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Checkmate
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It feels like ages since we last had a Doctor Doom story called "Checkmate" or "Endgame" or that tried to draw a comparison between super-villiany and a board game, but here we have it in the grand finale of a series that has managed to combine all of the weird attempts at "grittiness" from "Secret Wars" with all of the horrendously long slabs of dialogue from "Secret Wars" without any of the very occasional flashes of excitement from... er... "Secret Wars". What I'm saying is that this is even worse than "Secret Wars" was!
A major reason for this is that "Secret Wars" did at least have loads of Doctor Doom in it, whereas "Cloak and Dagger" has so far had about one page per issue, building up to this finale where Doom appears a lot but does absolutely nothing whatsoever. It's really weird - we've been teased his arrival since the cover of the very first issue, but when he turns up he just watches what's going on and, even more weirdly, seems to think this is "strategy". Thus, according to this comic, the way to win at chess is to basically watch while other people play it.
Doom is there right on the very first page, wandering around the nightclub/arena from last time, where he discovers the murdered body of the club's owner. It turns out though that this guy was a robot all along!
We then get a classic Close Up On The Eyes shot of Doom, where he engages fully with the chess metaphor as he plans his "moves". As we will see, this will consist entirely of slinking around the building, observing other people do stuff.
We next catch up with Dazzler and Beast, who since last time have been hung upside down by their feet, which gives them the opportunity to engage in huge slabs of horrible dialogue and uncomfortable kissing. Examples of the intensity of the romance here include The Beast explaining at length what happens when two cats are tied together over a washing line, and Dazzled saying she loves his "ribald sense of humour". So sexy!
Thankfully this is interrupted by Alex The Smoothie who reveals tha he is actually the son of Doctor Doom. His acceptance of his lineage (which he hadn't really mentioned before) is shown by his adoption of a vaguely Doom-ish outfit.
As with so much to do with this series, the interior visuals are a huge disappoint after the Bill Sienkiewicz cover. Sienkiewicz draws Doom Jr in a shining gold costume, somewhat similar to the one worn by Doom Sr back in the inside pages of What If? #22, "What If Doom became a hero?" This is a lovely use of continuity, which is totally lost by Don Perlin's version where he's wearing something much more like a traditional villain's one-sie with a boring grey crown thing and Doom-like gauntlets.
After a brief look at Poltergeist and Link (two characters so annoying and boring that I'd forgotten all about them) we return to Doom Jr to find him throwing daggers at a map of Latveria.
Two things strike me about this image. Firstly, how on earth has he missed Doom's face so many times when he's throwing the daggers from about twelve inches away? We see another shot of this later on in the page when it's abundantly clear that he's standing right there in front of it, with hardly enough room to swing his arm - does Don Perlin know nothing of the correct distance for a darts oche? The second, more exciting, point is that this is an Actual Map Of Latveria! Marvel Unlimited lets us zoom in for a better look:
This version of Latveria not only has towns and villages but also a railway (which appears to go beyond the country's borders), county lines and possibly a river. Settlements named include "Doomsfalls", "Doomton", "Doomsburg" and "Doomsvale", alongside oddities like "Skidsville", "Otisburg" and, I think, "Canarsis". I have no idea where any of these names come from, but later on they are joined by "Doomshill" and... "Bronx"?
Doom Jr is ranting away in a very Doom-like way in front of two of his lackeys, who start to worry that he is turning nuts. Unbeknownst to them as they wander off talking about it, and arguing over whether they should confront him, they are being watched by Doctor Doom himself.
"The first piece is lost", says Doom like some kind of master strategist, despite having done nothing whatsoever except watch other people doing stuff. Shortly after this one of the disaffected lackeys frees Dazzler and the Beast, and Doom again takes credit for something which is absolutely nothing to do with him at all.
I've re-read this just to check, but Doom is definitely not doing anything here, just observing. It's most perplexing - clearly Ann Nocenti has intended for Doom to appear right from the start of the series, but once he does arrive he doesn't do anything at all. The cover of the first issue showed him looming over everything, as he is wont to do, as if it was all a scheme, but it is nothing of the kind!
Also, if Doom Jr is really Doom's son, doesn't that mean that Doom is calling himself a "snivelling cur" here?
Beast and Dazzler escape, but then run into Doom Jr and his circus of mutants. A big fight breaks out which goes on for ages, as everyone involved comments on how amazing it is that Dazzler (until very recently a singer) and Beast are able to fight off an entire army of trained professional killers.
I guess it's supposed to be inspiring, but it's just daft. All of this is watched - just watched - by Doom, who yet again uses the chess metaphor to make it sound like this is the culmination of a devious plan. In case I have not made this clear yet, it really isn't!
Link and Poltergeist, the two boring teenage mutants who were also staying at Heartbreak Hotel, turn up and join in and end up nearly killing Doom Jr, but then don't. I may have made this sound more exciting than it is. Once freed Doom Jr orders his army of mutants to kill Dazzler and Beast - something which they have manifestly failed to do over the preceding few pages - but they wisely decline. This is the last straw for Doom who finally makes his grand entrance to give his son a right good telling off. And then he just walks away!
Doom has a history of doing this - notably in the classic Fantastic Four #87 when he just let the FF go in "the most offbeat ending ever". Here, however, it just seems that Doom is sick and tired of the whole silly thing and is sodding off back to Latveria to put it all behind him. Over the years of this project I have often found myself agreeing with Doctor Doom, but rarely more so than here. Is Latveria airlines taking bookings?
Dazzler and Beast follow suit and head back to the Heartbreak Hotel where they have another interminable conversation which attempts to make everything that's gone before somehow meaningful. They decide to end their relationship in the dullest, most emotionless way I think possible, and as they talk the camera continues to pull away from them until the very last panel showa a tiny earth millions of miles away, which goes some way to conveying how emotionally distant it all feels.
And that's the end of what has been a truly dreadful mini-series, which doesn't even go to the trouble of telling us when it's set or how Doctor Doom is wandering around in it when he's supposed to be dead and/or on another planet. This series came out around the time that I was drifting away from mainstream comics for a while, first of all to fanzines and indies, but then on to bands and, vitally, BEER, and reading stuff like this reminds me of what a wise decision that was. We're getting closer to the end of the Marvel Age now, and there aren't many enjoyable comics left to look at, let alone any Actually Great ones, and this is illustrated very clearly by what comes next time: "Secret Wars II"!!!
link to information about this issue
posted 30/4/2021 by Mark Hibbett
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