It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline.

Greetings, ocean dwellers, and welcome to the Sub Diego Sheraton for this afternoon's seminar: Law for Atlanteans! I'm your guest speaker, Aquaman. Thanks for coming today. In today's hectic submerged world, it's more important than ever to understand the workings of the modern courts and the law, and to prepare yourself for every eventuality in unexpected circumstances where may find yourself needing to understand the law, no matter which side of it you're on. Whether it's beating that SUI rap or suing the dry pants off that snake of an agent Ari Gold for not cutting you in on the movie deal he pitched you, the law is your super friend. Here in Atlantis we have a little joke: what's the difference between a shark and a lawyer? Give up? The answer is: one is an attorney at law, and the other is a Selachimorpha with a full cartilaginous skeleton. Heh heh heh. That's just a little lawyer humor.


Now, everybody out there in the audience: reach under your seat and you'll find a copy of your free book, Law for Atlanteans. That's just another perk we give you for attending this seminar—extra value for you smart info-hungry attendees...no, everybody has a copy...look, it's over there, it floated away...there you go. We're giving this book to you at no extra cost, but if you were to buy this at your local bookstore, this thing'd run you twenty-two clams. Heh heh heh. That's another joke, folks. Can you all hear me there in the back? Um, sir, if you are leaving the seminar, can you please return your book...sir? Sir? Sir?...Well, folks, I guess we know now who's a little shellfish there in the back. Heh. Okay, look up here at the big screen...no, past the walrus...and let's take a look at an ordinary typical Atlantean everyman and how he copes with a mild brush with the law. While I give you some handy tips, see if you can spot any mistakes he might make in dealing with legal matters!



Sooner or later you'll need a lawyer! Remember to engage the services of a professional attorney to get the job done efficiently and expeditiously!
Panels from Daredevil (1964 series) #7 (April 1965),
written by Stan Lee, pencils and inks by Wally Wood, letters by Artie Simek



You can locate lawyers in your Yellow Pages or check with the local Bar Association! Don't be impetuous when you hire legal help—do your research first at home with phone or internet.



Choose your lawyer carefully! Not any lawyer will do—there are hundreds of different specialties among attorneys. Don't simply waltz into a building from off the street and pick one at random!



Be patient! Many top attorneys have packed schedules and may not be able to see you swiftly. Set up an appointment and wait patiently for your meeting!



Show up punctually for your appointment! Don't be late for your meeting with your lawyer. It's best to arrive slightly earlier and relax quietly in the waiting room...they'll be out to see you swiftly!



Want to sue someone? Keep the lawsuit simple! It may be tempting to go for the grand, precedent-breaking legal suit, but simple and to the point wins your case more often than complicated and grandiose!



Listen to your lawyer! He's your educated and trained advocate in the field of law—pay attention to his ideas and take his advice!



Politeness counts! Keep your lawyer on your good side by explaining your case calmly and thorough. Don't lose your temper—that won't help your case!



Treat your lawyer's offices with respect! Keep your feet off the furniture and use that coaster, bucko! Show your attorney you're a cultured and refined person by acting the civilized Atlantean that you are!



When arrested, you have the right to remain silent! Remember, anything you say can be used against you. Don't jeopardize yourself or antagonize the police by blabbing...keep your trap shut until your lawyer arrives!



Never resist arrest! It's humiliating, but keep well within the limits of the law if you're handcuffed or put in restraints. They'll be removed at the station house, so keep calm and don't startle the police with sudden moves!



Dress smartly for your court appearance! A jacket is always proper attire for the courtroom.



Let your lawyer do the talking! You may have seen plenty of movies in which the defendant says, "I object," but remember your lawyer is a trained and paid professional: leave the legal stuff to him!



Wait out your time in lock-up patiently! A cell is no fun, but don't antagonize the police or jeopardize your court case by rattling the bars or making a fuss! As they say in the big house, just "do your own time!"



Never skip bail! Professional bail bondsmen have put up money to ensure you show up for your court case in time. If released into your own custody, follow their instructions and return to the court when ordered. Your bail bondsman will thank you!



