Writing: Jorge Gonzalez
Art: Aaron Lopestri
What Went Down:
This story takes place shortly after Uncanny X-Men #5 from the
sixties. Dr. Doom is utilizing a Seer to
see the future. The Seer is showing Doom
images of Onslaught. Although they don’t
know the specifics, Doom realizes the danger and power Onslaught represents,
and vows to utilize it to the fullest.
Doom also learns that he is not likely to survive his encounter with
Onslaught.
Noting a similarity between Onslaught’s armor and that of
the new (for 60s Marvel Universe) villain Magneto, Doom decides to travel
through time to various points of the villain’s life to discover his connection
to Onslaught and steal his power.
Starting with the X-Men’s first battle with Magneto, Doom tells the Seer
to lock onto Magneto’s bio-signature to travel to future Magneto battles in the
hunt for Onslaught. After witnessing
Magneto’s next defeat from the X-Men, Doom then witnesses Magneto’s first
battle with the Giant-Sized team.
Phoenix actually detects the cloaked time platform and confronts Doom,
but as the base collapses, Doom is able to escape. The platform is damaged, and Doom is forced
to the Days of Future Past storyline.
Doom leaves the time machine to look for parts. He witnesses the future X-Men battling Sentinels
from Uncanny #143, then escapes with the parts.
After fixing the time machine, Onslaught actually reaches out to the
Seer in the time stream, and the old man learns that he is actually Charles
Xavier. The Seer takes Doom to the death
of Thunderbird, Xavier’s battle with Dark Phoenix, his transformation into a
Brood, and his near-death where he turns over the school to Magneto.
The time travelers actually make it to the present (meaning
1998 Marvel Universe), where Magneto is sitting on a throne by himself. Doom attacks Magneto to weaken his mental
guards so the Seer can learn about Onslaught.
After the battle, Doom escapes, and the pair travels to the events of
X-Men #25, where Xavier shut off Magneto’s mind, planting the seeds of Onslaught. Doom tries to absorb the Dark Mass to
increase his power, but the entity is too powerful, so Doom has to return to
his own time. Upon returning, Doom kills
the Seer because knowledge is power, and Doom doesn’t share power.
How It Was:
This is a strange one, but not necessarily in a bad way. In 1998, the theme of all Marvel’s annuals
was team ups. For example the Avengers
annual had them team up with Squadron Supreme, and Captain America and Iron Man
shared an annual. Some of the team ups
even involved bringing back bizarre obscure characters like Devil Dinosaur and
Machine Man to team up with more established characters. Anyways, the annual for X-Men features Doctor
Doom.
Instead of actually having the X-Men team up with or fight
Doom, we have a Doom story taking place early in the Marvel Universe’s history
where he goes through a clip show of X-Men events to put the histories of
Magneto and Xavier into context. Because
it would be weird to have Doom talking to himself for the whole issue, we get
the one-off side character of the Seer introduced to exchange exposition with
Doom and then unceremoniously get killed off when his purpose is fulfilled.
The premise is also a little weak as well because it
involves Doom going after Onslaught.
We’re to understand that Doom can travel into the future to see how
Magneto lost a million battles with the X-Men, so why doesn’t Doom just travel
to see how Onslaught is defeated, figure out how he dies, and prevent it? Moreover, why doesn’t he just observe one of
his battles with the FF in the future, note how he loses, and change it? So it invites all the questions that time
travel stories invite without giving any satisfying answers. Also we know Doom isn’t going to alter history,
so he can’t succeed, but it really is hard to believe that he would know about
Onslaught for so long and do nothing until it resurfaced again decades later.
So what we have is Doom visiting big moments in X-history,
commenting on how feeble or respectable the X-Men and Magneto are at any given
moment, then jumping to the next moment.
It does sort of work in a weird nostalgia stroking way. It is neat to see all these big moments back
to back, seeing how far the X-Men have come in thirty years of continuity, and
remembering all the weird and unexpected turns they’ve taken. Plus Lopestri’s art is remarkable and really
captures the Silver Age feel of the story.
Even better, Gonzalez’s script takes advantage of Marvel
continuity. It’s neat to see that the confrontation
Doom has with Phoenix actually fits into the story in Uncanny #113 if you ever
get a chance to read it. He does miss a
chance to give hints of the present day Magneto’s plans though; it’s obvious
the X-office had no idea what they were doing with Magneto, since when Doom
shows up in our present, Magneto’s just sitting on a throne by himself for no
reason.
Don’t get me wrong, this double-sized story is really padded
and stretched out, and the main conflict isn’t very interesting. But there is
just something entertaining, at least on a base level, about revisiting these
memorable moments. You’d probably be
better off just rereading the original stories (I have the Essential X-Men
black and white collections because you get a lot of story for a small price),
but this one is fun, if completely inconsequential.
B-
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