FANTASTIC FOUR #258

"INTERLUDE"
Story and Art: John Byrne | Lettering: Jim Novak | Coloring: Glynis Wein
Editor: Carl Potts | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Doctor Doom oversees the restoration of Latervia following his return to power. Eventually he concocts a plan to artificially recreate the power he once stole from the Silver Surfer and imbue it into someone else. Doom chooses Tyros, the one-time herald Terrax, for this task. Tyros is liberated from a hospital in New York and brought to Latveria, where Doom empowers him and sends him to battle the Fantastic Four. Following Tyros’s departure, Doom reveals to his robots that the alien warlord will perish due to power burnout in five hours.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: The main point of timeline reference in this issue comes on the first page, when we’re told that the Fantastic Four’s encounter with Gladiator and the Skrulls in issue 250 occurred “several months ago”. Some may recall that within the pages of issue 244, directly following the fight with Terrax, “several months” passed there as well. I’m not sure why Byrne keeps advancing the timeline in such large leaps, but I don’t really like it. One of my favorite things about serialized fiction is how one story bleeds into the next with little passage of time unless absolutely necessary.

But at any rate, we can safely declare that well over a year has probably elapsed in “Marvel Time” since Byrne took over this series with issue 232.

Doom learns that Doctor Strange recently lost his apprentice, and briefly considers seeking out Strange for training in the mystic arts beyond his own rudimentary skills. Doom also implies that he’s never actually met Strange, which is kind of astounding considering both characters had existed for over twenty years at this point. (Though it’s also kind of cool as it reminds us that the superhuman community within the Marvel Universe didn’t used to be as narrowly claustrophobic as it is these days.)

Kristoff, son of the gypsy woman killed by King Zorba’s robots in FF #247, has been adopted by Doom as a ward of the state.

Doom conducts an inspection of his robotic decoys and finds that one of them allowed the assassin Arcade to strike a match on its shoulder in X-MEN #146. The Latverian monarch promptly eliminates the robot for insolently suggesting Doom might have had further need for Arcade, and thus not killing him for the affront. This scene seems to be viewed as Byrne being petty over Chris Claremont’s handling of Doctor Doom in that X-MEN issue, but personally I’m with Byrne here. The real Doom would have slain Arcade immediately over such an indignity.

Doom recalls stealing the power of the Silver Surfer in FANTASTIC FOUR #57 – 60.

Hauptmann, brother of Doom’s former scientist, Hauptmann, is killed this issue when Doom uses him as a guinea pig for the Power Cosmic machine, following his treachery in IRON MAN #149.

As Doom searches for someone who could handle the Power Cosmic, Kristoff suggests Magneto and refers to Doom and the Master of Magnetism as “rivals.” This does not go over well.

When Doom’s robots invade the hospital to find Tyros, they spy Captain America and Iron Man discussing injuries sustained by the Thing in MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #96. This part of the story takes place six weeks prior to the present day. In real life, MTIO was canceled with #100, published three months prior to this issue.

Tyros has been in the hospital for months, having been nearly killed by his fall off the top of the World Trade Center in FF #243. Somehow, even though he clearly looks like an alien and speaks no terrestrial language, nobody at the hospital has though to inform the Avengers or the Fantastic Four or SHIELD that he’s laid up there.

Doom briefly recaps Terrax’s origin.

Is It Clobberin' Time? The Fantastic Four don’t even appear in this issue, so I’m gonna say no.

The Quotable Doom: “You rage is magnificent, Tyros. And justly so. But direct it not against the person of Doom, for your life now rests in the hollow of my hand. I am master here, Tyros, and before you protest that irrevocable fact, you would do well to listen.”

My Thoughts: The title page declares it “perhaps the strangest issue ever of the FANTASTIC FOUR!” and that was probably true at the time. Nowadays, an issue devoted entirely to the scheming of a villain, recapping what he’s been up to while the series’ heroes have been doing their own thing over the past several installments, isn’t at all unusual. But in 1983, an issue of FANTASTIC FOUR starring solely Doctor Doom, with nary an appearance from any of the FF, would have been pretty unusual.

But it’s not jarring in the least. Though he only appears for about one story arc a year, and though he’s their primary antagonist, Byrne basically treats Doom as the series’ fifth regular cast member. In this way he’s ahead of his time, and perhaps ahead of his medium as well. This is the sort of thing one would expect from a primetime TV drama, but not necessarily from a comic book.

And besides taking an offbeat path for the issue’s concept, Byrne pulls off some fun artistic bits here as well, mainly confined to the first couple pages. Note the cover, for one thing: Doom’s gauntlet is shredding it to reveal the splash page inside. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

And then, after turning past the splash, we’re greeted by a beautiful two-page spread of prosperous Doomstadt, restored by the rule of Doom and serving as an optimistic mirror to the near identical establishing shot from pages 2 and 3 of issue 247.

Plus we get to see a side of Doom which isn’t often presented: he spends quality time with Kristoff and, despite the little outburst depicted up above, we’re told (and we see) that Doom has legitimate affection for the boy, as he bounces him in his arms and brings him to observe Doom’s work in matters of state.

Between all the above bits and pieces, this is easily one of the best issues of Byrne’s run so far. As I’ve noted many times previously, Doom brings out the best in Byrne. Nowhere is that more evident than in this issue focusing solely on the character.