Doomed If One Can Divine The Celestial Mind Control Motif

Today's entry, much to my own surprise, still deals with Claremont's Fantastic Four...

More specifically... # 25, a double sized anniversary issue cover dated January 2000, that properly reintroduced Doctor Doom to the Marvel Universe after the Heroes Reborn experiment of the mid 90s.

Before his triumphant comeback, Doom had spent most of his time as caretaker of the Heroes Reborn Earth, a world plagued by numerous catastrophies and natural disasters. That is, until Doom got involved in an attempt to save the world from itself ánd the dreaming Celestial who seemed to be at the core of all the shenanigans too convoluted or uninteresting to cover here.

What you need to know: Doom had just shifted 'his' Earth from the Heroes Reborn pocket universe into his home dimension and he now stood ready to deal with the Dreaming Celestial, along with his trusty aide Lancer (Samantha Dunbar) and his four generals: Lady Dorma of Atlantis, the battlemage Shakti, the mind controlling Divinity and the equally mind and body controlling Technarx.

Doom and his generals encountered the Fantastic Four in the opening pages of # 25 and, after the obligatory fight scene, decided to pool their resources to deal with their common enemy: the Dreaming Celestial who was now actively trying to destroy both groups in order to achieve, erm... something. Trust me, it really doesn't matter in the end.

So, how did he plan to achieve this? Well, have you heard of a little thing called mind control?

"Too much talking. Better by far to let Divinity assimilate them.
That gains Doom all of their powers... but none of their attitude."

As soon as the champions of two worlds entered the Dreaming Celestial's sanctuary, the mind controlling Divinity was attacked and absorbed by an equally shadowy creature that effortlessly took control of Divinity's form, as Doom's ebon general started claiming victims left and right. The Invisible Woman was the first to fall, when she got coated with the dark gunk. And well... you can guess what happened next, right?

"There's something else... as though the very darkness itself was a living entity!"

Ow boy, you're not kidding... and Sue and Divinity were just the warm up act. Moments later, the tendrils growing behind them struck out. While Johnny tried to burn through them, he was struck by something rather familiar...

"No joy, Reed. Something just hit me! It's Sue's forcefield!"

Yup, a mind controlled Invisible Woman was now working for the Dreaming Celestial, using her powers to knock everyone into the Celestial creature so they would share her fate. Overcome by emotions, Mr. Fantastic tried to free his brother and law, only to be saved by Doom, who stunned him into temporary helplessness with a shock blast. Doom ordered Lancer to aid the Thing in buying him, Mr. Fantastic and young Valeria Richards (another long story) time to solve this mess, by going deeper inside the Celestial's tomb.

So, in case anyone was wondering what chance one rockmonster and a woman with laserfire fingertips have against a Celestial born living darkness ánd at least 6 of their mind controlled allies?

None whatsoever. And they knew it.

Still, as they fell, they provided Reed, Doom and Valeria with a pretty important clue as they proceeded to venture deeper into the labyrinthian Celestial slumberpit (on a sidenote: don't you just love words like that?). The tentacle thing is taking over the FF and Doom's allies for a very good reason.

"You realize, of course, what will happen when all twelve are transformed."

Not specifically, no. Because Claremont's hopelessly convoluted, overly wordy script fails to clearly explain the significance of a Celestial guard dog taking over the form of twelve, apparently random, mortals. All Reed and Doom need to know from reading a few of the tomb's glyphs: they can actually stop the Celestial if they work together to simultaneously activate a number of switches that unlock a pair of levers that will allow them to deal with the Celestial.

In order to buy her two dads (I know...) the time needed to either stretch or manipulate the levers with a forcefield, Valeria quietly sacrifices herself as well.

"The brat is no more. And I am one step closer to my freedom!"

After consuming the daughter of two men (again, don't worry about it...), the Celestial sent his creature to deal with Reed and Doom. It proved remarkably capable of claiming both in record speed.

"Be so easy to give in! But they fought to the last for me. Can I do less?"

Doom's goading inadvertently fired up Mr. Fantastic and the two men manage to simultaneously hit all the switches ánd activate the levers in the exact way the glyphs instructed them. This set in motion a termination mechanism built into the Dreaming Celestial's tomb.

Apparently, the D.C. (surely a 'subtle' reference to a fellow New York based comics company) tried to to circumvent this lethal safeguard. Its idea was to replacing the essence of the twelve living Celestial guardian statues with those of others, any others. However, since Mr. Fantastic and Doctor Doom had managed to escape capture, the cycle wasnt complete so hitting the kill switch restored all twelve Celestial statues as they lethally wounded their wayward brother by proxy.

It also released some rather familiar faces...

"It was... Awful! I was aware of everything I was doing... But I couldn't stop myself!"