Co-operate with paid officials of the law! If you accidentally or mistakenly miss your court appearance, the bail bondsman will send a paid bounty hunter to escort you to the court. Don't be misled by mass media portrayals like Dog The Bounty Hunter, Domino or Janet Evanovich novels: bounty hunters will attempt to coax you into returning with a minimum of fuss. Real-life bounty hunters don't use extreme force on their skips...it's not good business!



Above all, never leave the state while under parole! Doing so may seem like a quick solution, but the long arm of the law will follow you everywhere! It's your duty as a good citizen of Atlantis to face the music and the judgment of the courts, so stay in touch with your assigned parole officer. He's there to help you!


Lights, please...? Thanks! I hope all of you have learned from and find useful these tips on Law for Atlanteans! Let's take a quick kale break—everybody be back here at two-thirty for the section on historical legal court cases. We'll be starting with Roe. v. Wade.

All we are is ducks in the wind

Funny animal comics. They're easy to define by their three separate words: they're funny. They've got animals in 'em. And they're comics. Simple enough, ain't it? When you pick up one, you pretty much know what to expect: gags, chases, cats darting after mice, mice hitting cats with hammers, everybody has a good laugh and nobody ever gets really hurt. That's another definition, isn't it? Even in the most violent...say, Itchy & Scratchy Comics...Scratchy can get his head chopped off with a lawnmower but we larf and larf and larf because there's no sense of permanence in there. You think superhero comics with their revolving doors of mortality defy the inevitability of death more than any other genre of comic? You think a genre where only Bucky Jason Todd Uncle Ben Gwen Stacy remains dead is the extreme? Well, remember this, bucko: it's all good fun 'n' games in funny animal comics, and the best thing is, nobody ever shuffles off their mortal coil.

Well, not always. As another funny animal once quipped, "Not all animals are created equal." And I'm not specifically talking about more adult-oriented funny animal comics like Critters or Usagi Yojimbo or The Adventures of Captain Jack or even the original Eastman/Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. No, I'm talking about as deathproof as you can get: Disney comics. Black Pete or the Phantom Blot may have threatened Mickey or kidnapped Minnie but nobody ever got worse than a punch in the snout. Magica da Spell or the Beagle Boys have it in for Uncle Scrooge's money bin, not for his life. Sure, Bambi's mom and Simba's dad...I'll give you those. But good old-fashioned fun-for-all-ages Disney comics don't feature discussions of mortality.

Except...

I wrote in some length here about my collection of late sixties Top Comics, which, as helpful Martin Allen points me to in the comments, re-published three issues of Gold Key's Uncle Scrooge comic, two of which I've already covered ("The Great Steamboat Race" in issue #3 in that link above, and "The Doom Diamond" in issue #1 here. Both wonderful, wonderful Carl Barks stories: certainly not the stories he's best-known for or even where he was absolutely on top of his game, but they hold a special, dear place in my little red satin heart because they were my first exposure to Uncle Scrooge. But I have all three of the Top Comics Scrooge issues...what of issue #2? Well, as I mentioned before, even in those days before Disney/Gold Key/Top Comics printed credits in their books, I could clearly tell which stories were the work of the Good Duck Artist, even though I didn't know his name. "The Great Steamboat Race" and "The Doom Diamond" were clearly the work of that same genius I only much later came to know as Carl Barks. But issue #2, "King Scrooge the First" (originally published in Gold Key's Uncle Scrooge #71)...that one puzzled me. The artwork was very clearly not that of the Good Duck Artist, but the story was weird and mystical and oddly compelling, oddly unsettling in a way, and I kept returning to it as a tiny stuffed bull to read it again and again. Why did it compel me? And more to the point, why was it so vaguely disturbing to me? To give you the full effect, let me recap the story in an extreme abridgement, with the magic of Blogger, a scanner, and some IMG SRC tags. Be certain you're sitting down: I have not one but two startling twist endings for you at the end of this story.

