Without a doubt my favorite Marvel Comics villain has to be Doctor Doom, ruler of foreign country Latveria and arch-enemy of the Fantastic Four. There just isn’t a more intriguing and complex character than Victor Von Doom, and there have been many, many incredible stories written about or involving him, in the pages of the Fantastic Four as well as almost all of the other Marvel Comics titles out there, including The Avengers, Daredevil and…Iron Man!
A friend of mine turned me on to the whole Iron Man thing right as it was in the middle of what would become the famous “Demon In A Bottle” saga, dealing with Tony Stark’s alcoholism, and in our opinion, there has never been a more stellar run on the strip.
The Iron Man creative “Dream Team” behind this run started very precisely at Iron Man issue #114. This introduced John Romita, Jr. into the fold, and together with inker Bob Layton and the awesome writing of David Michelinie, they created some of my very favorite comic stories, not just in Iron Man, but in Marvel Comics, period! Although John Romita Jr. officially left the strip after #128, he would continue to appear sporadically in Iron Man for a good many stories after that. One of the tales that he came back for was the spectacular two-parter created to celebrate Iron Man hitting the landmark #150th issue, in a story called KNIGHTMARE!
* * * * * * AS USUAL, SPOILERS ABOUND!!! * * * * * * * *
Our story begins in Iron Man Issue #149. Stark International has just filled a huge and very profitable technological order for a distant foreign country. Unfortunately for them, they find out just a little bit late that the cargo is heading for LATVERIA, and the components have been ordered by none other than DOCTOR DOOM!
Iron Man is sent to retrieve the order and recompensate Latveria, stating that they cannot sell their goods to someone who might use it for World Threatening purposes.He manages to stop the ship enroute to make its delivery.
Predictably, Doctor Doom isn't too happy about having to return the goods, and sends mechanical robots to snatch back the cargo that he feels are already his. Knowing the property is just too dangerous to leave in Doom's hands, Tony Stark reluctantly makes a trip over to Latveria, where he must confront Doom and retrieve the cargo once more.
Naturally, Doom is waiting for Iron Man, and no sooner than the two meet, then they are off and fighting!
Meanwhile, Doctor Doom’s long-suffering assistant Hauptmann lurks in the shadows, eyeing the battle. He has been formulating a plan to get revenge on Doom for killing his brother years ago, and the opportunity to execute his plan seems to be coming to light- As Doom and Iron Man grapple each other, they unwittingly find themselves atop Doom’s time machine.
Before they know it, Hauptmann has thrown the switch and sent them spiralling into the past! As soon as the deed is done, Hauptmann smashes the Time Machine to bits – knowing that without the device, Doom and Iron Man are trapped in the past –FOREVER! This was the cliffhanger that led to issue #150!
Can you imagine the month that I had to wait to get the next issue?! I was in agony!
As the Time Machine hurtles the duelling armored men into the past, they merely perceive it as a huge explosion, and believe they have been expelled into Doom’s courtyard. Only after looking around does Iron Man stop the fight to realize they’ve come a lot farther that that- They are in CAMELOT! Doctor Doom quickly deduces what has happened. His assistant has sent them into the past. It had been set to come to Camelot for Doom had planned on making the journey to consult with the great sorceress Morgana Le Fey. Thanks to the turn of events, he has arrived- only in a much more permanent state than he’d planned!
They haven’t been there for very long before they are confronted by Guards who attempt to take them prisoners and are taken to be judged by King Arthur. Iron Man is quick to make peace with the king and demonstrates some of his armor’s abilities. Doom is not so forthcoming, and states that in his homeland HE is a king, and won’t lower himself to perform “parlour tricks”. They are kept as permanent guests for the time being.
I love this scene- Tony’s in a melancholy mood. He’s such a product of the technology age, of circuits and machines, he couldn’t be more hopelessly out of place than here in the past.
Doom is able to wring a girl’s mind for information on Morgana Le Fey’s whereabouts. Once the knowledge is obtained, he immediately leaves the castle, locates Morgana’s Castle and offers his services to the Dark Sorceress. (And GEEZ, LOOK AT HER…DAMN, IMHO No One has EVER portrayed her so sultry and beautiful- JUST GORGEOUS!)
Doom explains to the Sorceress how he has been visiting the great magicians through time using his timecube machine with one purpose: to free his mother from the prisons of hell. Morgana Le Fey listens and strikes a bargain with Doom- she will help him if he will lead her undead soldiers in the final battle with King Arthur. Doom readily agrees.
And so the battle is begun- the good side of King Arthur led by the Golden Avenger, and Morgana Le Fey’s undead army led by the sinister Doctor Doom!
The battle is raging until Tony puts two and two together- Le Fey’s Soldiers are Undead, so the only way to truly stop them is to stop them at the source- Morgana Le Fey herself! While the battle goes on, he leaves and makes his way the the Castle, where he starts another battle- of science versus magic! In the end, Morgana is defeated, and she leaves the land, never to return.
Meanwhile, back at the battlefield, once the undead soldiers become inanimate again, he knows that Le Fey has gone, and his chance of rescuing his tormented mother has once again slipped from his grasp! In a rage, he speeds over to the castle, and smashes in on a startled Iron Man.
He threatens to kill Iron Man, then shocks the Avenger by adding…”Someday” And Why?
The battle over, even Doom must concede that there is no reason for him to exist here anymore. He decides the time is right for his return to his own time. And here’s where the story just blew me away, as Doctor Doom reveals his plan to Iron Man:
It is just possible that they CAN return to the present, but only with their COMBINED GENIUSES and CANNIBALIZING BOTH OF THEIR ARMORED SUITS and using the intricate circuitry to create a device that might warp time around them and return them to the present day! Yes, they realize the only way they will get back home is to work TOGETHER!
The two minds work together all through the night, and by dawn have come up with an elaborate construction wired into both armored suits for power. They make a truce that if the device should happen to work, they will allow each other to go their own way.
When the final connection is made, the fabric of time rips around them, and the two find themselves back in the present time, the collaborative construct reduce to molten slag around their fried mechanical parts. Doom leaves with a remark: “We WILL Meet Again”, to which a weary Iron Man simply states, ”I’ll Be Waiting.”
Then the two turn around and go their separate ways.
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At the time I read this story, I had already fallen in love with the character of Doctor Doom, having recently read the Fantastic Four story “The Coming Of Overmind”, where Doom finds himself allied with his arch enemies to overthrow an Alien Attack, and this new dimension to his persona just about sealed the deal for me. I mean, having Doom and Iron Man dismantle themselves together to build a time device was just ingenious!
The intricate artwork only made it more impressive, and a special point MUST be made here, about the incredible inking talent of Bob Layton. In my opinion, there is NO ONE out there who does “metal” like him. Everything he embellishes REALLY looks hard as steel, I remember him illustrating a cover of Captain America, and even then, Cap’s Sheild looked so tough!
After this there was only more to come, tales such WHAT IF DOCTOR DOOM WAS A HERO? and an excellent Red Skull battle in SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM UP, not to mention the incredible John Byrne Fantastic Four issues that were still to come!
And as a bonus side note, years later, when Iron Man hit its landmark 250th Issue,they celebrated by creating a SEQUEL to “Knightmare”, in a tale called “Recurring Knighmare”, this time sending Iron Man and Dr. Doom into the FUTURE!
