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Meet The In-Laws
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After all the excitement of seeing Doom in a regular comic series again at last, we immediately return to another appearance by his 'Not Brand Echh' counterpart 'Doctor Bloom'.
I'm coming round to the conclusion that the indexers at The Grand Comics Database must have been deliberately cataloguing all of the characters by their 'Not Brand Echh' names to differentiate them from the regular universe versions, and thus keep them well away from mainstream continuity. There's no other explanation for the fact that this issue did not show up in my initial database searches for 'Doctor Doom' - he's right there on the cover, so there's no way they could have missed him!
Here Doom is depicted as shedding a single tear at the wedding of Crystal from The Inhumans and 'The Human Scorch', in an image weirdly reminiscent of one from J Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr's 'Ground Zero' story in Amazing Spider-man #36.
I wonder, could they been related? Or is it silly to suggest that a nuanced, heartfelt moment of supreme characterization coud be in any way linked to ... J Michael Straczynski's run on Spider-man?
Sorry, I think I've read so many issues of 'Not Brand Echh' that the 'humour' is starting to wear off on me. Or maybe just wear off.
Doom appears twice inside the actual comic, and in both cases he's used as part of a gang of villains. In the first story he's there as a member of Sandman's villain "family" when the Human Scorch needs someone to move in with:
And in the final story he's in a group again, eagerly waiting to find out the identity of the bride of 'Spidey-man'.
Neither of these appearances make any use of the specifics of Doom's character, he's just there to signify that this is a group of supervillains.Interestingly though he's the only character to appear in both groups, signifying his primacy amongst Marvel supervillains. If it was just a bunch of minor villains the joke might be that they *are* minor characters (similar to the use of Boomerang, Speed Demon and co in The Superior Foes Of Spider-man), but with Doom in the mix it's made clear that the "joke" is that a group of normally evil, powerful figures are behaving in a silly way.
SPOILER ALERT: this is a trend that will crop up several more times over the coming issues, and not just in 'Not Brand Echh'. It's as if Doom's place in the universe is so secure that he can just be referred to without having to ever do much - like an aged rock star who signifies Rock And Roll and doesn't need to record any new material again. That's not to say Doom's ready to retire to the Heritage Touring Circuit just yet, in 1967 he's still rocking, as we'll see next time when we finally find out how he managed to escape his apparent death way back in The Peril And The Power!
link to information about this issue
posted 15/6/2018 by Mark Hibbett
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