The Trouble With Doom

The FANTASTIC FOUR has not had a lot of luck in Hollywood.

During the period of its bankruptcy, Marvel sold the movie rights to several of it's properties to various studios. The first film version of FANTASTIC FOUR, directed by the legendary master of quick 'n' dirty film-making, Roger Corman, was cranked out solely to prevent the rights from reverting back to Marvel and so that the license-holder could sell the license to 20^th Century Fox; something which no one bothered to tell the cast and crew. All prints of the film were destroyed, except for the inevitable bootleg copies which quickly surfaced at sleazy dealers' tables at comics conventions next to unauthorized VHS tapes of the 1990 CAPTAIN AMERICA and un-dubbed nth-generation copies of DIRTY PAIR.

The 2005 movie had it's good points, and introduced the public to Chris Evans, whose Johnny Storm was one of the better things about it, and who later did an excellent job as Steve Rogers in CAPTAIN AMERICA and AVENGERS. On the whole, though, it was uneven. The character bits with Johnny and Ben were good, but Reed came off as boring and Sue... well, to be honest Stan Lee wasn't always sure what to do with Sue either. And as for Doctor Doom... but I'll be getting to that.

The recent reboot had a rocky relationship with the fans even before it was released, and not rocky in a good, Ben Grimm sort of way. I didn't really care much when fans howled about a black actor being cast to play Johnny Storm, because I remembered how they howled over Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in THOR, and before that over Michael Clarke Duncan being cast as Kingpin in DAREDEVIL, (of all the things wrong with the Ben Affleck DAREDEVIL, a black Kingpin was far from the worst), and before that over the rumors that Eddie Murphy would be cast as Robin the Boy Wonder in the 1989 BATMAN; (which turned out to be untrue, but made me wonder what Batman would be like with an all-black cast: Michael Jackson as the Joker? Scatman Crothers as Alfred?)

The notion of a black Johnny didn't bother me in the sense of taking a character who was white in the comics and making him black; (The 2005 FF did that with Alicia Masters, and frankly she was one of the more interesting characters in the film); as much as I was afraid it would wreck the sibling chemistry between Johnny and Sue. The sense that the Four are a family has always been a big part of the comic's identity. The trailers did much to reassure me that family would indeed be a theme in the movie. Yet I couldn't help but wonder, if they absolutely had to make the team more racially diverse, why they had to make the hot-headed wise-cracking kid be the black one. Making Reed Richards black would have been interesting.

But the fan anger over the non-caucasian Human Torch was nothing compared to how they reacted when Tony Kebell, the actor playing Doctor Doom made this startling revelation:

“He's Victor Domashev, not Victor Von Doom in our story. And I'm sure I'll be sent to jail for telling you that. The Doom in ours – I'm a programmer. Very anti-social programmer. And on blogging sites I'm 'Doom'”

Well, in the final version his name was changed back to “Von Doom”, but this points to a problem I think the most recent film incarnations of the team has had: How do you take a guy in armor and a cape calling himself “Doom” seriously?

Granted, George Lucas managed to pull it off when he called the character “Darth Vader”; (I've read that when STAR WARS was first released, more than one comics fan looked at Vader and said, “It's Doctor Doom!” and that Lucas has admitted to have used the character as a visual inspiration). And the Roger Corman version stayed pretty close to the classic Doctor Doom. But that might be the problem: a straight comics-to-film adaptation of the FANTASTIC FOUR would look as cheesy as, well, the Adam West BATMAN.

So how should the movies handle Doom? As I see it, there are four essential problems with Doctor Doom.

First off is the name. Victor Von Doom. Even the Marvel Ultimates comic book, which the latest movie used as its inspiration, tried to distance itself from the cheesy name by calling it's villain “Van Damm.” But you know, sometimes you just gotta embrace the cheese. If I were writing a Fantastic Four movie, this is how I would have it play out:

Early on, we would have a scene in which Doctor Doom is mentioned. Perhaps there's an item on the TV news about the King of Latveria coming to New York to address the UN or something. Johnny mocks the name. “What kind of a name is 'Von Doom?'”

“Actually, it's a fairly common name in Latveria,” Reed explains. “I had a roomie in college from Latveria, and his name was Doom. You remember Vic, don't you Ben?”

Ben snorts. “Yeah. What a horse's patoot he was! Didn't he get kicked out of school when he blew up that lab?”

Then later on, the group's adventures would lead them to Latveria where they would meet Doom in person.

“Richards! We meet again at last!”

“What...? Wait... Vic? Is that you, Vic? Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. Hey, gang, this is Vic! I was telling you about him. So, Vic, how's life been treating you?”

“SILENCE!!!”

