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!

Of Malleable Moles & Terminable Body & Soul Control...

Today's entry focuses on Chris Claremont's late 90s Fantastic Four run.

Claremont's tenure on the book is quite interesting, least of all because he was never supposed to be writing the title after Marvel relaunched it in the wake of the Heroes Reborn fiasco. Nope, it ws up to Scott Lobdell and Alan Davis to tell the tales of Marvel's first family... and they did.

For three whole issues.

Just why Lobdell and Davis were removed from the book has never been revealed. Most likely, a falling out or editorial spat can be blamed. Fact remained: Scott & Alan were gone and the double sized fourth issue of Fantastic Four needed to be written. Chris Claremont, working on staff at the time, stepped in and picked up the slack while also using several of the ongoing storylines. After all, issue # 3 ended with an imminent threat to Mole Man and all of Subterranea...

"Attend to me, my mindless minions!"

Seeing that Danny DeVito lookalike halfnaked and without his trademark glasses is worth the 1.99 cover price alone. So, something was hiding in the dark, secretly claiming Mole Man's faithful servants. Wonder who it could be?

"While I couldn't care less about your domination of the surface world, know this... I will fight you with my dying breath in order to protect my people!"

An impressive speech and an even more impressive choice to keep the identity of this mystery villain under wraps. Makes you want to rush out and buy the next issue to find out who it is we're dealing with... That is, unless you read the 'next issue' promo blurb and find out who the baddie is. And no, it isn't the Silver Surfer... Or Alicia Masters.

Working from Lobdell's established storylines, Claremont dutifully penned #4, which saw the Silver Surfer and his companion Alicia seek out the Fantastic Four's help in tracking down the same threat the Mole Man had been facing underground. The Surfer guided the Fantastic Four to the source of the disturbing energy readings he had picked up... and it turned out to be in the middle of a small town in Canada, where the people behaved... oddly.

"Could it be some form of mind control?"

Ha! Kudos for the self deprecation there, Chris. As it turns out, no, the citizens of Yorkton were in their right minds... But, being Canadian, they were ignoring their famous guests to be polite. Still, the local arm of the law did show up to get some answers... and to get some handy dandy additional exposition out of the way as well.

You can't help but admire Salvador Larroca's dutiful sense of filling the entire page. If the talking heads don't quite cover, just thrown in the logo. Whatever works, right? Also: kudos to Claremont for remembering that Ben Grimm worked as a (test)pilot before turning into the Thing. His explanation of radio beacon blindness is factual, informative and makes him seem like a well rounded character for a change.

In spite of the Surfer's temporary 'blindness', the story progresses when Mole Man comes stumbling out of the local church to greet his oldest adversaries. The usually grandiose ruler of Subterranea is remarkably subdued and as the FF follows him inside, they learn why...

The Moloids are suffering from a mysterious, seemingly lethal infection. The FF promise to help look for a cure, but before they can get to work the church is attacked by Terminus, an old foe of both the Avengers and the Fantastic Four.

Originally created by John Byrne to be a new type of Galactus-level threat, Terminus is a giant, planetary scavenger that raids an entire world's natural resources so it can sell it to the highest bidder. And this time around, Terminus is after more than gold, oil or uranium...

"Fascinating. This incarnation of Terminus is some form of composite being... made up of the collective substance of thousands of individual Moloids!"

Sounds pretty awful, makes you wonder what... Oh, what's that, Reed? You have more to add? Well, go ahead then...

"Monster! You're as bad as Terminus! You're worse! He may have enslaved my people...
but you treat them like lab specimens"

Standing around hearing his sworn enemy compare a creature comprised of your followers as 'something reminiscent of Clive Barker story' makes Mole Man mad. His people are more than lab specimens, or so he claims. That's actually a little rich, considering he's ruled the Moloids with an iron fist for years, caring very little about their survival...

Anyone remember when Mole Man and Kala planned to destroy the surface world using giant magma funnels in 1972's Fantastic Four # 127?

"It is not we who labor on these shafts, but my beloved's selfless, nigh-mindless Subterraneans... Already, countless thousands of them have been consumed by accidentally escaping flames over the past few months."

But hey, I get how Mole Man might be affected by watching helplessly as his faithful servants were getting absorbed into the collective creature calling itself Terminus... Their hapless, numb features an ever present reminder he had failed them. Luckily, the Silver Surfer decided to use the power cosmic he's known for...

Terminus actually deemed himself the liberator of the Moloids... even though his idea of liberation was consuming their very mind and bodies. But that didn't prevent the Silver Surfer from using his powers to free the Moloids...

"This incarnation of the behemoth has been laid to rest.
No trace of him remains along the Moloids."

So all's well that ends well... Back to underground enslavement, you Moloids you. Ya know ya love it!