However, Mr. Fantastic and Doctor Doom weren't quite so lucky. In its dying moments, the Dreaming Celestial planned to take both of them with him to the grave. In the end, only one would survive...

Well, that's not exactly true, as these posts point out... 

• Doctor Doom threatens the Wizard into surrendering
• Reed Is Doom & Doom Is Reed (we all mind control together)

Spoiler alert: It's actually Reed inside Doom's armor. Fun ánd games!

Doomed to be mindcontrolled

Does anyone remember Heroes Reborn? No, no, let me rephrase that...Does anyone want to remember Heroes Reborn? 

Back in 1996, the powers that (used to) be at Marvel asked Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee to update and redefine The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Captain America and Iron Man. This caused over 30 years of backstory to get tossed out the window, along with the actual heroes.  

They apparently died during the travesty that was the Onslaught crossover and started out fresh on a new Earth inside a pocket universe created by Franklin Richards who carried it around inside his favorite ball.

If you think thát's a bad premise, you should read the actual stories. What what was supposed to be an ongoing line of titles bombed so badly, it was retroactively called 'an experiment' and mercifully ended after 13 forgettable issues.

Peter David wrote the mini series that returned the heroes home, but by the end of that mini the Heroes Reborn Earth was still around. As it turns out, the departure of the heroes had a devastating effect on the remaining population. Sure, they may only have been fake people dreamed up by a little boy, but figments of imagination need love too.  

Unfortunately, what they got was Doom. 

Doctor Doom.

In early 2000, Chris Claremont penned a number of Doctor Doom related Heroes Reborn specials that focussed on the good Doctor's efforts to gain control of Counter Earth in order to save it. First thing's first... he needed some help.

In this case, Samantha Dunbar... a woman who risked her own life saving Doom from certain death when she discovered him drowning. He thanked her by making her his assistant, but not without a little tweaking...

As it turns out, everyone on Franklin's Counter Earth has the potential for super powers. Doom helped unlock Samantha's, and also gave her a costume and implants, linking her to him. What he knows, she knows and vice versa. Talk about forcing people to do your bidding...

And thus was born... Lancer. A typical Claremont heroine: remarkably intelligent, yet sassy and funny, a natural genius in whatever's required...Add to that the black leather outfit and the tendency to yell out her own codename every other minute and you're good to go.

Time to get to work. In trying to figure out the threat to Counter Earth, Doom and Lancer came across Ashema, a Celestial introduced by Peter David in the Heroes Return mini. She had relinquished her powers and taken on human form in order to understand humanity. It also left her vulnerable... to mind control.

That talkative slick of black oil is called Divinity, a creature capable of bonding itself to a host and draining him or her, while forcing the body to do his biding. Think Venom symbiote, only more chatty.

Divinity was quickly defeated by Lancer, after which Doom offered him a spot as one of his generals. Because...? Well, because even a villain trying to do the right thing needs a group of baddies around him, it seems. Divinity became the first of four generals... Meet the other three.

In short, there's Divinity, followed by head battle mage Shakti of the Enchanter's Guild. The techno organic creature Technarx makes three and Dorma, warrior queen of Atlantis rounds out this motley crew of baddies. Yet, despite their obvious differences, they're all just as power hungry and tyranical as the man they claim to obey.

And ow yeah, they sure do love mind control.

Which is something poor Lancer had to discover over and over again...

Shakti was the first to try and control Lancer, using her magics to subtly mind control her into believing she was anything but Doom's loyal assistant... Thereby making the good Doctor vulnerable to a coup. Lets see how that turned out...

                                                        

"I am LANCER".
Yeah, nice try there. Also: remember how Doom bonded himself to Lancer, so he would be intimately aware of everything that happens to her? Taking her out would only serve as an early warning system. Ah well, that bit of common sense didn't stop his generals from giving it another go.

Technarx tried to infect Lancer with his transmat virus, turning her into one of his techno organic drones. Sounds simple enough...How did it turn out?

"I spit a mouthful of chip flakes"

 ... Its been over 12 years since I first read that line and I still can't eat a potato chip without thinking of that particular panel. Weird, eh?

Ah well... When Doom remade Lancer in his image, he not only gave her super powers, he also made sure she was impervious to most forms of mind control. Except his own of course. Its a good bet Doom would have extended the same upgrade to all of his generals, had he known what was about to go down when he met with the Lady Dorma.

Yes, the villain of the piece finally showed himself: the Dreaming Celestial. A creature with a history so convoluted, I happily refer to his Wikipedia entry if you're really interested in its origins and motivations. Long story short: The Celestial had his own plans for Counter Earth and didn't care for Doom's meddling. 

But Doom's armor was too strong to breach, so he decided to take over Lady Dorma and use her looks to persuade Doom to drop his guard. Luring a man out of his shell... by offering him a clam?

Ah, irony...

