From: rnmg1200@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Walrus and April)
Subject: Re: Grade Report: "Doom 2099" #1
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 20:47:36 GMT

In article <By234F.B1t@news.cso.uiuc.edu> pmm34393@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Dr. Vincent Vaugn ) writes:
>In article <rawdon.722324645@cs.wisc.edu> rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu writes:
>>Spoilers for issue #1 of Marvel's comic book Doom 2099...

>
>>What I would like to see over the next year is a resolution to at least one
>>(and preferably both) of the "Who is Doom?" and "Oust Tiger Tylde" storylines,
>>neither of which is *really* the raison d'etre of this series.  What is really
>>interesting here is that we have Doctor Doom - the quintessential villain, and
>>yet, not an entirely unsympathetic character - as the protagonist of a story
>>which lacks a clear heroic figure.  Does Doom become a heroic figure?  (Under
>>John Byrne, Doom was a hero to his subjects, a twist which was actually rather
>>appealing and lent some provocative ambiguity to the character.)  Does he
>>remain a firm anti-hero, if not villain?  Will he remain largely morally
>>ambiguous?
>
>I seriously doubt they will ever tell if it is the true Doom or not--if this
>is the "mainstream" Marvel future, then it would pin Doom's fate down and
>they would eventually have to reach the point in the current Universe where
>Doom gets sent to the future.

This may have just been my overactive imagination (again), but I was left with 
the idea that "Doom" was in fact an older version of Kristoff.  Evidence:

1.  His memories of Richards & Co. showed them in their *original* costumes;
    Kristoff's Doom-memories only included them in this appearance.
2.  Doom's lack of memory.  Kristoff would not have remembered much of his 
    time as monarch of Latveria, since it wasn't really him, and he never
    finished "listened" to the rest of the Doomtape to my knowledge.
3.  Tiger Wylde's comment that he was "too young to be" Doom.  Kristoff's
    journey may have been one through time, where he aged slowly or not at 
    all.  (Can we say Time Sequencers, anyone?)  
4.  Doom's noticeable lack of magical prowess.  Not only did he seem to 
    be incapable of using magic (which we all know the real Doom can do), it
    was never even mentioned.  This is relatively minor, but is still a known
    characteristic of the real Doom, one which he could use to attempt to
    prove his gypsy heritage.  
5.  His mental rejection of Doom's identity (Doom is dead...etc.).  This 
    could be Kristoff's true identity coming to the surface from under Doom's
    brainwashing.  The "creation" of the new Doom would have strengthened his
    identification with the false memories, hence he accepts he *is* Doom.

Of course, there's still a plot hole a mile wide:  Kristoff is *DEAD*.  But
is he?  If the 2099 series is just a patented Alternate Future (tm), then a
possible divergence might be that Kristoff did not die, but grew to a young
man before being defeated and possibly imprisoned by the real Doom.  This
would also explain his presence in the castle ruins and his memory of intense
pain:  Doom wanted to punish him for his "misbehavior", so he locked him away
in a hostile zone-dimension-whatever, where he didn't age (see 3. above) and
suffered intense pain (resulting in partial amnesia, as we have seen).  This
is just the sort of cold-blooded, ruthless thing Vic would do...you just 
gotta love the guy. :)

If this is indeed the case, we could be in for an interesting story as the
displaced Kristoff attempts to regain his lost identity.  If done properly,
it would be well worth reading.

Now if we can only get rid of the pseudo-cyberpunk backdrop, we might have
something.  Did anyone else think Doom 2099, Spidey 2099 et al. were just
attempts to cash in on the popularity of cyberpunk?

The Walrus

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc