Who are the Masters of Doom? Millar and Hitch take a journey into a previously unexplored chapter in the life of Doctor Doom. Also, the story we had to call "A Fantastic Four Wedding And A Funeral." Plus, Mister and Mrs. Thing! Collects Fantastic Four #562-569.
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Along with Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar has been one of the key writers for Marvel Comics in the 21st century. After proving himself in the '90s as a talent to watch while writing for DC Comics and the UK comic 2000AD, his arrival to Marvel came at a time when Ultimate Spider-Man had just shot up the sales charts. It was in this environment that Millar made his first major contribution to Marvel with Ultimate X-Men, as Millar integrated forty years' worth of X-Men history, characters and lore into a solid two-year run, making the companion title to Ultimate Spider-Man every bit the creative and commercial success. Next up was The Ultimates, a new rendering of the Avengers that was to continue building on the success of the Ultimate line. He and artist Bryan Hitch pulled it all off in spades: The Ultimates and its sequel, Ultimates 2, were ensconced at the top of the sales charts every month; what's more, they were critical successes, as well. Meanwhile, Millar was invited to enter the regular Marvel Universe to take a stab at two of its most iconic characters: Spider-Man and Wolverine. Paired with industry heavyweights to draw his stories -- Terry Dodson on Marvel Knights Spider-Man and John Romita Jr. on Wolverine -- Millar brought the same fast-paced and cleverly constructed plots with which his Ultimate fans were already familiar. Amid building a small library of Millarworld indie comic books -- including the titles Chosen and Wanted, the latter of which was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Angelina Jolie -- he managed to write Civil War, the epic seven-issue miniseries that definitively reshaped the landscape of Marvel's heroes. Kick-A**, a Marvel Icon project done in tandem with John Romita Jr., made an impressive impact on the sales chart before also being adapted for a major motion picture. In addition, Millar has reunited with Civil War artist Steve McNiven in both the pages of Wolverine and their creator-owned book Nemesis.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
it fizzled...,
By H. Bala "Me Too Can Read" (Just moved to posh Marina Del Rey, CA - where if you drop a quarter, why, you just keep on walking) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
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This review is from: Fantastic Four: The Master of Doom (Hardcover)
What the $@*% happened? Was it deadlines? A growing lack of interest? Millar painting himself into a corner? Was it Joe Quesada? It's Joe Quesada, isn't it? Whatever it is, what started as an awesome Fantastic Four run by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch ends up fizzling. FANTASTIC FOUR: THE MASTER OF DOOM collects issues #562-569, and the thing of it is that, even in this collection, there's a sense of epic, sweeping stuff unfolding and Millar and Hitch were well on their way to gloriously pulling the whole thing off. Until the wheels came off.
Rampant SPOILERS now. This one starts promisingly, with Sue Richards speaking at her own funeral service, or rather that of a future version of herself. We're treated to a gallery of Marvel's superherodom who shows up to pay respect, and there's even a nice brief moment shared between Wolverine and future Wolverine. Millar takes this time to close off the whole Nu-World thread, as the New Defenders take off for their new home and Johnny Storm and his felonious one night stand say goodbye on good terms. The overarching storyline surfaces once we learn that Victor Von Doom is incarcerated for murdering the Invisible Woman from the future. I don't really remember Dr. Doom getting captured in the past issue, but here he is in the hoosegow. And it might be hard to believe at first that Reed Richards would speak on Doom's behalf, but then again this is the same dude who once defended Galactus when the Devourer of Worlds was tried in an intergalactic tribunal. Doom, possibly the most imperious supervillain ever, naturally regards Reed's altruism as a sign of weakness, and he taunts him. And then he mentions his master: "The man who taught me everything I know. The first supervillain, if you will." "Nine weeks, my dear Richards," he crows, and then "I wonder if that wife of yours can die twice, eh?" Them's fighting words, and it sets up what bodes to be a hellacious farewell story arc for Mark Millar. Before that, though, we get further developments on Ben's relationship with his schoolteacher girlfriend. And then Marvel's First Family goes Christmas holidaying with Reed's relatives in a tiny Scottish town that is so quaint that it couldn't, couldn't possibly harbor an unspeakably evil secret. Right? But there's a reason the first half of this two-parter is titled "The Christmas Monster." And then finally we get to the main event, "Doom's Master." In the prior issues, Millar had been steadily building up the featured Big Bad's street creds. We learn that Doom's Master, who is actually called the Marquis of Death, is an off-the-scales heavy hitter and he is one sadistic mother. His sick pastime seems to be gallivanting throughout the Multiverse and wiping out worlds inhabited by the FF. After twenty years of distance, the Marquis of Death at last reaches out to his erstwhile apprentice Dr. Doom. He arrives at the 616 universe. I was all anticipate-y. I haven't re-read the story arc so I can't quite pinpoint when doubts started gnawing in. I had to sit down and think about it, but there are a couple of things that seemed off. In introducing new lead supervillains, there's a tendency for writers to have their new favorites kicking the taco out of an already established Big Bad or some other heavy-hitter in order to establish the newbie's badasssery. And I guess it's fine as a means to establish credibility and to advance the plot, providing it's not abused. Millar went this route in the Nu-Earth storyline