From: mickey@pecan.cns.udel.edu (Mickey)
Subject: Retcons and Dr. Doom (Re: Retcons: Marvel and DC)
Summary: hmm...confusing 
Keywords: marvel doom simonson byrne retcons 
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 19:28:38 GMT

In article <Bz3swD.K05@news.cso.uiuc.edu> pmm34393@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Dr. Vincent Vaugn ) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.053425.9371@news.columbia.edu> jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox) writes:
>>In article <10DEC92.14036480.0064@VM1.MCGILL.CA> CXMP <CXMP@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> writes:
>>
>>  No, he didn't.  Rather, he left it deliberately vague so that you
>>could decide that any Doctor Doom appearance you didn't like or
>>thought was out of character was really an android--the rest were
>>really him.  I believe Simonson has stated this.  So if you like John
>>Byrne's Doctor Doom, then it was the real thing.
>>
>If this was Simonson's intent, he failed miserably to stick to any
>sort of Doom continuity. The Doom in Simonson's #350 professed to
>know nothing of Kristoff's activation, and seemed to prove himself to
>be someone other than the Dr. Doom Kristoff was fighting, because he
>knew a password to instantly deactivate Kristoff. 

Okay, so the way I see it is that Simonson verified that at least some
of the Byrne Doom appearances were the real thing.  After all, it
was in the 246-247 storyline that Doom first finds Kristoff.  So, there's
a bit more to it than simply whether you liked that appearance or not.
Logic will see its way through this mess.

>This is incorrect
>because the true Doom had his memory returned by a cosmic cube in 
>FF 319. This had to be the real one because the Beyonder recognized
>his aura. At this time, Doom mentioned that he was in a war to the death
>with Kristoff, something he should not have been in if Kristoff could
>have been turned off at any time. 

That same issue told us that the Beyonder was nowhere near as powerful
as we were previously told that he was.  Therefore, we can assume that
if he's not being particularly observant, a Doombot can fool him with
the proper technology.  (Of course this is a stretch, but you can't
expect a lot from Marvel's so-called Omniscient Characters anymore...)
If the real Doom (or a Doombot?) can steal the power of the Silver Surfer
or siphon the power of Galactus and kick the Beyonder's tail, I don't
have too much trouble believing a Doombot can have a fake Doom aura
or construct one.

>In #350, we are told only Kristoff
>has seen Dr. Doom's face, yet Eric Masterson, the Fantastic Four, 
>a random sculptor, Zorba, etc. have all seen Doom's face at one time
>or another. I find it hard to believe that the Victor vonDoom who was
>unmasked and driven insane in FF 200 was really a robot that could
>fool Reed Richards into believing he was a human. 

Okay, so say that Doom was lying.  Why?  Maybe he didn't like to
admit that his face had been seen, or maybe he was giving Kristoff
some inflated sense of importance.

>Also, how could
>a robot control magic forces, as Doom did in FF Annual #20 when he
>was dethroned by Kristoff? 

Okay, that's a pretty good question.  Of course, in Fantastic Four
#326 (or somewhere thereabouts...) Reed cures Johnny of his Inferno
condition with a machine that he claims harnesses some magical forces.
If we are forced to accept this possibility, then it's not a much
further jump to say that Doom had at least one robot fully programmed
to execute some minor magic.


I don't even think I want to try to address that nonsense in #358.
Whatever its intent was, its effect in quite unclear.


Mick



-- 
Mickey McCarter, amateur actor & reporter     mickey@chopin.udel.edu  __
"I'll make your business my business."		Forever reading      / |	
"You wouldn't want my business, the pay's            The Fantastic  /__|_ 
too small." -  Phil Marlowe, _The Big Sleep_                           | 
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