Fantastic Four Annual (1963 series) #2

This tale begins in the castle of Dr Doom, ruler of Latveria, when his aged servant Boris reminds him what day it is. Doom follows the man, who needs a cane to walk, out into the storm-swept night to the grave of a woman in the countryside. And Victor remembers his past.

There was a gypsy encampment here and soldiers came from the castle to fetch young Victor's father, the gypsy healer, to save the life of the Baron's wife. Dad leaves his son in the care of his friend Boris. But when he sees the lady he tries to tell her husband that nothing can be done. The Baron refuses to believe this and orders him to use his 'magic'. The healer does his best and then leaves, but he knows she'll die ...

... so he takes Victor and goes into hiding because he knows the Baron will send his soldiers to take revenge. They live through a bitterly cold winter night and dad uses his own clothes to keep his son warm. When Boris finds them the next day the father dies but tells Boris to look after Victor. But the son swears revenge for his father, and his mother who was murdered also when he was an infant. Boris knows the mother was a sorceress and hopes Victor doesn't inherit her magic. But among his father's herbs and remedies Victor finds a chest that contains his mother's secrets.

As a young man Victor and Boris make a living swindling rich folk with fake 'miracles'. After a while he faces a firing squad which finds they've shot a lifelike robot. Other real inventions help them evade capture on other occasions. His fame spreads worldwide and he gets given a scholarship to attend State University. Leaving Boris in charge of his gypsy tribe he flies to America (by ordinary commercial airline).

At State U Reed Richards greets him as a fellow science scholarship student and suggests they room together but Victor says he's going to get a room of his own. So Reed accepts touchdown king Ben Grimm as his roomie. Von Doom uses his privacy to conduct his science/magic experiments. Reed checks in on him 1 day and spots some errors in his calculations but Victor throws him out and tells his assistant to start the machine he's invented to contact the netherworld. The machine explodes, Doom's face is scarred and he's expelled from the University.

When he removes his bandages Victor sees a face so disfigured that he must keep it hidden. He heads to Tibet where he finds a mysterious order of monks. Over many months he learns all their ancient secrets and becomes so adept that they call him 'master'. Using the mouth of a giant idol as a furnace Doom creates the iron armour and mask by which he will be known. He's so impatient that he dons the mask before it's completely cooled. The mask can only be removed by manipulating a camouflaged ring on a finger of an iron glove. Thus Dr Doom is born and he leaves the monks using the nuclear flying harness he's invented (that he used to escape at the end of #5).

In the ensuing years Dr Doom made himself known to the world and battled the FF. Now he and Boris leave the grave and return to his castle. The people seem to like him because they have prospered under his rule, but they also fear him. He heads to his lab and Boris wonders what new weapon he'll invent next.

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Story #2

The final victory of Doctor Doom

Writer: Stan Lee.
Penciler: Jack Kirby.
Inker: Chic Stone.
Colorist: Stan Goldberg.
Letterer: Sam Rosen.

Synopsis

This story begins with the Fantastic Four flying over New York City in their Fantasti-Car when it malfunctions and they're about to do an emergency landing in a busy street. Human Torch flies ahead alongside Mr Fantastic's elongated body warning cars to get out of the way as ace pilot Thing fights to control the descent. But he runs into the back of an old jalopy that couldn't escape, but only knocks off a rear fender. The old driver complains vociferously so super-strong Thing tries to put the fender back in place, and damages the car further. But then an art dealer approaches and offers to buy the car for $1,000. The old gent is delighted with the deal. The dealer then pays Ben Grimm $100 to smash it up even more, and intends to sell the result as a Pop Art creation by the famous Thing. Meanwhile Reed Richards has fixed the F-Car and they head home.

Now we flash back to the end of #23 which left Dr Doom in outer space with only the air within his armour to keep him alive. But the inhabitant of a round spaceship sees him falling towards Jupiter and uses an attractor-ray to drag him inside before his air runs out. Doom immediately plans to dominate his saviour who turns out to look like an Egyptian Pharaoh with a futuristic gun demanding to know who he's saved. Our guy says he's Dr Doom, possibly the most brilliant scientific genius on Earth, even admitting that Reed Richards *might* be his superior. He'd almost destroyed  Richards' team the Fantastic Four by sending them to die in space when they managed to turn the tables on him.

His saviour says he too has been defeated by the FF. He says he's from the 25th Century and he became a time-travelling criminal with a time-machine supposedly invented by his ancestor who is Doom himself. He was ruling Ancient Egypt as Pharaoh Rama-Tut when they defeated him (in #19) and now he's contemplating revenge on them. Doom wonders if he and Tut might actually be the same person, but they're unsure which 1 later becomes the other. But that means they daren't attack the FF together because if 1 of them dies then the other might never exist. So Tut agrees to send Doom back to Earth in a space capsule.