with Galactus, and now we assume (because it's not shown on page) that the Marquis has managed to kill off a Watcher. And then the transparency becomes even clearer when Millar goes to the well a third time as the Marquis has his reunion of sorts with Dr. Doom. The Latverian monarch gets humbled, and it's shocking how easily the Marquis accomplishes this. I'm also a bit staggered that Doom, who even while napping oozes entitlement and sheer arrogance, could ever find it in himself to bow down to any other person. It's hard to buy. But I guess he had to learn his craft from someone, so whatever. Going back to the Marquis of Death, I wish Millar had defined the parameters of his abilities more clearly. The Marquis's powers seem to have no boundaries, no weaknesses to the guy. Meaning that it'd be tricky work for Reed to come up with something to beat him, something that would make sense to us, anyway, and also fit within the story's internal logic. I halfway expected for him to just come up with some new invention called the De-Marquisizer. As it is, Millar does resort to an out-of-left-field deux ex machina device. I thought it was weak. When I first learned that Millar & Hitch were taking over this series, I got all giddy and also possibly almost had the vapors. But in retrospect - because, if nothing else, a run of merely 16 issues isn't nearly long enough - this team was gonna be hard pressed to live up to what Stan Lee & Jack Kirby and also John Byrne brought to the table. Millar and Hitch started off with a bang, and I relished the hell out of Fantastic Four: World's Greatest, Vol. 1. And I enjoyed most of the stuff in this one, as well. But I think "Doom's Master" is a case of Millar coming at an ambitious storyline, but then just being unable to put that perfect ribbon on it. His climactic issue (#569) is a disjointed mess, and not really the way you wanna go out. I'll give away several SPOILERs here and say that legions of Fantastic Fours from other timelines try to take out the FF of the 616 universe (which is where Marvel's mainstream continuity takes place). And I'm sorry but having all these doppelgangers around just serves to cheapen things. The Marquis tries to seduce the 616 Reed with an offer to save his world if only he'd commit certain acts of murder, and apparently out of all the vast uncountable realities, only our 616 Reed Richards ended up rejecting the Marquis. The other Reed Richards resent the hell out of him for this. But nothing gets more incoherent than that exasperating two-paged spread in issue #569 as two reality-bending minds duel it up and wild, non-sequitur images spew across our eyeballs. Or if that two-paged spread made sense to anyone, then they're bigger comic book nerds than me. For me, the last straw was the Captain America dinosaur on the upper right-hand corner. What the $@*% was that? Late in the game, there's a lack of flow to the storytelling, and maybe it's because Joe Ahearne handles script duties for the last two issues, working off Millar's plot. There are also moments when the art isn't as tight as usual, and maybe that's because fellow artists Neil Edwards (for issue #568) and Stuart Immonen (#569) lend Hitch a hand and it's not a perfect mesh. 16 issues, most of them very cool. Overall, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch did themselves proud, even if there's that stumble at the end. Millar gave us the Nu-World and the futuristic Invisible Woman (good), as well as the New Defenders and the Thing's romance (blah). He also gave us a Reed Richards who is dashing and cuts a romantic figure. Mostly, Millar made cosmic adventuring fun again and returned the FF title to its rightful epic status. But, probably, my favorite thing that he came up with is in revealing that Reed's young daughter Valeria flaunts a genius-level intellect on par with her dad's and that she'd been hiding her smarts from her family all along, partly so as not to discomfit her older brother Franklin. When broken down to its essence, the FF is still about family, never mind that it's getting harder and harder to come up with new family dynamics. I savor Reed's enthusiastic affection for Valeria. And I got a good smile (but also a sad tug at the heartstrings) when young Franklin peruses his Christmas wish list: 1) Super-powers like the rest of the family, and 2) Nintendo DS. But, no worries, even powerless Franklin Richards gets a chance to shine (issue #565). 3.5 stars out of 5 for this one. I mostly sort of enjoyed it.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A sorry excuse for a story,
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This review is from: Fantastic Four: The Masters of Doom (Paperback)
I was not interested in this story at all. It got to be confusing to read and I sold the book before finishing it. Very dissapointed.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I couldn't make sense of it all,
By danny boy "dbswongv" (Singapore) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fantastic Four: The Masters of Doom (Paperback)
The start to this issue was pretty impressive. Going by the way the suspense was building up and awaiting the appearance of Dr Doom's master and new apprentice, it was going to be a 5 star for me.
I think that the sense of wonderment fell completely flat when Doom's master was named the Marquis of Death. Here you have a world beater who takes out a Watcher, indulges in indiscriminate pain and suffering, taught Dr Doom all he knew etc and his monicker is merely the Marquis. Why not elevate his hierarchy? Surely in the total universality of it all, a mere Marquis is almost like a bad joke of a name. Anyway, the plot is sailing along with Dr Doom being taken out, with the Marquis now confronting the Fantastic Four. And then, it all falls apart. Multiple clones of the FF are running around, there is total chaos and in my mind, total confusion. Then the smoke clears and Dr Doom, who was wolfed down by some prehistoric shark, is somehow ressurrected and he sends the Marquis on his way. Millar has sent in a joke of a plot, the artwork was still very good.
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