As "King Scrooge the First" begins, McDuck and his posse of nephews are out for a walk and encounter a fortune teller:

All panels in this post are from Top Comics: Uncle Scrooge #2 (1967, originally published in
Uncle Scrooge #71, October 1967), art by Tony Strobl and Steve Steere

Scrooge scoffs, but the Swami knows how to pique the canny old duck's interest:


But, as another sentient water-animal might opine, "It's a trap!" The fortune teller hypnotizes Scrooge, Donald and the boys and whisks them away to a ghost town in the middle of the Saharan Desert, deserted for almost four thousand years:


Clearly, those webbed feet aren't taking our favorite ganders home:


Abandoning Scrooge and the others, the Swami spies on them from a distance. (Hey, how can he remember a town that hasn't buzzed with life since 2033 B.C.?)...


...and again hypnotizes them, making them believe they are living in the age the city in the desert boomed and bloomed:


In their Shirley Maclaine-flavored past-life recall, of course even an ancient Donald is pretty much still Donald:


...and so, rather disturbingly for a funny animal comic, so are Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Warning: duck bondage. (Ding ding ding go my Google referral hits!) Where are when we need you, Doctor Wertham?


Slaveducks can wait, because the city is being attacked!:


...all as part of a cunning plan by the Swami to make Scrooge, Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie re-enact a specific battle in history. But what's so important about this battle?:


Wait a minute! Does this invading vandalduck look familiar?


Of course he does: it's the Swami as he existed back in ancient times! Ah, now it starts to come together...the Swami is thousands of years old! That's not the twist I promised you, but it's a good one. But how did he become immortal?


Back in ancient times, the Swami demands one chest from King Scrooge's treasure trove to bargain for their safety. What's in that chest? Not jewels, not coins, but two small urns filled with powder. Whoa, that's a lot of work just for some paprika, isn't it? Another piece of the puzzle comes together when the ancient Swami reveals he just swallowed a powder of immortality:


Back in the present, after several pages of running about, ancient fortunes shuffled back and forth, and lots more hyp-mo-tizing, the Swami uses Scrooge's buried memories to rediscover the hidden cache of treasure. Scrooge, of course, turns the tables and the Swami is soon tied up, no doubt using an unbreakable Junior Woodchuck knot. He bargains for his freedom, asking for only one item from the treasure trove—Scrooge can keep the rest. It is, of course, that same chest that once held the two urns and now only holds one:


Before baffled duck eyes, the Swami turns into his true age: an ancient, weary duck four thousand years old:


...a duck long tired of immortality in an age when his comrades and slave girls long ago died...


W-w-w-wait a minute. That's how it ends? That's how this story ends? The story ends with the ancient swami wandering off into the desert to die? Whoa. Whoa. That's heavy stuff for a funny animal comic. Even though it doesn't come right out and portray the scene or say the D-word, the four-thousand year old duck is likely dead, dissolved into dust, before Scrooge can even dive into his new treasure. Now I remember why this comic book gave tiny, tiny me a bit of the heebie-jeebies—that's a heady and adult theme to pull off so effectively in a Disney comic book, not simply the concept of death, but the idea of a man duck so weary of life that he effectively commits suicide to head into the afterlife. Two years later in 1969's "Requiem for Methuselah," Star Trek would cover much the same ground, but this is deep, deep stuff for Disney in 1967, isn't it?

But the ending of this comic book story is only the first of the twists I promised you waaaaaay up there. The second one had a much longer pay-off because until tonight when I was researching the story on the web, I had it firmly fixed in my head as one of the lesser Uncle Scrooge stories by one of Carl Barks's successors—because even a casual comic book fan can glance at that art by Tony Strobl and Steve Steere and note that, while competent, that ain't Unca Carl. And yet, the scope and grandeur of the original story, the deep theme above and beyond the usual limits of Disney comics...well, that's a very good imitation Barks, isn't it? Almost uncanny...

Unless you're a Duck scholar or historian, maybe you didn't see this twist coming any more than I did, but I did not realize until tonight that "King Scrooge the First" was created by Carl Barks: it is a script he wrote before he retired in 1966, leaving the artwork for the story to be drawn by Strobl. In other words, I've been scratching my head over this story for years, thinking it was the next best thing to a Barks story...and it is a Barks story.