The capsule splashes down in New York Harbour but DrD has parachuted out beforehand to land in NY. He heads for the Latverian Embassy where Ambassador Gorzenko is fielding press questions about who is the real ruler of Latveria behind the Prime Minister. Doom calls him aside and gives him detailed instructions to be followed to the letter on pain of death.

Now the FF receive an invitation to a reception at the Latverian Embassy and they are requested to attend in their costumes. At the dinner the Ambassador urges them to sample a Latverian juice drink. They all comply except cautious Reed. When Gorzenko slips away to inform his master of this Doom says it doesn't matter. The 4 are enjoying the after-dinner party and Johnny Storm takes a young countess out on a balcony for some privacy. But Thing appears to interrupt them and when Johnny follows him Ben hits him, but we can see that it's really an illusion (which looks like a hologram to me). Meanwhile the real Thing is chatting with a lady when (the real) Human Torch attacks him. Sue Storm rushes off to find Reed and tell him what's happening but she 'sees' him kissing another lady, and Reed's image dismisses her and she runs off crying. She and the real Mr Fantastic meet up where HT and Thing are having 1 of their usual squabbles. Invisible Girl uses her forcefield to douse her brother's flames and Thing rolls him up in a carpet and throws him outside. Sue now uses her forcefield against her love Reed and then turns invisible to evade him and pin him against a wall with a table.

Victor Von Doom enjoys watching the chaos he's caused from the next room. But then he admits to himself that the defeat of the FF, though sweet, won't take away the 'pain' of his ruined face. He steels himself to activate the hidden button that allows his facemask to be removed and looks in a mirror. But he can't stand the sight and pulls out his gun to smash the glass. IG and MF hear the sound and rush into that room. Reed enters 1st to protect Sue and sees Dr Doom who fires his gun at him, but Sue's forcefield shields her love. And then she expands it to push the foe out of a window. Doom doesn't know what's happening (he never saw her using this new power in #23) and retreats to modify his plan.

Reed deduces that the drink that he alone didn't consume caused the others to be susceptible to their worst fears. They run out to Central Park and stop the other 2 fighting until Reed can fill them in about what's going on. But he reveals he's kept his drink in a sample bottle which he's analysed! The 3 males agree to team-up against Doom, but Sue insists on joining them even though Reed says it's too dangerous.

But when they get back to the Baxter Building they find DrD already there. Thing rushes in to clobber the villain but his punches can't get through Doom's personal forcefield. However MrF has a forcefield disrupter which he created for just such a situation. He hand's Torch a 'lightning rod' on the end of a very long wire and tells him to fly to at least a thousand feet (to avoid collateral damage) and send the power of his nova flame down the wire. As Johnny flies away Reed adds that he should let go of the rod as soon as he's triggered it to avoid feedback, but Johnny's too far to hear. (Reed has a headset mike but Johnny hasn't, although I don't know who else he'd be communicating with.) HT obeys the 1st part of the instructions which lights up the sky over NY. The power is fed down the wire and 'disrupts' Doom's forcefield.

Reed reckons Victor will take a short while to recover so there's time to check on Johnny. He sees Torch falling out of the sky holding the rod but still aflame. He stretches his arms to catch the youth despite the burns through his gloves and pulls him into the room. He desperately asks Sue to pour alkali solution #16T (another of his inventions) into a large 'beaker' and plunges his hands into it. Johnny has flamed off and is out of action. Thing prepares to deal with the temporarily helpless Doom but Victor uses 1 of *his* inventions, a miniature paralysis gun, to lay him low. So Invisible Girl is the only FFer left standing. She turns DrD invisible, another of the powers he didn't know she had, and has him blundering around because he can't tell where he is. As he begins to adjust to that she keeps him off-balance with little force pellets. Then she makes herself invisible which unfortunately renders Doom visible, and he uses built-in radar to track her.

But then Reed Richards interrupts to say that the real contest is between himself and Victor, and Doom agrees to a fight to the finish. MrF offers DrD a drink to toast their final battle and they swig it down. Then Richards produces a device which he claims will decide once and for all who is the superior, and Doom immediately recognises the Encephalo-Gun's function. Sue is horrified as they both grasp it, and Doom tells us that with the device set as it is to full power then whoever has the greater mind will send the other to a timeless limbo from which there is no return. The 2 minds contend with each other until we see Reed Richards vanish away. Victor Von Doom is left triumphant and he declines to fight the other 3 because they are beneath his notice. He stalks away ...

... and Sue asks Reed what Doom was talking about. Reed waits until Victor is out of earshot and tells them what really happened. He and Victor drank the potion that was meant for *him* at the reception. It enabled the 1 with the stronger mind to create an illusion in the mind of the other. In this case he let Victor believe that he'd defeated his great rival. Ben says they should just go after Doom now while he's unprepared. But Reed says they can't do that because as Latverian monarch (which Reed must have worked out from the events of this issue) Victor Von Doom has diplomatic immunity. And he wonders what traumatic events in his past must have made him as he is.