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Death Duel!
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As we've seen before, one really easy way to make Doctor Doom the sympathetic lead character in a story is to pit him against someone who is clearly, unequivocally, much worse than he is, and they don't come much more clearly, unequivocally evil than The Red Skull.
The story here carries on shortly after the previous issue of this series, with The Red Skull on the moon ready to fire a hypno ray and Doctor Doom (accompanied by The Shroud) heading into space to stop him. There's a lot of minor plotholes getting explained and characters moving into place during the start of the story, and initially I thought that Bill Mantlo (who writes this one) had been brought in as "The Fill-In King" to sort it out, but no, he wrote the previous issue too. Maybe this sort of fix-it scriptwriting becomes a habit?
One early example of this is when Doom and Captain America discuss what's happened since last time, and why it's Doom in the spaceship. This is the kind of recapping/explanation that usually happens in the first few pages of superhero comics from around this time, and Mantlo achieves it with some excellent Doom dialogue.
Dolt! There's a bit more plot mechanics as Namor decides to leave the others to it and head back to Atlantis, and then Doomn ejects The Shroud into space so ge can guard the Hypno-Ray satellite.
Having read quite a lot of The Shroud lately I am entirely in favour of him being ejected into space, and I really like Doom's reaction to his traditional superhero dialogue here. There's also a great, brief, explanation of Doom's entire motivation for saving the world - it will, after all, all belong to him soon!
Next comes a brief interlude during which The Skull demonstrates his villainy by horribly murdering members of his staff for disagreeing with him (Doom rarely does this - he'll slap them in the face, but doesn't usually kill them) and then reveals that he was the mysterious bidder who's been buying Doom's technology in the distant sub-plots lately. He also does a recap of his recent history and explains that being teleported to the moonbase means that the firing of the Hypno Ray has had to be delayed by an hour. It's a tour-de-force of This Kind Of Comic Writing by Mantlo, getting a whole heap of information over in an exciting way (thanks to Bob Hall's illustrations) while demonstrating character and, on top of all that, setting a countdown timer before the end of the world! I am honour bound as a Middle-Aged Superhero Fan to say "That would take an entire issue nowadays".
It's then time for action, as The Skull fires missiles at Doom's approaching space ship. I was going to say that it all loooks a bit like Star Wars, but of course this came out before the film, so Doctor Doom being blasted into space comes at least a year before the same fate befell Darth Vader. You don't think..?
Doom escapes the destruction of his ship, sealing off his armour and jetting down to the lunar surface, where The Red Skull (with swastika clearly displayed) arrives on a space jet ski, intent on killing him.
A Big Fight then takes place in which the two supervillains have a go at each other, both using Doctor Doom's own devices. At first it looks like The Skull is going to win easily, but then Doom produces what looks like a massive bread knife and cuts a hole into the underneath of the skull's space cycle.
The Red Skull falls into the mines that he himself had set, and as Doom approaches we get a great character moment, showing the difference between the two once more, with Doom enjoying the game and the Skull absolutely terrified.
The Red Skull shows fear whenever he's in danger, a villainous trait which Doctor Doom rarely if ever demonstrates - another sign that we are supposed to be see him in the role of hero.
While this is going on The Shroud decides to ignore Doom's orders to wait and watch the satellite and instead try and disable it himself. This, of course, goes wrong (because The Shroud is rubbish) and he's knocked unconscious. Luckily for him (if not the reader) Captain America trundles by in the SHIELD spaceship and picks him up. Shame.
Back on the moon, Doom and The Red Skull are having a proper punch-up, which leads to Doom's armour being pierced so that his air supply starts to leak out. He solves this problem by using the freeze-unit in his glove to freeze the oxygen, sealing the hole.
Um... it doesn't work like that, does it? Anyway, the fight continues until Doom manages to trap The Red Skull under an avalanche. Just as Doom is enjoying his victory, the Skull points out that his henchman are approaching to free him, but Doom, rather brilliantly, stays where he is and uses one of his major, unacknowledged, super-powers on them: persuasion!
I love the fact that all of the henchmen say "Sod this" and clear off! The story ends with The Red Skull trapped under rubble, about to suffocate when his air supply runs out, and Doom in his spaceship heading for home. For all his heroic tendencies, that's one thing you'd never catch an actual superhero doing!
link to information about this issue
posted 12/9/2019 by Mark Hibbett
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