This is the latest in a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me. Here is a collection of all of the installments in the feature so far.
A few years back, I did a piece about times where Doctor Doom was thought to be dead. A reader asked if I could show how Doom SURVIVED those times, so, well, here is that! I decided to limit myself to nine times just because, well, I didn't feel like doing more than nine times. This dude has cheated death a LOT, ya know?
Doom's first "death" came in Fantastic Four #6 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers) where he first teamed up with Namor the Sub-Mariner, but then betrayed him, leading to quite a tussle between the two...
Doom turned up alive in Fantastic Four #10 (by Lee, Kirby and Ayers) with the following explanation...
Doom's next "death" happened at the end of that issue, after he and Reed switch back to their proper bodies...
In Fantastic Four #16 (by Lee, Kirby and Ayers), the Fantastic Four go to the Microverse, where they discover what happened to Doom...
Doom somehow manages to evade dying at the end of the issue. The NEXT issue, however...
In Fantastic Four #17 (by Lee, Kirby and Ayers), Doom seemingly plummets to his death...
Since Doom has a jet pack, I always felt that this death was iffy as a death, but they DID play it like he died.
Anyhow, in his next appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #5 (by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko), he quickly explains how he survived and yes, it is as simple as "I used my jet pack"...
Go to the next page for the next batch of "deaths"...
In Fantastic Four #23 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and George Roussos), Doom suffered perhaps his goofiest "death" to date...
Solar waves? Wow.
We see how Doom survived in Fantastic Four Annual #2 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Chic Stone)...
Doom next "dies" in Fantastic Four #60 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott), where he has taken over Silver Surfer's Power Cosmic, but forgot that that included the fact that the Surfer cannot leave the Earth...
We learn how Doom survived in, of all places, Daredevil #37 (by Stan Lee, Gene Colan and John Tartaglione)...
Doom does a good job staying alive until Fantastic Four #144 (by Gerry Conway, Rich Bucker and Joe Sinnott), where he falls victim to his own creation, Darkoth...
In one of his quickest ever returns, Doom turns up alive in Giant Size Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Joe Sinnott), which came out the same MONTH as FF #144!
Go to the next page for the last three "deaths," including one super-confusing one involving Secret Wars...
In Fantastic Four #260 (by John Byrne), Doom is manipulating Tyros (the Galactus herald known as Terrax) and, well, things did not work out his way...
But as we see clearly (which is why I ommitted it from the first list of Doom "deaths"), he uses the mind-transfer gimmick from Fantastic Four #10 to transfer his mind into that bystander, which he reveals in Fantastic Four #288 (by John Byrne and Joe Sinnott)...
There was a bit of a continuity snag there, though, as while Doom was "dead," he appeared in Secret Wars, where, in #12 (by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck and John Beatty) he was killed once again after Doom stole the Beyonder's power and then lost it...
In the aforementioned Fantastic Four #288, Byrne also explained this by having the Beyonder split Doom off from the Norm version above and send him back in time to Secret Wars, with Doom returning from the blast at the end of Secret Wars #12 at the end of the issue...
Finally, in Fantastic Four #381 (by Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi), Doom appears to take out Reed and himself in one final blast...
In Fantastic Four #406 (by DeFalco, Ryan and Bulanadi), however, we discover that the villainous time and space manipulator Hyperstorm really kidnapped Doom and Reed at that moment...
That Doom, he is quite a survivor!
That's it for this installment! If you have suggestions for future installments, e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com!