I love serendipitous discoveries like that, where your preconceptions suddenly turn on their head and something you never knew in dozens of readings of a favorite comic book suddenly becomes obvious. I have no idea whether "King Scrooge the First" was Barks's meditation on growing old (he'd have a very long career painting the Ducks following his retirement), but even if it was simply a story he never got around to finishing himself, "King Scrooge the First" suddenly sparkles and shines in a different light in my collection: a story I loved despite its apparent non-Barksness now shines with a new significance. The man who brought action, danger and adventure—and even the hint of mortality—to a buncha cartoon ducks continues to surprise me even forty years after this book was published. That's yet another reason I love old comic books I have a personal attachment or connection to: there's always some facet of the gem waiting to be discovered even long years after I first read 'em.

I hope you do the same. Take your lesson from Scrooge: comics are not meant to be sealed away and never read. Pull your comics out of their longboxes and their Mylar sleeves and give 'em another look. Dive around in them like a porpoise. Burrow through them like a gopher. Toss them up and let them hit you on the head. But most of all, read 'em. That's where the fun is.

He move in space with minimum waste and maximum joy

He's a smooth operator
Smooth operator, smooth operator
Smooth operator


All panels in this post are from The Defenders #9 (October 1973),
written by Steve Englehart, art by Sal Buscema and Frank McLaughlin

Coast to coast, LA to Chicago, western male
Across the north and south, to Key Largo, love for sale



Face to face, each classic case
We shadow box and double cross
Yet need the chase



A license to love, insurance to hold
Melts all your memories and change into gold
His eyes are like angels but his heart is cold



No need to ask
He's a smooth operator
Smooth operator, smooth operator
Smooth operator



Coast to coast, LA to Chicago, western male
Across the north and south, to Key Largo, love for sale
Smooth operator, smooth operator





(For maximum results, start this up and read it again:)

Just a girl in a t-shirt/Her reputation precedes her

Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie must surely think me the most blasé and ungrateful bull that ever put hooves to a comic book blog, because it's just over one week since they posted a beautiful and wonderful homage to yours little stuffed truly as worn by my favorite character in April 16th's installment of their webcomic The Rack, the thing of beauty and a joy forever. And altho' I'm a faithful Rack reader, a busy busy 4/16 kept me from checkin' it that day, and I've only just discovered it. But I'm so totally chuffed, gobsmacked, and golly-whillickered that I can't believe it. Me! A comic strip character! Now I can finally lift my head up with pride when Moon Mullins pokes fun at me when I run into him at the grocery store. Seriously, Misters Church and Birdie, you are tops in my book. Thank you so very much for the lovely and eloquent tribute in a strip about projectile vomiting.

"Thank you very much" also to Bill D. at Trusty Plinko Stick who, inspired by The Rack, suggests a t-shirt design you should all be wearing at San Diego Comic-Con this year. I'll be looking for Bill to give him a big fuzzy hug, and also for all of you to make sure that you're wearing yours. I'm Bully, and I support the statement on that t-shirt 100%.

Sniff. You made my little stuffed day, all of ya. In the words of Albert Finney: Thank you very much, thank you very much, that's the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me. And he should know: he was Hercule Poirot.

The fault, cursed Richards, lies not in our armor but in ourselves (What If? #22)

Let's celebrate the birth on this day 443 years ago (and you thought you were feeling old) of the man who made it possible for Stan Lee to write Thor's dialogue: Happy Birthday, Mister William Shakespeare—the man who so kindly wrote of me in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

HOST: Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
DOCTOR CAIUS: By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de
Englishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me
vill cut his ears.
HOST: He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.
DOCTOR CAIUS: Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?
HOST: That is, he will make thee amends.
DOCTOR CAIUS: By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me;
for, by gar, me vill have it.
HOST: And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.
DOCTOR CAIUS: Me tank you for dat.
HOST: And, moreover, bully.

