Lots happening at Disney’s D23 event this last weekend which had me pretty hyped for certain projects *cough* Daredevil *cough* but with that and all that we saw at Comic-Con, it’s fairly clear that Marvel is preparing for the next big bad of their cinematic universe. Lots of rumours, but there’s a lot of fan casting going on for Victor Von Doom, the original nemesis of the Fantastic Four. Well, I thought I’d come back to the Infamous Iron Man series that sees Victor decide to take up the mantle of Iron Man and fight crime!
‘The Absolution of Doom’ starts with a meeting of several villains who decide that the best way to stop Victor Von Doom from bringing them to justice is for them to take him down. This naturally doesn’t go well for them, because Doom crashes the party in his Iron Man armour, and incapacitates them all. Whilst in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody one of them attempts to tell Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, who is now a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, that Doom killed all of the villains. The Thing sets him straight but is still shaken because he can’t possibly fathom that Victor has gone good. When he returns to his hotel room he finds Doom waiting for him there. Ben tells Victor that after all the evil that he’s committed he can’t see him as a hero. After a tense conversation, Victor leaves, but as Ben returns to his room, he is met by another person he didn’t expect to see; Reed Richards. This is clearly the Reed Richards that was aiding Victor’s mother in the previous novel, and he attempts to convince Ben to kill Victor. Ben knows something is up and heads off to visit a familiar face to make sense of the chaos; Johnny Storm. Meanwhile, Victor travels to Latveria again where he is confronted by Riri Williams, aka Ironheart. She attempts to take Victor down believing him to be tarnishing Tony Stark’s legacy but in doing so she allows him to astral project to a place where he tries to get some answers about his mother. When he’s captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. he is visited by Doctor Strange and the two combine mystical powers to find out who is pulling the strings behind the scenes. Can these two heroes figure it out? And what happens if they do? Obviously, you have to read it to find out!
Marvel sometimes is able to do a fantastic job (ha!) at creating these small-time stories that have a massive impact on the way that I see certain characters. I know that Dr Doom is one of Marvel’s all-time big bads but I really like him as Iron Man. Seeing the way that he interacts with Ben and even Doctor Strange, you can tell that this man is stupidly charming. Reminds me of Michael Fassbender’s performance as a young Magneto. The wider consequences of the story are kept to a minimum and I think it’s becoming clear that this works for Marvel. They don’t particularly have a cohesive universe when it comes to their comics, so these almost one-shot series are possible. If I had to criticise I’d say that sometimes the story jumps from location to location and from time to time so it can get a little disorienting.
The artwork was okay. Some of the panels with character expressions were really good, but then others not so much. In terms of covers, I think only one stuck out to me. I know this was the second and final novel in this series so it makes me sad to finish it, but I’ll remember it as a good one!
Favourite Panel:
Magic and science coming together like this? What a panel!
Favourite Character:
Look I’ve not read much of Victor Von Doom as a villain, but I love this version of him!
Rating:
Story Arc: ★★★½
Character Development: ★★★★
Artwork: ★★½
Enjoyability: ★★★½
Re-readability: ★★★
Level: Intermediate