Fantastic Four #566

Well, it's finally time for me to read about the "Masters of Doom". I'm going to state right now that I'm a huge fan of Doom, and I REALLY don't like the idea of altering his history even a little. Supposedly, Doom is the student of some kind of mega-powerful otherworldly beings... Doom wouldn't even do the bidding of the Beyonder, I'm expected to believe that he's been following the direction of these 2 characters all this time? Grrr... Before I get myself too worked up, maybe I should actually read this comic book. For the record this comic comes from the creative team of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, the same duo that was responsible for Civil War. I'll try not to hold that against them here!

-Let me try to hold back the bile and sarcasm until after I finish off this review. Then I'll let it all out.

-We begin with Reed discovering the body of a dead Watcher in Thailand. Reed brings the Watcher's corpse back to the Baxter Building and autopsies it, discovering that it isn't Uatu(the Watcher who lives on the moon)and that it is from another dimension. Oh, and in case anybody cares to know, Watchers seem to have no perceptible genitalia. Just figured I'd throw that out there.

-The ex-boyfriend of Ben's fiancee goes on TV to pimp a book about his relationship with the woman, and Ben shows up at the TV tapings to pound the guy for spreading lies. Before Ben can mess the guy up, his fiancee Debbie shows up and pretty much tells him to quit acting like a little kid and to go away. Ben dumps the guy over and storms off.

-And then there was Doom... Doom is in Latveria throwing a celebration for himself since he was put back in charge of his nation in Dark Avengers #1-4. After a while, Doom begins to make preparations for his masters, who are to be arriving shortly.

-Doom's masters finally arrive(Doom calls them the Marquis of Death and the New Apprentice)and Doom bows before them?!?!?! One of them then proceeds to bitch at Doom for being defeated so many times and tells Doom that his failure is disgusting. Doom meekly says that no one can speak to Doom in such a manner, and one of Doom's masters raises a hand and fries Doom, ending this issue.

ARRRGH!!!!! What in the HELL was THAT?????? Doom BOWS before these two jokers??? WHAT?!?! We're talking about Victor Von frigging DOOM here! Doom, the same guy who stole the powers of the Beyonder, Galactus AND Aron the Rogue Watcher!!! This is the same man who went to Hell and defeated the devil in order to save the soul of his mother! God damn, he faced down the devil and he BOWS to these two??? Totally UNACCEPTABLE!

Ugh. I don't even know what else to say... To be honest, the story and artwork was sound, and if not for the end of this book where Doom was doting on those extra-dimensional bozos I'd have given this comic a really good score. I'll give this comic a VERY reluctant score of 6 1/2 out of 10(honestly I wanted to go MUCH lower). The story was good, the artwork was good, but the depiction of Doom was just horrendous. I'm hoping that Doom has some kind of secret master plan(he almost always does)that we'll see at work later on in this storyline. I do have to say that I am VERY disappointed in the fact that Mark has decided to change the mythos of Dr. Doom so dramatically. In my opinion, Doom is one of the best, most complete comic book characters ever, and didn't need any tweaking what so ever. Especially not tweaking like this!