What's this got to do with comics, you ask? Well, aside from a handful of Classics Illustrated, not much. But one thing I think a bunch of us can agree on is that there's a certain number of superhero heroes and villains who have semi-Shakespeare story arcs: a rise and fall, if not over a standard five-act structure, then at least sometimes over a five- (or fifteen-) issue crossover. But one difference between, say, wise-crackin' Spider-Man and wise-crackin' Katherine the shrew (aside from the fact that Kate seldom fought the Water Wizard) is that The Taming of the Shrew eventually comes to an end while Spider-Man's story goes on and on (and on and on and on and on)...Shakespeare never wrote Shrew II: Bianca Boogaloo. Map out the character's plot development of a Shakespearean protagonist and you generally have a pretty-smooth bell curve pointing downwards and then curving up again (for the comedies) or looking like one of Miss Fergie's lovely lady lumps (for the tragedies). Spider-Man's character curve falls, rises, falls, rises, hits the jackpot, tiger, falls some more, rises, plummets off the Brooklyn Bridge, gets cloned and sinks off the chart, and then curlicues in all different directions before getting more tangled than Tigra's ball of yarn. It's easier to plot the chart for a single story of these characters that has a beginning and end—say, the Spider-Man movie—than it is to try and graph the never-ending saga of a hero who, let's face it, weathered clones and retconned twin babies of his groovy dead girlfriend and will weather worse and better in the future. There really isn't any way to adapt a Shakespearean analogy to a story set within a Marvel Universe that has no end, unless, of course, we could look at a done-in-one story set in an entirely different universe whose plotline has a beginning, middle, and end, and definitely will not be "to be continued." But the Marvel Universe doesn't have stories like that, you scoff?

Au contraire, savoir faire:



What If?, published by Marvel beginning with their big book boom of the late 1970s, was their answer to the Imaginary Stories of DC with the Mighty Marvel twist. Rather than the "anything goes" atmosphere of DC ("This issue: Jimmy Olsen, Last Son of Krypton!"), What If?'s stories took as their springboard the alternative reality concept so vital to the Marvel multiverse: at every point throughout history, thanks to the free will of men, men-things, and talking ducks, decisions can be made go in either one direction or another. In this universe, Peter Parker decided to go to a science fair; but in this universe, he instead took Aunt May to the movies: thus was born The Amazing Spider Flash Thompson! When Marvel kept to its own rules some pretty decent stories came out of What If? issues: What if Reed Richards had put some decent radiation shielding on his rocket ship? (A: They'd still fight the Mole Man, but with their wits and tech instead of superpowers.) What if the Avengers had never formed? (A: Tony Stark dies.) What if Spidey had hesitated before trying to web the falling Gwen Stacy and instead swung down to catch her? (A: Tough luck for Mary Jane!) Once in a while there would be a rare misstep in the concept that might result in an entertaining story but which wasn't true to the idea: What if Leonardo da Vinci had invented the airplane? (A: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos would fight World War II...in spaaaaaaaace!) Or, on the goofier but wonderfully entertaining side, what if the original Marvel Bullpen had become the Fantastic Four? (A: Jack Kirby has a heck of a fun time and so do we!) But for my money, one of the finest What If? issues ever created—and in fact, one of the finest Doctor Doom stories ever written—is What If? #22: "What If Doctor Doom Had Become a Hero?" Yep, you heard this little stuffed Doc Doom fan correctly: I'll put this book right up there alongside the Doom written by Stan, John Byrne, and Walt Simonson. And since the Marvel Universe Doomsie goes on and on and on, this alternate universe Doom is the only one who has a story arc that perfectly paints his life as a Shakespearean tragedy. (Ah, you were wondering when I was coming back to Shakespeare, weren't you?)

Let's take a big Latverian look at this ish in brief descripts and some dandy pictures by artist Fred Kida (best known for Airboy in the Golden Age, but he also did a lot of inking work for Marvel in the seventies as well as five years illustrating the Spidey comic strip), shall we? Yes, let's!

