tales of SILVER AGE TIME TRAVEL
travel back to FANTASTIC FOUR annual #2 (SEP 1964)
—I can tell by the look on your face that you’re disappointed. After all, who wouldn’t be? You came here with the valid expectation of finally meeting KANG, the CONQUEROR!,and I had every intention of introducing the two of you. And then, while happily re-reading The Avengers #8 this month, I ran full speed into the second of two footnotes in this iconic JACK KIRBY panel:
What can I say? That footnote about FF Annual #2 has definite chronological significance, and as you know, time travelers never ignore chronologically significant indications. So apart from the tiny purple head in that ominous panel, Kang will have to wait for next month. But there’s good news too! This month you finally get the episode that I have been waiting to tell you about: “The Final Victory of Dr. Doom”. When I first spotted that title on the cover of the second FF annual (72 BIG pages!) back in 1964, I literally flamed-on in excitement (full disclosure: I was able to keep my hands flame-free—my GRANDPA had taught me how to treat comics with respect). Of course, my excitement came from the fact that Marvel’s snooty quartet had been getting under my skin ever since FF #5. Clearly, DOCTOR DOOM’s turn at the upper hand was long overdue. 
I actually bought two copies of that annual, one to keep nice and one to tear up and pin to my wall (just don’t tell Grandpa) so that I could converse with the victorious doctor whenever I felt the need for comfort. I read each page as I tore it from the pin-up copy, intentionally saving the story of Doc Doom’s victory for last. I’ll bet you did that as a kid, too, just savoring the feeling of anticipation while slowly reading lesser stories. In this case, the annual had a the reprint of Doom’s first appearance, a new story of his origin (oh, man, that was great—REED RICHARDS truly was a villain extraordinaire), and a myriad of pin-ups, which all went up on my wall:
But ultimately, I got to “The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!”, which starts off exactly as you’d expect, with that no-goodnic Richards blaming poor belabored BEN GRIMM for a problem with the Fantasticar 
that is clearly Reed’s fault. In the resultant emergency landing, Ben knocks the fender off a car, and the driver (who, if this were a modern-day movie, would be cast as STAN LEE) goes ballistic, although in the end, it all turns out well when an art dealer shows up and makes an offer to both the driver and to Ben:
Ben is certainly likable; maybe the big lunk will be spared when Doc Doom triumphs. Speaking of which, “the last the world saw of the evil [what? who wrote that?!] Doctor Doom, he was hurtling out into space, towards an unknown destination, after his defeat by the F.F. . . .” when he is rescued by none other than:
How cool is that!? The F.F.’s time-traveling nemesis, RAMA TUT, is going to be part of Doom’s final victory! By the way, did you ever notice that Rama Tut’s fancy hat is made of exactly the same green material as Doom’s cape? Coincidence? Perhaps, but . . .
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. . . what came at the end of the next page was, without a doubt, the definitive time travel development of the Marvel Age of comics, at least up to that point in time: Of course! These two heroes are both so cool they are doubtless the same man, and together they will bring a final defeat to the so-called Fantastic Four. That was my exact thought as I read that page, and yet, after reading Heinlein’s “—All You Zombies—” earlier in the year, I couldn’t help but thinking that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby also missed the boat at this key moment. To begin with, just because two men are the same (time traveling) man, why in the world would you think that they can’t co-exist at the same moment in eternity??! They’ve got a bloody time machine! It still bugs the heck out of me when a clueless writer seems to think the universe will collapse when you shake hands with yourself. Now, in this particular case, it does appear that neither Doom nor Tut remembers being the other, but there is such a thing as amnesia; or perhaps the elder man (whichever he is) simply doesn’t want to reveal his full hand to the younger. Even the skeptical must admit that their uttering the exact same sentence at the exact same moment lends credence to the theory that they are one and the same person. So what happened? Did Doom travel to the 20th century and become Tut? Or did Tut travel to the past and become the young gypsy who we now know [see “The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!”] became Doom? After pondering this question, I took out my crayon and crossed out the word balloon that Stan Lee had written, and replaced it with the only answer that made sense to me: And that was the version I pinned to my wall. Yes, Doom became Tut, and then Tut Which reminds me, last month, I told you about another closed timelike loop in a story about JOHN WILKES BOOTH’s gun, but I couldn’t remember the author: A man sees John Wilkes Booth’s gun in the Ford’s Theater museum, so he steals it and goes back in time, intending to use it to identify the original gun as it’s being I still haven’t tracked down who wrote that story, so please let me know if you find any leads. Many thanks! |
Anyway, I was getting excited about the closed timelike loop and my hero’s upcoming victory. Maybe Tut/Doom would put a complete end to the F.F., after which they could take over The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine for themselves.
Sadly, none of it happened that way. In fact, after a cool drawing of a happy time machine on page 6, we never saw Tut again, and well, the defeat of the Fantastic Four wasn’t at all what I would call final.
Still, I held out hope for a future where Tut/Doom would at last reach their rightful place in the Marvel Age of Comics. And in fact, I guarantee that you’ll see the next chapter of that story right here in this blog on the first Wednesday of August, when Kang, the Conqueror finally does appear to help us celebrate the historic eleventh issue of Tales of Silver Age Time Travel with Action! Drama! Thrills! as only MARVEL can present them!
Coming Soon!
See the MIGHTY AVENGER face KANG the CONQUEROR! —
a man destined to rank as one of the most unique villains of all time!
in a full-length adventure from The Avengers 8!
Don’t miss it on the first Wednesday of August!