Panel from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #116 (November 1971), script by Archie Goodwin, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Joe Sinnott, letters by Artie Simek
In addition to his amazing tossin'-Kirby-Krackle powers, the Over-Mind is also the most powerful in the universe at mind control! (And, he came in second place twice in the Galactic Universal Conqueror Pageant, Metal Armor Division!) Since this is the era when Professor X has had his comic book cancelled out from underneath him the year before, the only one who can stop the Over-Mind is Reed Richards...the ever-elastic Mr. Fantastic! Oh, too late; he's already seized control of Reed's mind. Well, that'll happen.
So, who else can save the day? Deadpool? Dazzler? Devil Dinosaur? (Oh, we wish!) Nope...coming to our rescue is everybody's favorite hero, your friendly neighborhood Dr. Doom, armed with his powerful Psionic-Refractor!
Evil world-conquerer wannabe and accursed-Richards-hater that he is, you still gotta give Doomsie some props for designing and building the Psionic-Refractor, huh?
What? He stole it from Reed?!? Why, that Dr. Doom is a dirty rotten low-down plagiarist! I'm betting he steals artwork from the internet for the t-shirt designs he sells in the Latverian Chamber of Commerce gift shop! So that's why he made Sue go over to the Baxter Building before they went to save Reed! And here I was thinking that Doom was just after Reed's Fantastic Four Lamp!
Why, Doom's no better than Shia LaBeouf, although, you must admit, Doom's movie career is slightly more impressive, even opposite Megan Fox in that Sleepless in Latveria rom-com he did a few years ago. You've gotta give it to Vic, he'll go down fighting:
Yep, that's one mighty impressive Psionic-Refractor...
...until it blows up. Oh, way to go, Doom. I bet Reed's Psionic-Refractor wouldn't have self-destructed like that.
The Psionic-Refractor, looking more and more like a staple gun the closer we see it, is spotlighted in the TSR Marvel Super-Heroes game campaign reference book Machines of Doom. Lots of KirbyTech is featured in these reference books, and I'll try to show you a few of the entries when and if I find 'em. Here we can find that Dr. Doom's Psionic-Refractor failed because he clearly didn't make his dice roll.
Listing from Marvel Super-Heroes Campaign Set #6096: Machines of Doom (1992), written by Anthony Herring
It occurs to me: what was Reed going to use the Psionic-Refractor for before Doom took it out of Reed's workbench drawer? Clearly it was a decent if short-termed deterrent against pesky Over-Minds, but did Reed have another ultimate use for this handy device? Well, clearly it would have been a decent weapon against the Psycho-Man, right? And, I'm not saying that Reed would do this to his allies just like Batman did to the JLA, but the Psionic-Refractor would be a front-line weapon if he ever had to take down Professor Charles Xavier. You know, if, say, the Avengers were fighting the X-Men for some reason, not that that would ever happen, huh?
Hey, now I wonder why Reed didn't use the Psionic-Refractor against the psionic villain who committed the greatest crime in the Marvel Universe (handing Captain America over to Rob Liefeld)...Onslaught!
Page from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #415 (August 1996), script by Tom DeFalco, pencils by Carlos Pacheco, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Ariane Lenshoek, letters by Richard Starkings
And hey, that's another very good question. Why don't you tune in tomorrow and find out?
Can you say "Writhe, Reed Richards!" ten times quickly?
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