Doctor Doom goes on vacation to the Riviera-in full armor and green cloak. But he left without using Travelocity. Luckily, it turns out, there’s a room available.
While he’s gone, Red Skull invades and takes over Latveria.
We see an explanation for how he didn’t die out in space back in Captain America #129, and we also see the results of years of totalitarian rule on a populace: They have become sheep, easily led and looking for a strong leader–even if they reject Dr. Doom himself.
The parallel to Hitler’s rise in war-torn Germany is obvious and terrific.
But then Dr. Doom gets back and it takes him almost no effort to not just scare Red Skull into fleeing the scene, but to trap him and spray him with shrinking gas, then throw his little body into a rocket.
The punchline, though, is that Skull and his followers were NOT actually shrunk. It was all an hypnotic suggestion. Doom sends them to an island, which presumably is where we will see Skull next.
There’s a lot of fodder here for additional stories–like, how did Red Skull rebuild on an island with followers? But sadly we won’t see an in-depth look at how Doom’s rule shapes his country. I think that would be fascinating, especially if the story were told using today’s much more modern ways of story-telling. Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing Black Panther–he’d be perfect. Marvel, take note!
Finally, the letter page title is Astonishing Mails, which I love.
And there’s a letter from “Bob Fleming.” Is that Robert Loren Fleming, future comic book writer?
I honestly don’t know. Do any of you know if Fleming grew up in upstate NY?