Captive Audience

To mark the second anniversary of their New 52 titles, DC is dedicating this September to their villains. Big Bads like the Joker, Darkseid, and Sinestro will star in the comics of their heroic opposites, and a gaggle of guest artists and writers will take the creative reins.

This could be a blast. Back before the New 52, when Geoff Johns wrote The Flash, he used the fill-in issues to tell the origins of Wally West’s rogues gallery. Fans were treated to the pencils of incredible talents–who didn’t usually work monthly–and challenging twists not to be found in the average arc (like when Mirror Master snorts coke).

Then I remembered The Books of Doom, an utter gem of a series written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Pablo Raimondi. These six issues from 2005 showcase the Fantastic Four nemesis unforgettably–and prove that when Marvel tries, it can beat DC at any game.

The short guide to Victor von Doom says that he’s the absolute ruler of Latveria, a postage stamp country in Eastern Europe. He’s also the intellectual rival of Reed Richards (leader of the Fantastic Four), covered in wondrous armor, and horribly scarred on both his face and soul.

Brubaker (Captain America), who writes with the patient mania of a chess master, serves us an origin rich in social and historical context. When we meet Victor’s mother, her gypsy brethren watch as she twirls carefree around a campfire; she’s actually a dabbler in black magic. “Father never believed me,” Doom tells us, “but I swore that my awareness began in my mother’s womb. Perhaps it was the demons that mother was dallying with that made this possible.”

After Victor’s birth, she strives to make life under a cruel baron better for her clan. Instead, demon possession and murdered children follow; an angry mob hunts her down, and a soldier runs her through for witchcraft. Victor grows up bitter, honing his chilling intellect on dreams of revenge against Latveria’s baron.

This buffs and polishes lore established by previous creators like Stan Lee, John Byrne and Mark Waid. But Brubaker’s narrative enthralls, as Doom himself floats through the flashed-back panels, sometimes standing alongside his younger self. We also get somber interview snippets from elderly people who knew young Victor before he {completely} dropped off the twig. Artist Raimondi (Madrox) draws in a careful style, sensuous with calligraphic blacks and lengthy shadows. Many of his faces also tend toward a Slavic weariness quite appropriate to this series.

To bring Victor to the United States, ostensibly during the height of the Cold War, Brubaker has the military offer him a prestigious university education in exchange for technological breakthroughs. There, the not-quite-bumpkin meets a jovial Reed Richards, and wastes no time seething at the competition. Then, there’s the famous face-melting explosion (which, it’s finally detailed, involved time travel). Having returned to Latveria, humbled and haunted nightly by his mother’s ghost, Victor encounters Soviet blackmailers, his childhood love Valeria, and a mysterious monk.

Of course, Victor later masters the dark arts and ousts Latveria’s baron; we absorb these expected events with a babe’s fresh eyes. Brubaker, best known for runs lasting years, is equally masterful in this limited space. When his villainous narrator turns out to be unreliable–a very thoroughly programmed Doom robot–we’re jolted with a subtle primacy akin to classic literature. If even one of DC’s September issues can do this, I’ll eat my cloak.