by Marv Wolfman
The TV screen flicked on. Reed Richards’s face appeared. He smiled. “What is it?”
Doom gestured toward Collins. “Move closer to the screen. Otherwise, the camera cannot pick you up.” Collins moved in and felt relieved. Reed seemed to be all right.
“I wanted to say good-bye, Reed. Doom said you were lagging behind?”
Reed smiled. “His laboratory fascinates me, Dean Collins. He has several devices here that I’ve never seen before. I can’t leave yet, not until he shows me how they’re used. Ben, Sue, and Johnny are staying here with me. By the way, how’d you and Mrs. Collins enjoy the tour?”
Collins returned Reed’s smile. “We loved it. I’d stay behind myself if I could. But duty calls. Tomorrow I’ve got to be back on the golf green. Ah, retirement.”
“Enjoy your trip, Dean Collins. I’ve got to go. Good-bye.” The television screen flickered for a moment, then went gray.
Dean Collins turned to the others and said, “All right, what are we waiting for?” He put his arm around his wife and led her toward the first of the buses.
He hummed. He had misjudged Doom. A tiger can change its stripes.
Doom wrung his heavy iron-bound hands in satisfaction. The contemptible fool had bought it all.
In another room of the castle, technicians removed the Reed Richards rubber face mask from the faceless robot programmed to mimic Reed’s voice and mannerisms. It had functioned as perfectly as designed. But then, Dr. Doom had built the robot, and Doom never failed.
Sixteen
“Are you leaving now, sire?” Boris asked. The old man was seated in a chair next to Doom’s throne. Doom activated four viewscreens mounted to the wall of his private chambers. On the first he saw Johnny Storm, still unconscious, in a specially designed room which would prevent the youngster from using his accursed flame. When Storm revived, he would have a surprise in store for him.
The second screen revealed Sue Richards crouched in a corner of the catacomb, the lasers cutting a destructive path in every direction. Her energy powers would soon fade, and she would either be cut down by the death rays, or by the fumes from the poisonous candle.
Reed Richards’s plight was more amusing. He rushed blindly through the darkened maze, a torrent of acid about to engulf him at any moment. It would not be long before Doom’s longtime foe was little more than a burned-up cinder.
The final screen revealed Ben Grimm battling one of Doom’s robot knights. The monstrous Thing grabbed an electrified lance and tossed it aside, his hands burning with pain. The mounted knights chased him across the long courtyard. He wouldn’t escape. He couldn’t. Even if Grimm defeated his robots, as unlikely as that might seem, there were dozens more. Each one he destroyed would be instantly replaced. They would never tire, but already Grimm’s massive hands rose slower than they had before. His punches were less effective than they had previously been.
Doom flicked off the screens. His foes would be dead very soon. No need to linger. “Yes, I will be leaving, Boris,” he answered finally. “Is my private jet prepared for my trip to America?”
His old servant nodded slowly. “It is, sire. All is in readiness.”
Doom rose and left the room, and Boris hobbled after him. Doom was surely after something terrible, Boris thought. His actions these past several days had been carefully planned for months. But what was it Doom wanted? Not even his faithful servant Boris knew the answer. Doom wouldn’t reveal his plan, only that he was going to America, and that what he wanted was somewhere in the Baxter Building—the headquarters of the Fantastic Four.
And that is why he spent millions in luring the fabled foursome to his country under the guise of a tour for his old classmates. That is why he spent millions more preparing very special traps designed to capture and destroy his old foes.
But what Doom’s final objective was, only Doom knew.
Boris glanced at the calendar on the wall. Doom had said he wanted success on Walpurgis night—his birthday. That was tomorrow night.
Whatever it was Doom had planned would occur tomorrow, May 1.
Boris shuddered in horror. He intimately knew the details of Doom’s origin. He was able to guess at Doom’s secret. If it was what Boris suspected, even the heavens would roar in horror.
