Marvel Reveals Mr. Fantastic’s Role In Doctor Doom’s Heroic Rebirth

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire and Joe Caramagna, on sale now.

Why is Doctor Doom a good guy now? A question which has floated in the aether since Victor’s turn to the side of angels with Infamous Iron Man #1. Sure, he’s given vague answers about a higher calling and wanting to turn his life around, but what exactly happened to Doctor Doom between Secret Wars and Infamous Iron Man which caused him to make sure a drastic change to everything we know about him.

This week’s Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1 answers that question by revealing a key scene between Doctor Doom and Reed Richards, taking place following their climactic fight in Secret Wars #9, but prior to the reconstruction of the Marvel Universe.

Doom Is Doom

The makeshift Fantastic Four of The Human Torch, The Thing, Doctor Doom and Rachna Koul have once again found themselves in an alternate universe searching for the missing Future Foundation, and with two energy signatures to track the team splits into pairs. Doom and Ben Grimm head off to Latveria where they find an alternate Doctor Doom who has just succeeded in killing the Fantastic Four, as he stands triumphantly over the corpse of his world’s Mister Fantastic.

Threatening to kill The Thing all over again, the alt-Doom is challenged by our Doom, who points out that now he has defeated his greatest enemies only one challenge remains, to defeat himself. Shedding their armor, the two Dooms clash and while the alt-Doom gets the upper hand, our Doom finds an escape in the form of a switch which transports his consciousness into the null space where he finds a new Council of Reeds.

Everything Lives

In order to discuss the new information provided in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1, we need to establish what we know about the end of Secret Wars. In a world where Reed Richards didn’t exist and Doctor Doom was the God of All Things, everything began to break down when Reed emerged from stasis and Doom once again let his old grudges rule his actions. Ultimately, the pair of enemies fought and Reed forced Doom to admit that if Mr. Fantastic was the one with the godlike power at his disposal, he would have done a much better job at fixing the universe.

Although he didn’t mean such an admission to have such consequences, Molecule Man took this to mean that he should stop funneling his power through Doom and instead focus it into Reed, which is what allowed Mr. Fantastic to restore the Multiverse. Earth-616 was recreated as the Prime Marvel Universe, Doom’s face was healed and The Future Foundation departed into the multiverse to work with the Molecule Man on recreating the destroyed worlds.

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Buried Memories

In the present, Doom comes to a stunning realizing when faced with the Council of Reeds. The last thing he remembers of his Reed Richards is losing his godhood. The next thing he knows, he woke up with a newly healed face and a desire to do good. If his Reed could repair his scars, what’s to say he wasn’t also responsible for Victor’s newfound compulsion to do good? After all, as he was putting things back in order, who would blame Mr. Fantastic for tweaking the code of the universe by a few lines in order to make his greatest enemy a hero in his absence.

Conveniently, the Council of Reeds have a device which allows Doom to relive his buried memories of Secret Wars, and we see that in the wake of his defeat he vowed vengeance against his sworn enemy, as is to be expected. Reed, on the other hand, has always maintained that Doom would be a force for good if only he could get past his childish grudge and with plans to leave the Prime Marvel Universe for the forseeable future anyway, Reed comes up with the idea to let people think the missing Future Foundation is dead so that Victor can figure out what to do next in a world where his driving motivation for villainy no longer exists.

What Comes Next

Armed with this information, Doom is able to triumph against his more traditionally evil counterpart but when faced with granting him mercy or ending his life, Doom kills his doppelganger. While for now Victor Von Doom will continue to journey the multiverse with his newfound teammates, it may not be long before his knowledge what Reed did to him proves too much for him to bear. If it was true that Reed Richards simply altered Doom’s mind to be a good guy, that would be fairly straightforward for Victor; the fact that Reed wanted to see if he was right about Doom’s potential for good and the fact that he was might be enough to push Doom back over the edge to villainy just to prove his hated nemesis wrong.

While the consequences of this information weigh heavily on Victor, they may prove to be a major point of contention should Johnny and Ben ever find out. The pair thought their family had died in remaking the world, and though they may be happy to see them upon their impending return, the two might be less happy to know that their deaths were faked for the benefit of Doctor Doom. While someone as pragmatic as Reed Richards might not see the emotional pain such a decision would cause, or at least weigh it against the potential positives of a heroic Victor Von Doom, Ben and Johnny probably aren’t going to appreciate being lied to in service of their greatest enemy, especially on what essentially amounts to a hunch.

The Fantastic Four are due back sooner than later, with Dan Slott and Sara Pichelli’s new volume launching in just two months, but there are still many questions to be answered and many revelations to be uncovered before then. Will the remaining members of the team learn the truth of their family’s disappearance? Will Victor Von Doom slide back into villainy? What exactly is Rachna getting out of these multiversal jaunts? Expect answers to come thick and fast in the next few months as Marvel begins the hype machine for the return of the First Family.