The Ruritanian country of Latveria actually works better today than it did back in the Silver Age. In a modern setting, I could envision it as a breakaway Soviet republic which suffered a period of political instability following the end of the Soviet Union until a brilliant technological genius assumed control of the government and revitalized its economy. True, his record on human rights leaves something to be desired, but he has brought a new level of prosperity and prestige to his tiny nation. Even the castles and the cheesy Old World costumes can be seen as a nationalistic revival after decades of Soviet domination.

Then there's the armor. Why would a tin-pot dictator go around in public wearing a... well, a tin pot? Here the movies were working under a distinct disadvantage. The obvious way to address this issue would be to have somebody, probably Johnny, comment that this guy must think he's Tony Stark or something. The 20^th Century Fox films, naturally, could not invoke characters from the Avengers corner of the Marvel Universe, but comparing Doom to Stark would give the audience a point of reference. The mask is another problem. In the comics, Doom wears the mask because his face is hideously scarred and he refuses to let anybody see it. Hasn't he ever heard of plastic surgery? They're doing wonderful things with skin grafts these days, you know. I don't really have a good fix for this, other than just establish it as a given and move on to something else.

The biggest problem the most recent movies have had, in my opinion, is that they feel a need to combine Doom's origin story with that of the rest of the group. Perhaps the film-makers feel that the audience will be confused if they have more than one origin in a movie; perhaps they felt that giving him a connection to the Four would strengthen the narrative. I think they were wrong.

Doom does not have super-powers in the same sense that the other do; his body was not altered to give him extraordinary abilities. Doom's power is his super-intellect; his super-technology. Giving him metal skin instead of armor and bogus “powers” instead of gadgets lessens him.

In addition, the Four are already a distinct unit. They're a family; Doom's an outsider. As others have noted, their powers are inspired by the four classical elements: Earth, (Ben); Fire, (Johnny, of course); Water, (Reed is sort of fluid, isn't he?); and Air, (okay, Sue's not a perfect fit but she's close). Doom doesn't fit the theme. He's a fifth wheel. Okay, in Chinese philosophy there is a fifth element, Metal, but having a metal suit doesn't give him metal powers.

No, I think trying to graft Doom onto the Four's origin is a mistake. Better to let him be his own man with his own background. He already has a personal connection with Reed; they knew each other back in college. That's enough of a narrative link between the two. If we really want to push it further, we could find a parallel between the hubris which led Doom to the lab explosion which disfigured him, and Reed's recklessness in bringing his friends on an experimental voyage without proper radiation shielding. Lots of possibilities for angst there without feeling a need to invent metal powers for Doom.

It will probably be a long time before we get another cinematic look at Doctor Doom; possibly not until Marvel regains the movie rights to the Fantastic Four, if that ever happens. And if it does, the studios certainly won't go looking to me for advice.

But for what it's worth, this is my advice. Yes, the Fantastic Four comic can be cheesy; but being embarrassed by it makes the cheesiness only more evident. Sometimes you just gotta embrace the cheese.

So speaks Doom.

Power Couples

A couple years ago, a lot of DC fans were outraged when J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman, the creative team behind the popular BATWOMAN comic, were leaving the book because of editorial differences.  BATWOMAN was notable for having an openly gay heroine and her relationship with police officer Maggie Sawyer, formerly a supporting character from SUPERMAN, was a big part of the series.  Williams and Blackman had planned to have Batwoman and Maggie get married, but at the last minute, the editors at DC decided they would not permit it.

DC insisted that they have nothing against gays or gay characters, Co-publisher Dan Dido explained it this way:

Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon, and Kathy Kane — it’s wonderful that they try to establish personal lives, but it’s also just as important that they put it aside as they know what they are accomplishing as the hero takes precedence over everything else. That is our mandate, that is our edict, that is our stand with our characters."

In other words, it isn’t that DC has a problem with Gay Marriage, but that DC has a problem with Marriage, Period.  Superman is allowed to date Wonder Woman in the New 52; and Batman can do the nasty on a rooftop with Catwoman; and Starfire, hoo-boy, Starfire; who can keep track? – but being a super-hero means that the job comes first and no other commitments are allowed.

You might argue that comics are chiefly written for an adolescent male audience which isn’t really interested in Domestic Bliss.  A big part of Superman’s original premise was the fantasy of “If only that girl I like knew that under my mild-mannered exterior I’m special”. In order to keep that character dynamic, Lois Lane has to remain clueless, and Clark Kent has to remain single.  Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Queseda felt that the core of SPIDER-MAN was the hard-luck hero who could never catch a break and that readers couldn’t identify with Peter Parker as such when Peter happened to be married to a super-model.  He wanted to break up Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage in the worst way; and that was exactly how he did it.

In this school of thought, particularly among comic book editors, that Super-Heroes and Marriage don’t go together;  that fighting crime is a single person’s game; that married people are boring.

But there have been super-heroes who have gotten married and made their marriages work.  Let’s take a look at a few.

