Every week, we will be examining comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today we look at how the late, great Dwayne McDuffie explained away the classic "Where's my money, honey?" confrontation between Luke Cage and Doctor Doom.

As you know (or if you don't, then check this description of the story here), Steve Englehart once had an issue of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire where Luke Cage does some work for Doctor Doom only to be stiffed out of his $200 fee...

Angered, Cage travels all the way to Latveria to get his money...

Click here if you want to see more from that tale.

Now, interestingly, look at the above dialogue and look at the dialogue in the finale of the story...

You could pretty easily make the argument that Doom does not think that he ACTUALLY owes Cage the money (he even specifically says "what you say I owe you") but is just amazed that Cage would travel from the United States to Europe just to collect on a $200 debt.

This is the approach that Dwayne McDuffie used roughly fifteen years later when he addressed the situaiton in an issue of Damage Control (the company that fixes messes caused by superhero fights) and decided to do some damage control on Doom's rep...

And just in case you were wondering if this was just a coincidence, McDuffie actually posted a comment right here at Comics Should Be Good in 2010 (in a discussion of the aforementioned "Where's my money, honey?" scene) stating:

My Damage Control story ” When Doom Defaults!” was a direct response to this one, which I hated as a child.

Good stuff by McDuffie.

Our pal Iron Maiden pointed this one out awhile back.

If you have a suggestion for a future Abandoned an' Forsaked, be sure to let me know at bcronin@comicbookresources.com! Do note that the key to abandoned an' forsaked is that a story is both abandoned and then a later story directly overwrites/contradicts/retcons the abandoned story. I mention this only because I get a lot of suggestions for abandoned stories, but not so much abandoned AND forsaked stories.