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Spidey and Doctor Strange Versus Doctor Doom and the Dread Dormammu
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This comic is advertised as "Spidey and Doctor Strange versus Doctor Doom and the Dread Dormammu" but none of the characters meet until the very end when Spider-man has a brief chat with Doctor Strange. Doom and Dormammu, meanwhile, operate more as plot devices than participants, with the main baddy being a small man called Dilby. I guess "Spidey battles Dilby as does Doctor Strange (seperately) while Doctor Doom and the Dread Dormanmu are elswhere" wouldn't have been quite as exciting.
Techinically speaking this is also, sort of, chapter two to last time's chapter one of the return of Doctor Doom, although the chronology is a little confusing - previously we saw Doctor Doom flying out of Latveria to plot his revenge, yet here he's back in the country in a castle called "Castle Doom" which appears to be on an isolated mountain somewhere.
I should say at this point that the whole comic looks great. It's drawn by Frank Miller very much in the style he was developing during his Daredevil run, with everything looking very sketchy and exciting, and also constant rain in every outdoors sequence. It looks "modern", although that might just be because this was what "modern" comics looked like when I was a teenager. Still, it's clearly something different from the more "Bronze Age" stylings of people like Keith Pollard that we've seen in recent stories.
Inside the castle we meet Dilby, a geeky American academic not unlike Dilbert (although Dilbert would not be created for several years yet) who Doom has recruited to help him "combine magic and science" to bring about something called "the bend sinister". Throughout the story Doom is very autocratic, stalking the chambers of his castle referring to various underlings as "slaves".
Doom "rewards" Dilby for his work by allowing him to be the first test subject for the device he's invented, which sends the unlucky academic into the realm of Dread Dormammu, where Frank Miller does a thrilling re-interpretation of Steve Ditko's version.
Not long this after Doom is rudely interuppted from a nice sit down in front of the telly with a cup of tea. Dormammu appears on the screen, interrupting a documentary about the Nazis which Doom was watching to learn where they went wrong, and we discover that the two villains have been plotting to use Dilby to implement the previously mentioned "bend sinister".
How is Doom drinking that cup of tea through his mask?
Over in Greenwhich village, Dr Strange takes delivery of a crate, which turns out to contain a robot monster conjured up by Dilby. A Big Fight breaks out, during which Dr Strange is completely overwhelmed. He sends out a psychic distress signal which, after trying several other superhero HQs first, finally settles for Peter Parker, who's in the middle of teaching a class at ESU. He's forced to leave in a hurry, pausing only to be rude to his boss (a Crusty Old Dean) and cancel a date with his girlfriend Debbie.
Spidey dashes over to Greenwich village, battling past some mystical stone gargoyles, angry New Yorkers, and Bright Yellow Hand Monsters, until eventually he finds Strange's manservant Wong, who has received a mysterious four-letter psychic message from his boss.
Denny O'Neill is doing his best to be hip, sending Spidey off to CBGB nightclub where he discovers a band called "Shrapnel" playing. This is a real band who O'Neill was a fan of, a bunch of New York punks who apparently courted controversy by using militaristic language in their lyrics.
Or, to put it another way, they were an even worse version of the Ramones, with a different gimmick!
Peter runs after her, claiming he'd gone there to find her, and takes her for some coffee. They collide with Dilby on the way, and then just as Peter's promising Debbie a meal his spider sense goes off and he has to run out on her again.
Come on Debbie, you can do much better than him!
The band Shrapnel are marching down the street, chanting "Bend Sinister", followed by their audience. As Spider-man watches, more an more people come out on the street, chanting and marching towards Central Park. It's apparently something to do with a small figure standing on top of the Latverian Embassy.
Hang on, what's he doing up there? Surely the embassy is still under the command of Zorba?
Dilby has Dr Strange trapped in a crystal as part of a Cunning Plan that involves Strange being sacrificed at a crucial moment which, combined with the music of Shrapnel and the dancing of New Yorkers, will bring about the Bend Sinister. Spidey does his best to foil the cunning plan but is stopped by Dilby's robot.
Another Big Fight ensues, but just as the Bend Sinister is about to happen Spidey manages to steer the flying robot into the giant crystal, shattering it to pieces. Dr Strange escapes but, before he can magically punish Dilby, the baddy gets sucked through a portal into Dormannu's dimension.
The crowd returns to normal and Spidey asks the question we've all wanted answering - what IS the Bend Sinister anyway?
What a cop out!
The story ends with a return to Latveria, where Doom takes delivery of a magical package containing Dilby trapped in a smaller version of the crystal, which he simply adds to his collection.
This feels like a nod to the ending of "Raiders Of The Lost Ark", but this comic was actually published a year before that film came out!
And so the story ends with Doom going off to plot some more. It's been a cracking story, but I must say I'm a little disappointed in how the continuity has worked out. I thought this was going to be a co-ordinated "Chapter Two" of Doom's return, but it makes no mention of the larger story and could well have fitted into any part of Doom's history. Things will at least look up in this regard when we next see Doom in a full story, but before that we've got another minor appearance coming up in an absolutely all-time classic comic!
link to information about this issue
posted 10/1/2020 by Mark Hibbett
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