Doom turned toward his old friend. “You will look after the castle for me, Boris? Only you can I trust.”
Boris bowed reverently. “I will look after everything, sire. To serve you is my only desire.”
Doom left and Boris waited until the dull thud of metal boots striking stone steps finally faded. Then, when he could no longer hear anything save the crickets, he closed his eyes and fervently prayed.
Seventeen
Doom entered his private jet and sat in a wide plush chair. He pressed a button on the control board at his side. The robot pilot was activated; the jet would now take off and he would be in America by dawn.
Tomorrow was his birthday, and all had been planned for the special gift he had promised himself. He closed his eyes as the jet shuddered to life. He would sleep now and awaken upon landing. He needed all his strength.
He dreamed. He first saw soft clouds and bright blue sky. He saw rainbows long and beautiful. He saw himself as a boy sitting at a campfire, his handsome father at his side. His father had a broad smile as he sang a ribald song. Other Gypsies laughed in response. He saw his father’s medicine bag at his side. It was always at his side in case it was needed. His father had been a great, caring man.
Then the smile faded from his father’s face as he stood up and bade Victor to follow him. The young boy did as his father commanded.
They walked through the forest to the edge of their small village. He listened as his father spoke. “Someday, Victor,” he had said, “you will be the last Von Doom. You must always remember your heritage, my son. Always remember your father loved you, that we come from a proud line of Gypsies.” Young Victor said nothing, but he listened intently.
At the edge of the forest there was a small cemetery. The markers were crude stones carved with chisel and hammer. They stood before one stone that simply said “Cynthia Von Doom.” Victor realized why he had been brought here. Today was his birthday, May 1. Every May they came to this cemetery to honor his mother.
“Your mother loved you, Victor, as much as I do. She wanted her only son to be a big, tall, handsome man—one great in pride and strength. She wanted her only son to be a good man, compassionate, merciful, loving.”
His father paused and held Victor with both hands as he stared into the young boy’s eyes. “Do you understand that, my son? Strength and compassion, pride and humility. They go hand in hand. Without one, the other is abused. Without compassion to temper strength, there is only the basest of bullies. Without humility to temper pride, there is only arrogance. Do you understand that, Victor? It is important that you do.”
Victor said yes. He understood, although he thought his father was wrong. Mother was compassionate, and the Baron’s men abused her. She had great humility, and the Baron’s men embarrassed her, slaughtered her like an animal. What good were compassion and humility to his mother? They served to have her slain by wanton cowards.
No, strength was important. It could put down those who would seek to humble me. Pride was important. It permitted others to know whom they could not push about.
But Doom simply nodded in answer to his father’s question. He was such a good man that he failed to see how important strength and pride could be. He loved his father and did not want to argue with him. Saying yes would please his father, and that is all he wanted to do just then. Later, when he was older, he would show his father the errors of his ways.
They bowed before the gravestone and said a prayer. Werner Von Doom shuddered a bit. It was no use, he knew. His son didn’t hear or didn’t believe a word he had said. He could see the bitterness set deep in Victor’s eyes. My Lord, Werner thought, so young, and so much like his dear mother.
He feared his son
, feared this child’s intensity and ability to hate. Cynthia was as intense, but she didn’t hate. That was the difference. She could be loving, giving. She used her witchly powers for good, not bad. She used her spells to help fertilize their gardens, to help heal their sick, to protect them from attack. But in Victor, he sensed only the power, not the compassion. The world would one day hear about this boy. Victor would grow into manhood with terrifying powers—powers that would lead to his own destruction . . . or the destruction of his pursuers.
All this Werner saw in Victor’s deepset, brooding eyes. He grasped his son’s hand and the young boy looked up at his father. “Yes, Father? What is it?”
Werner smiled weakly. “Nothing, Victor. Let us go home. We still have to make our dinner, eh?” Right now the boy was young. But soon . . . much too soon . . .
