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Sanctuary!
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This issue kicks off with Bruce Banner on the run from the police in a story entitled "Sanctuary" which, rather brilliantly, comes with a little editorial note which says the title is taken "With apologies to William Faulkner". I haven't read the Faulkner novel, but I'm pretty sure it's not much like this!
Banner is chased across town and is about to be captured when a mysterious limousine appears and offers him a ride. We don't have to wait long to find out who the car's owner is, as Bruce looks to one side and sees... Doctor Doom!
As yet, there's nothing to tie this into Doom's adventures over in his own stories. It seems like there's one Doom who exists in Latveria (and elsewhere) over in "Astonishing Tales" and another who spends his time in the Latverian Embassy, bothering superheroes in New York. This Doom is very much on-book with his New York adventures, riding around in the same car that he used to kidnap Daredevil a little while ago, but when he gets back to the Embassy we see his two personas - the arrogant dictator and the man of the people - start to come together.
The army surround the building, but are, as usual, unable to gain entrance due to "diplomatic immunity". Doom and Banner watch from an upstairs window, with one of Doom's guards behind them sporting a rather special helmet. These guards have evolved quite a bit since they were first introduced by Jack Kirby, changing from Robots, to Armoured Guards with small nodules on their heads, to what appears to be a member of the Mickey Mouse Fanclub (Latverian Division).
Meanwhile, General Ross is wondering what Doom's playing at. "What's Doom doing here in the states anyway?" he asks himself. "We'd heard he was busy planning to conquer a nation bordering on his own!" At first I thought this might be a reference to Doom's recent trip to Wakanda, but that's in Africa, not bordering Latveria. As we'll see later, he's talking about plans Doom has closer to home, none of which have been mentioned before, which is especially odd because Roy Thomas , the writer of this story, had recently written some of Doom's solo stories. Thomas is usually very keen on continuity and tying things together, so it seems a bit strange that he ignores so much of it here.
Doom decides it's time for action, and unleashes his secret weapon - the Hulk!
The Hulk leaps instantly, and silently, into action, apparently under Doom's control. He smashes up a bunch of tanks and then leaps away, at which point the army point their remaining guns at him, shoot, and much to their surprise, kill him!
This is all a bit of a shock to everyone, and each of the regular characters - Bruce's girlfriend Betty, her father General Ross, Major Talbot and the psychiatrist Doc Damson - take a moment to reflect on what it means to them personally. Doom, meanwhile, does something that we haven't seen him do for a while, and has a good old laugh.
He's very pleased with himself because the Hulk that the army destroyed was yet another of his robots - he's VERY good at those isn't he? The real Bruce Banner/Hulk is safe and sound, although very annoyed. Banner is about to vent this fury and transform into his alter ego, but before he can change Doom blasts him with sleeping gas.
Roy Thomas may not be directly linking this into Doom's regular continuity, but I do like the way he's using established parts of it throughout this story. Doom's car, his enjoyment of a chortle, and now his use of gauntlet-launched sleeping gas have all been seen in previous outings, rather than (as with Larry Leiber's stories) just being chucked into the mix to keep things moving.
Similarly, Dick Ayers seems to have had a look back at some of Doom's earliest adventures, notably the spaceship that he used way back in Fantastic Four #6 (an issue which also saw a good old Doom guffaw) AND in the Hanna Barbera Cartoon series!
This part of the story is all quite similar to Thor #182, when Doom kidnapped Thor's alter ego Don Blake, right down to the description of Latveria as "a storybook nation". I wonder if there was a directive from somewhere to always call it that? When Doom gets out of his plane there are immediately two call-backs to his own adventures, one subtle, and one markedly less so.
These Latverians really do love hailing people don't they? It looks like Doom has decided to take their latent Nazism and keep some of it for himself, as they seem to like it so much. He's also carried through one of his ideas from Astonishing Tales #5 where he made himself a note to "arrange for spontaneous outpourings of joy among the peasantry to greet my homecoming"! I must say, I'm starting to think I was wrong about Roy Thomas for not directly linking this story into previous ones, he's just doing it very subtly.
There's another callback in the artwork too, as Ayers basically swipes a panel from John Buscema.
The issue ends with Doom revealing his plan in one of those monologues he's so fond of - he's going to use his 'subliminal inducer' to brainwash Banner so that both he and his alter ego will be fanatically loyal to Latveria, and Doom can use the former as a scientific advisor and the latter as a weapon. It's a good plan, although it's a little disappointing to find Thomas, after so much good work, giving in and inventing a brand new device to generate a cliffhanger.
Still, other than that it's been a great story digging into all sorts of continuity, and we'll see how it all works out next time!
link to information about this issue
posted 23/11/2018 by Mark Hibbett
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