One of the first, if not the first, married couples in the annals of comic book super-heroes was Hawkman and Hawkgirl.  The original Hawkman was Carter Hall, an archaeologist who learned that he was the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince named Khufu.  Carter discovered a material he called “Ninth Metal”, (later re-named “Nth Metal, because it sounded more scientific) with anti-gravity properties which he used to create a pair of wings with which he could fly.  Although most super-heroes followed the precedent set by Supernam of keeping the Secret Identity hidden from the Love Interest, Carter let his girlfriend, Shiera, in on the secret and made a pair of wings for her too so that she could fight crime with him as Hawkgirl.  After all, Shiera was the reincarnation of Khufu’s ancient lover; theirs was a love which had lasted millennia.. And Carter and Shiera also worked together at the museum, so it was only natural that they would fight crime together too.  They married, and became one of the more enduring super-couples of the Golden Age.

At the start of the Silver Age, when editor Julius Schwartz recast and updated several of the old Golden Age heroes, he had writer Gardner Fox, who had created the original Hawkman, to give the character a more science fiction spin.  In the revamp, Hawkgirl wasn’t just Hawkman’s girlfriend, Katar and Shayera Hol were a husband-and-wife team of police officers from the planet Thannagar, who come to Earth in pursuit of a criminal and decide to stick around.

After the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, (or Hawkwoman, as she called herself in later decades),  suffered waves of retcons as DC’s editors and writers tried to fix the inconsistencies created by each preceding fix.  As a result, by the ‘90s they found it easier to just separate the two characters rather than deal with them as a team.

BULLETMAN, published by Fawcett Comics, also featured a husband and wife team of crime-fighters.  Police ballistics expert Jim Barr invented a serum giving him enhanced strength and intelligence, and a bullet-shaped helmet which gave him control over gravity enabling him to deflect bullets and fly.  Like Carter Hall, he shared his discovery with his girlfriend, Susan Kent, so that they could fight crime together as Bulletman and Bulletgirl; and like the Hawks, the two eventually married.  Although fairly obscure today, Bulletman was for a time Fawcett’s second most popular character, next to Captain Marvel.

Another Golden Age character, even more obscure but worth mentioning, was Quality Comics’ DOLL MAN, a guy who could shrink down to six inches in height.  Like many other characters published by Quality during the Golden Age, Doll Man was acquired by DC Comics in the ‘70s and put in a group called the Freedom Fighters; but has been little used.  Still, he also is significant in that he went against the unwritten rule that Super-Heroes mustn’t let their loved ones know what they do in their off-hours.  Darrel Dane began his career by using his shrinking formula to save his girlfriend, Martha Roberts from kidnappers.  Martha makes his costume for him, and eventually gains shrinking powers herself so that she can join him as Doll Girl.

Early on in the FANTASTIC FOUR’s run, Reed Richard and Sue Storm tied the knot in a ceremony attended by many of the big names in Marvel Comics; (although not Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; as an in-joke they were shown being thrown out of the building as gate-crashers).  For the most part, their marriage has been a solid and stable one, and they are raising two fantastic children.

Other heroes of the Marvel Universe have gotten married as well.  Hank “Ant-Man” Pym and Janet “Wasp” Van Dyne have had a rocky relationship, buffeted chiefly by Hank’s emotional problems.  For a while, Scarlet Witch was married to her fellow Avenger, the Vision, and had to face a lot of prejudice, not, for a change, because Wanda is a mutant, but because the Vision is an android.  And then they had kids.  Um… how did that work?  John Byrne later explained it by saying that their twins were figments of Wanda’s imagination given physical substance by her powers… somehow.  Which makes sense, I guess.

I think the happiest marriage in all of comics, though would be that of Ralph and Sue Dibney.  Ralph, “The Elongated Man”, was a stretchable sleuth with a “nose for mystery”, who would travel around the world with his wealthy wife, solving baffling cases in eight pages or less as a back-up feature in THE FLASH.  Their relationship was modeled after Nick and Nora Charles from “The Thin Man” movies, (minus the copious amounts of alcohol William Powell and Myrna Loy seemed to drink in the films); united in a love for solving puzzles and for each other.  Every year, Sue would create a special mystery as a birthday present for her husband to solve.  For a while, Ralph was a member of the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA by himself, but when he rejoined the team in JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL, he brought Sue with him and she became a valuable supporting character.  And dang it, they were so cute together.  Sadly, Sue was killed off in the IDENTITY CRISIS miniseries in order to provide the heroes with a nice tragic beginning..  Because nothing happy can last, I guess.

In “Anna Karenina”, Leo Tolstoy said that “Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Perhaps this is why comic writers are uncomfortable writing stable relationships and would rather give their heroes messy love-lives.  Which is a shame, because I don’t think it has to be that way.