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What If a Criminal Had Become Nova?
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Over the course of Minor Appearances Momth Doctor Doom will make several appearances in "What If?", varying from single panel flashbacks to starring roles. This one is somewhere in the middle, with Doom appearing in a supporting role in the last of four stories all looking at what might have happened if the powers of Nova (Marvel's latest young hero designed to be a "Spider-man for the eighties") had been given to somebody else, instead of Richard Rider. As with most "What If?" stories, the answer tends to be that things would have been much worse!
The first three stories concern a woman who uses Nova's powers to go on a killing spree, a hobo on a world without superheroes who ends up sacrificing himself to stop the Skrulls, and a version of Peter Parker who got radiation poisoning from the spider, fell ill, got the Nova powers but even then failed to stop his uncle being killed. They're all a bit grim, to be honest, so the final story, set in a world where super-villains have taken over the planet, comes close to being light relief!
The Nova in this story is an criminal who has used the powers of Nova for evil - you can tell he's a baddie because he smokes a big cigar while in costume.
This Nova has gathered together "the world's most infamous villains" (Doctor Doom, The Red Skull and... er... The Sphinx) to use "Computer Prime" (the computer in Nova's space ship) to pick the right moment to destroy all of earth's superheroes - something which Doom regards as fairly straightforward.
Being super-villains, of course, their alliance does not last long, and Doctor Doom is the first to break ranks, deciding to overthrow Nova and take charge of the group for himself via a slightly differently angled version of the traditional "close up on Doom's eyes" image by George Perez.
Nova fights back, with Doom arrogant as ever, offering him the chance to live if he surrenders and vows allegiance to the ruler of Latveria. Nova, understandably, turns him down.
Doom explains that "the right to rule cannot be assumed by anyone who finds it's trappings!" (despite that being a large part of his own origin story) but before he can expand upon his point his is shot in the back, murdered by The Red Skull.
The Red Skull is then murdered by The Sphinx, who then kills Nova too. He's done this so that he can take possession of Computer Prime for himself in order to search the minds of every human on earth until he finds one who has the answer to the secret he has spent millenia searching for - how to end his own life! It's all very dramatic, if entirely nonsensical, and even more so when it turns out that the big twist ending is that there really WAS one person who knew how he could die... NOVA!
This make precisely no sense whatsoever, but it doesn't matter - this is a "What If?" story, so all that matters is that you get a huge pile of bodies by the end! It has, however, been a pretty consistent version of Doctor Doom, even in an alternative universe. Tomorrow we're looking at another issue of "What If?", where Doom very nearly becomes Sorceror Supreme. What's the better it all goes horribly wrong?
link to information about this issue
posted 21/11/2019 by Mark Hibbett
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