Doom’s eyes opened as the jet began its descent. The airport had been notified that Doom the First was arriving. New York’s mayor offered a diplomatic ceremony, but the Latverian embassy said Doom preferred a simple limousine, which they would prepare for their Monarch.
He disembarked and climbed into the car. The next stop was the embassy, and from there, the Baxter Building.
Eighteen
Doom waved his hand across the electric eye, and the elevator door instantly slid open. It had been simplicity itself to duplicate the exact code necessary to open the private elevator of the Fantastic Four.
What would come next would not be simple. Doom braced himself as the elevator reached the proper floor. He was unable to learn how to properly enter his foe’s central headquarters. There would be an arsenal of weapons waiting to attack him. He breathed in deeply. Now he was ready.
The door opened to an outer lobby. Before him were two more doors. Solid steel. They would have to be blasted.
He raised his hand and a bolt of white light flashed from his fingers, bathing the doors in an eerie, unearthly glow. The door convulsed, creaked, shimmered, then dissolved into a slag of molten metal.
From inside there came a faint clicking sound. Doom was alerted. The protection devices had snapped on.
Beyond the door Doom could see the visitors’ reception room. There wouldn’t be any traps there. Too many uninitiated cretins waited in this outer lobby until one of the Fantastic Four would come to greet them. No, Richards wouldn’t allow them to come to accidental harm. The dolt was concerned with human lives; he would do nothing to endanger any man. And that is why Richards and his foolish friends would die and Doom would win. After all, nothing would come between Doom and complete victory.
With an arrogant gesture, he blasted the reception area door from its hinges and stepped inside. Daniel in the lion’s den, he thought. If his hideous mask could smile, it would.
From the floor came a sudden grinding noise. He had stepped on a large square, one of many, yet this one vibrated ever so slightly. He could discern a slight separation between this tile and the one that bordered it. All this he noticed in a fraction of a second, even as a square of plexiglass shot up from the slight separation and attached itself to the ceiling. Doom was surrounded in a plexiglass prison.
“You are a fool, Reed Richards. To think this paltry prison could long stop Victor Von Doom!” He extended his iron arm and grasped the side of the plexiglass with his fingers. “I have no need to even use my incredible powers.”
His fingers pressed outward with incredible force. His iron armor was an exo-skeleton which increased his strength a hundredfold and more. The glass cracked into a spider-web design. Then Doom smashed the prison into a thousand flying fragments with the back of his heavy glove.
“I know you, Richards!” Doom shouted, fully aware his foe was more than five thousand miles away, if he weren’t already dead by now. “You wouldn’t create devices to harm a man. Your weaponry is designed to capture, to imprison, to disarm. You are too weak to kill a fool who deserves death. That shall be your undoing.”
Doom knew the plans to the Baxter Building. The thirty-fourth floor housed the Fantastic Four’s living quarters. There were kitchen facilities, dining rooms, bathrooms, and four bedrooms. The thirty-fifth floor contained their recreation rooms, gymnasium, meditation chamber, and monitoring rooms. The thirty-sixth floor contained all of Reed Richards’s labs. Anything he had to build could be constructed there.
What Doom wanted was on the thirty-seventh floor. Above him, on the top of the Fantastic Four’s five-floor headquarters, were the vehicle maintenance shops, the hangars, and the entrance to the retractable rooftop observatory. Along the side of the headquarters was their rocket silo.
Suddenly, Doom sensed gas spreading through the hallway. Instantly the oxygen system built into his armor was activated. All airholes were covered with a thin, transparent glass.
He made his way to the elevators. These responded to a different code from the ones in the lobby. He placed his fingers along the control panel, then his armor’s computers whirled into frenzied activity. “Damn.” Doom was angry. They could only be activated by the special fingerprint patterns programmed into Richards’s computer.
He had to get upstairs. His fingers clawed the control panel a second time. A white gas spread from them. As the gas touched the metal plate, it became solid, icy. Freezing white ice spread over the panel and the elevator door, covering it completely. Doom stepped back. With every second the ice would get colder until it finally reached absolute zero. But the door would crack long before then.
