DAZZLER #3 – 5. Doctor Doom is the primary villain all of these comics. ’81 was truly the year of Doom.

Is It Clobberin' Time? When the FF make their way out of Liddleville, the Thing exercises his right to clobber some of Doom’s robot guardians.

The Quotable Doom: “Thus do I demonstrate my contempt for Reed Richards and his unending stupidity!”

My Thoughts: Byrne definitely turns things around here. After the boring Ego story and the good-but-not-for-me tale of Skip Williams, we find him returning, for the first time since his debut issue, to the well of classic FF villains. And we get two of them, in the Puppet Master and Doctor Doom.

I have little to say about Puppet Master. As noted above, I've read very few comics in which he appeared. All I know is that he's Alicia’s dad, he's kind of a misunderstood misanthrope rather than an outright villain, and he's exceptionally creepy looking. (What's with the eyelashes?)

Doom, on the other hand – Well, I've read plenty of comics featuring Doctor Doom. I've seen him challenge the FF, Spider-Man, the Avengers, Iron Man, the X-Men, Thanos, and more. I've read the character as written by Stan Lee, David Michelinie, Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, Chris Claremont, Steve Englehart, and others. Aside from perhaps his co-creator Lee, I don't think anybody has a better handle on Doom than John Byrne.

Some writers present him as a bully or an arrogant dick or a poseur who puts on airs of nobility while behaving as little more than a common thug. But Byrne gets Doom right: he is noble. He's classy. He's a tyrant, but in his own way he cares for his subjects. He believes himself above everyone, but it's out of pride, not pettiness. He's a tragic character and while he does evil things, it's hard to declare him an evil person.

Byrne’s Doom is the definitive Doom, as far as I'm concerned. And while I've noted that a lot of this run didn't connect with me when I first read it, his handling of Doom is the spot where I was pretty much always on board. The Doom stories are the highlights of Byrne’s run, and this is easily my favorite of the few issues we've covered so far.

A few quick, final observations on this one: First, I love that Liddleville is a picturesque little town out of the fifties, right down to the hairstyles and cars. Makes me wish Byrne could've somehow done the whole run in that time period. Though they were created in 1961, I really think the FF belong in the fifties.

Also, Byrne turns in a magnificent reveal of Doctor Doom, an amazing two-page spread as he looms over his foes in the Liddleville model. The very next page gives us a great shot for the full model town as Doom stands beside it. These are probably my three favorite pages of the run so far.

Lastly, I love that title; its double meaning is a complete spoiler, but only after the reader learns the truth about Liddleville. I can't get over how creative that is.

Note: This issue also contains a "new" backup story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (actually just Lee scripting over Kirby storyboards from the old FF cartoon series). I elected not to cover it here as it has nothing to do with Byrne's ongoing run.