In "I Remember Well," we spotlight instances where writers pull out long-forgotten plots, characters or attributes of comic book characters. Today, we look at how Cassie Lang's first comic book romance was with...Doctor Doom?!?
Cassie Lang, the daughter of Ant-Man, Scott Lang, is now a superhero in her own right, both in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but also in the Marvel Universe, as Stinger (and before that, as Stature), but before that point, Cassie Lang was a fascinating character because she was more or less the one thing that made Scott Lang stand out as a comic book character, as he was one of the few superheroes around who had a young daughter, so writers would often make a point to work Cassie into Ant-Man's appearances. The only problem, of course, was that Ant-Man rarely appeared in comics himself, so Cassie only made about 15 appearances over her first 15 years in comics after debuting In 1979's Marvel Premiere #47 (by David Michelinie, John Byrne and Bob Layton).
The first time that Cassie actually got to appear in a comic on a regular basis came in the mid-1990s in a fairly surprising place, the Fantastic Four. During this period, Cassie almost had her first romance, which is a normal thing for a girl, except that it was kind of sort of with...Doctor Doom?! The whole thing wouldn't really be fully explored for almost another thirty years!
How did Cassie Lang find her way into the pages of the Fantastic Four?
In 1993's Fantastic Four #381 (by Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi), the Fantastic Four suffered a dramatic blow when team leader, Reed "Mister Fantastic" Richards, was seemingly killed by his old rival, Doctor Doom, after Doom was almost fatally wounded while trying to defeat the powerful alien being known as Hunger (after, of course, first trying to harness Hunger's powers). Doom seemed to decide that if he was going to die, he was going to take his old foe with him.
With Reed now apparently dead, the Fantastic Four obviously had to deal with a lot of major changes to their dynamic (including, you know, the fact that the Fantastic FOUR now had only three members), but one of the main things that Sue Richards, the Invisible Woman, who took over as team leader in the wake of her husband's apparent death, wanted to fix was the team's now lack of a technical expert to handle all of Reed's various gadgets and machines, especially as Sue still believed that there was a way for some of these devices to rescue her husband if he was still alive.
So just three issues after Reed seemingly died, Scott Lang was hired (on the recommendation of Tony Stark) by the group as their new technology expert...
In that same issue, during a crisis, Lang revealed to the others that he was also the superhero known as Ant-Man...
Lang continued to aid the team as both their tech guy, and as an extra superhero aide, for the next year or so, until he was officially offered a spot as the new fourth member of the team in Fantastic Four #400 (by DeFalco, Ryan and Bulanadi). He didn't EXACTLY accept, but he essentially did, and therefore, now that he was an established member of the team, in Fantastic Four #403, Cassie was added to the book as a member of the supporting cast, where she found her "doomed" romance with Doctor Doom, by way of a little kid.
Who is Kristoff Vernard, and how was he once Doctor Doom?
Like many great supervillains, Doctor Doom has been presumed dead a number of times over the years. In fact, his "death" alongside Reed in Fantastic Four #381 wasn't even the first time that he seemingly exploded, as in Fantastic Four #260 (by John Byrne), his body sure seemed to have been destroyed in a battle with Tyros (what Galactus' former herlad, Terrax, was called when he had the Power Cosmic torn for him) and Silver Surfer.
In Fantastic Four #278 (by Byrne and Jerry Ordway), we learned that when Doom was seemingly "killed," his Doombots enacted a protocol that led to them hooking Doom's young ward, Kristoff Vernard, to machines and then fed him Doctor Doom's memories. At the end of the issue, "Doctor Doom" then attacked the Fantastic Four and launched the Baxter Building into outer space...
After Mr. Fantastic mocked Doom's lack of originality (as he had sent the Baxter Building into outer space years earlier, as well), "Doom" then showed how this plan was different by then blowing the building up! Luckily, the Fantastic Four survived, and in the next issue, came right to Latveria to take on Doom. When they captured him, it became evident that "Doom" was actually a brainwashed Kristoff...
Reed tried his best to cure Kristoff, but he eventually escaped. After that, the real Doom was brought back to life by the Beyonder, and Doom eventually just allowed Kristoff to run Latveria as Doctor Doom until Doom finally returned in Fantastic Four #350 (by Walter Simonson and Al Milgrom) and relieved Kristoff of his duties, also returning Kristoff's mind to himself. Two issues later, Kristoff seemingly died as part of a ruse by Doom in a battle with Mister Fantastic through time.
In Fantastic Four #397, however, Reed's father, Nathaniel Richards, restored Kristoff to life....
Kristoff and his Doom exoskeleton began to work with the Fantastic Four, even attempting to join the team in Fantastic Four #400.
How did Cassie and Kristoff come to have their first romance together?
When Cassie came to stay with her father for a visit in Fantastic Four #403, she met Kristoff, who was quite charmed by the young girl...
In Fantastic Four #410 (by DeFalco, Ryan and John Lowe), we see that even Scott realized that Kristoff was into Cassie...
However, DeFalco and Ryan's run on the book ended fairly abruptly with Marvel giving a number of their books to Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to reboot, so DeFalco was never able to really do much with the young romance between Cassie and Kristoff.
So it, instead, fell to a recent Marvel Voices: Infinity Comic by Anthony Oliveira, Jethro Morales, Yen Nitro and Ariana Maher (Marvel Voices: Infinity Comic #10) to show that Cassie's interest in Kristoff was partially because he, like her, ostensibly had a criminal father, but they were NOT their parents...
And also, they bonded over their interest in science...
And then we see that in the present day, the two are dating...
Very cute stuff (later, Kristoff is given a chance to show HOW different he is than Doom when he sees a future version of himself as Doctor Doom and chooses to NOT pursue the path that led to him becoming a conquering version of Doom. He then ends the issue with Cassie telling him about her OTHER great love, Iron Lad of the Young Avengers).
If anyone has a suggestion for a future I Remember Well, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com