Within moments the door crumbled to the ground, a useless pile of icy shards. Ignoring them, Doom entered the elevator. His fingers pressed the automatic button. The elevator would rise now.
The elevator rumbled, then ground to a sudden halt. A voice filtered over the sound system. It was Reed Richards, and it took Doom a moment to realize the voice had been taped and programmed.
“To whomever has entered the private elevator of the Fantastic Four: This is Reed Richards. You are trespassing on our property. If you have made it this far, undoubtedly you have encountered several other devices. But I warn you now, you will not penetrate our inner headquarters. I have constructed a series of elaborate protective weapons that will guarantee the sanctity of our headquarters. To go farther would be to risk your life. This has been a warning. I suggest you press the button marked ‘Exit.’ The elevator will take you to a side corridor where you will find a stairwell allowing you to leave unharmed.
“Remember, you have been warned. We are no longer responsible for what may next happen. Consider your alternatives.” The tape clicked off.
Without pausing, Doom again pressed the button marked “thirty-seven,” then dashed off the elevator. The car dropped suddenly out of view. No matter which button was pressed, the car would head for the corridor Richards had mentioned and deposit the trespasser by the staircase.
“You are clever, Richards. Too clever for your own good. But soon you shall meet defeat at the hands of Dr. Doom.”
The elevator shaft was empty now. Doom peered upward and stared into the darkness. This is the only way. I have no other choice.
His powerful hands gripped the heavy steel cables. One hand reached above the other, pulling him upward. There was little problem climbing this way, even with the incredible weight of his armor, but it annoyed Doom to have to use physical force. That was beneath him. He was pleased Richards would soon die, if he already hadn’t been burned to a final cinder.
Gas spread through the tunnel, but the mask’s glass filters were still in place. Angrily, Doom continued his climb.
From the walls, lasers snapped into view. Beams criss-crossed in all directions, bouncing off Doom’s armor. Long ago he had coated his armor with an anti-laser refracting base. Once more Richards had been checkmated.
He paused for a moment; his feet searched out a small ledge. “Damn you, Richards. Damn you for this inconvenience.” Never before had Doom had to work so. With his powers, he always took what he wanted.
As he passed the elevator door on the thirty-
fifth floor, the sonic bombardment began. It cut through his armor the way a sharpened scythe slashed through a field of wheat. His head reeled back painfully, his eyes closed into thin slits, and tears poured from them.
The sharp sound rumbled through his brain, his body was in agony, his arms twitched, his legs flailed helplessly. He felt his fingers loosening their grip on the cable. He forced himself to stare downward. If he fell, there would be a thirty-five-story drop. Not even he would survive.
His fingers struggled to maintain balance as he fought to control his mind. He had to shake off the pain the sonics created. He had to close his mind to everything but his mission.
Quietly, he recited ancient prayers forgotten long before the days of the Druids. His mind reached outward and inward; he thought of his mission, his mother, his childhood, his face, his awful, disgusting face. How handsome he had once been, how proud he had been of his manly features. And now, what was it? A scarred, disfigured, pulpy mass, of twisted flesh and scabbed sores.
He remembered his mother’s diary, the curses, the visions, the oaths. He had never mastered sorcery the way his mother had. Science was his to command. He could create whatever he needed. But sorcery eluded him. He wanted that knowledge, knew it was his birthright. He had to possess complete knowledge of the Dark Arts; otherwise, his destiny could never be fulfilled.
He wanted power, the power to destroy all his enemies, the power to rule a world, the power to rule the universe itself. But to do so he needed control over the evil ones, the dark forces, the creatures of hell. He needed to blend his mysticism with his science. No one could defeat him then. No man would dare try.
He heard his breath hissing through his mask; he heard his metal feet clanging against the steel-lined corridor. Then he realized the sonic blast which attacked him had abated. It was over.