Fortunately, Doom wasn't fooled for an instant. He defied the Celestial, managed to return Counter Earth to the Marvel Universe proper and joined forces with the Fantastic Four to take on the Dreaming One once and for all.

This leads to more mind control shenanigans, but we already covered that HERE.

Reed is Doom, Doom is Reed, we all mindcontrol together!

Reed Richards and Victor von Doom haven often been considered two sides of the same coin. Not hard to figure why: both are brilliant and gifted scientists, but their different characters ensure that their genius takes them down very different paths. But what if Doom would be a force for good and Reed was the evil madman? Its an interesting notion, one Stan Lee and Jack Kirby tackled wayyyy back in Fantastic Four vol. 1 # 10.



After his most recent defeat, Doctor Doom was lost floating in space where he was picked up by an alien race known as the Ovoids. Doom soon learned the Ovoid were basically immortal thanks to a mental technique that allowed them to switch their minds between bodies. The good Doctor persuaded the Ovoids to teach him this technique as well and as soon as he was back on Earth, Doom switched minds with Mr. Fantastic. As Reed, he devised a scheme that would kill the rest of the FF, but Reed-Doom convinced the others the real tin-plated tyrant was actually Mr. Fantastic and he managed to cast Doom back into his own body. Imagine that: prologue, setup, plot, climax and resolution all within 22 pages? Nowadays getting to the end would cover two tradepaperbacks.

So what does this have to do with Chris Claremont and his pet peeve of mind control? Well... Nothing really, just trying to provide a proper historical perspective. But still, the final mind control story Claremont introduced during his FF-run, starting in issue # 25 does seem at least partially inspired by the old Lee/Kirby tale of mind switcheroo.


By this point, no one had seen Doctor Doom for over two years. He had disappeared at the end of the Heroes Reborn: The Return storyline that launched the current FF-series. So, his return to the Marvel Universe was celebrated in a big way with a series of Claremont-penned DOOM oneshots. The books filled us in on what Doom had been up to. We'll get to that eventually, but in a nutshell: after the heroes left the Earth they'd been on, it became a mess. Doom was the only one left to restore order and so he did. And Doom finally came back in # 25 of Fantastic Four in which Doom showed up with an army and several superpowered beings to confront the Dreaming Celestial.


Alongside the Fantastic Four, Doom and his Generals manage to stop the Dreaming Celestial's evil schemes for both Earth and Counter Earth. But not before the Celestial plays a cruel trick on Reed and Doom. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Celestial casts Doom out of his armor and encases Reed inside it. Talk about a twist you didn't see coming... When the dust clears, everyone believes Doom is still Doom and Reed quickly realises he has to act like Doom otherwise his Generals would start to mutiny and they might decide to invade Earth with their armies. So, Reed-Doom plays the part of Doom, orders everyone around and proclaims he's taking his place with the Fantastic Four, even claiming the 'widow' Sue Storm as his new wife. Of course, the FF themselves quickly get wise and Reed informs them of his situation: he's stuck inside Doom's armour and he can't break the locks.



This leads to the rather unusual situation of Doctor Doom leading the Fantastic Four, which makes for some very funny and unusual storylines. The entire Marvel Universe is shocked when Doom and Sue announce their marriage to the world. Also, having Doom as part of the team is enough for hardened villains like the Frightful Four's Wizard to stand down without a second thought. But its not to last: Sue quickly learns Reed is being influenced by the armour, his demeanor becomes more and more like Doom every day.



As it turns out, Doom's technology is rewriting Reed's brain synapses to respond more like Doom would in an attempt to optimise performance... It basically is rewriting Reed's mind into a copy of Victor von Doom. Sue is understandably desperate but hasn't the faintest idea how to solve this, then she gets contacted in her sleep by the real Doctor Doom via... dream time.




The Celestial didn't kill Doom, but threw him back to Counter Earth where a naked Doom found himself in the middle of a scorching desert. Still, this is DOOM! DOOM, YOU HEAR! And DOOM SURVIVES EVERYTHING! DOOM CONQUERS AND DOOM... Ow, you get the idea. The exploits of Doom in the desert are covered in a rather excellent Doom miniseries by Chuck Dixon and Leonard Manco that came out around that time. In case you didn't read the last panel: Doom offers to help out Sue, but she has to help him get back to Earth so he can claim his armour back. You think she'd help her biggest enemy and betray her own husband? No? Well... take a look at the cover of Fantastic Four # 31...

Does that answer your question? Well... in the end, Doom gets his armour back and Reed's himself again... in a way. With that, we've reached the end of Claremont's FF run, mind control wise. He only wrote one issue after that, but that was a rather enjoyable tale about Sue and Namor who get chased around by the last of Doom's Counter Earth Generals still free... Dorma, the Warrior Queen of Atlantis.

Next up: probably some more X-related mind control messes!