What If? was a double-sized 48-page comic (like the Marvel Annuals, it was even squarebound in these early years), so there's decent space for plot development and big splash pages, including this one where galactic peeping-tom and What If? narrator The Watcher shows off just how too cool for school he is. Hey Uatu...get a freakin' Laz-E Boy™!:


All panels in this post are from What If? #22 (August 1980),
written by Don Glut, art by Fred Kida, Dave Simons, and Carl Gafford, letters by Tom Orzechowski

Like Hamlet, Doom's history is fairly straightforward, except with less ear poison. As in all What Ifs, The Watcher recaps "our" Marvel Universe reality. You know the story: wacky college roommates and inveterate pranksters Reed Richards and Victor von Doom, cookin' up a crazy scheme to win the State University Science Fair, accidentally fry Doom's face, leading him to swear revenge on the Tandy Corporation for selling him cheap-ass Radio Shack tech parts. (Warning: not actually what really happened.) "But," posits the Watcher, "What If™ von Doom had actually listened to Richards instead of scoffing at him when told his machine might be faulty?":



It's a (literally) pivotal moment, and despite the arrogance and exceptionally high self-esteem of Doom in any universe, it's believable: this is an early, unformed Victor and it's well within reason that given just that one extra second to think about it, he might put aside his anger and grudgingly accept that his goal is more important than his pride, and after all, if you can't trust your college roommate, who can you trust? This simple hesitation and decision to let Reed help with the building of his Afterlife Machine creates an alternative universe so dramatically different than ours that your copies of Fantastic Four #4 immediately become worthless scrap paper. The experiment that fried Victor's face (or, if you choose to believe Jack Kirby—and why shouldn't you?—and later John Byrne, that gave him a tiny scratch his ego couldn't stand), is now ultra-successful. Doom's search for his mother in the world of the dead shows him since she died a heathen Romani, she's in that place with the pointy forks and the flames: no, not Famous Dave's Barbecue, but H-E-double hockey sticks itself, Hell. The machine overheats anyway, but with Reed there to shut it down, there's no harm and no foul other than ticking off the dorm matron who runs up the stairs and shouts through their door that there's no hot plates in the rooms, Mister Doom!:



Looking uncannily like a thirty-eight year old rather than the first year college student he's supposed to be, Reed comforts his new bestest pal and learns what von Doom has found out:



With the help of dramatic lighting, von Doom vows to rescue his mother and regain control over his country of origin, even though it means totally missing out on the State U. homecoming dance and canceling his date with Cindy Lou Torkildson:



Doom treks to that far-off monastery where, in our Stan's universe he was literally welded to a glowing white-hot iron mask, and instead has the monks forge him an armored battle suit that isn't halfway as impressive as anything Unca Jack created but which suits him dandy as a champion of the people:



In the next few swift and dramatic pages, he rescues his momma from hell and sends her spirit soaring to paradise to the tune of "Wind Beneath My Wings," liberates Latveria from the iron clutches of evil usurper Prince Rudolfo, gains the love and marriage hand of childhood sweetheart Valeria, and becomes a celebrity loved and adored by all. He can do no wrong, even when he declares himself bigger than The Beatles:



Well, wasn't that a pleasant story? Everything worked out so nicely for Mister Doom, didn't it? A lovely happily ever after ending, and...oh wait, let me turn the page to see ruler of Hell Mephisto chillin' with his homegirls:



With Doom's mother freed from hell, Mephisto is rightly ticked, just as you would be if somebody snuck into your long box and stole your copy of Nova #6, thus making your collection incomplete. And Mephisto don't get mad, he gets even. Well, actually, he gets mad and even, by spiriting Doom away to Hell and ensnaring the souls of every man, woman, child, and wiener dog in Latveria in a little "Visit Scenic Latveria" snowglobe:



Apparently having boned up on his copy of Faust, Mephisto has a...hee hee...devilish proposal for Doom—since Doom stole one soul from him, he'll release Latveria only if Doom gives up another soul in replacement: either von Doom's soul or that of his lady love Valeria. Whom will Doom choose? Cue the Jeopardy theme song!:



Really, as Harry Chapin would sing much later on, "there was only one choice." Even in this new universe (no! not the "New Universe"!), Doom's Shakespearean hubris can not allow him to make such a selfless sacrifice, and by his own words he gives up Valeria's soul and condemns her to burning torment eternal. Man, forget about Superman: Doctor Doom is a dick.:



And in keeping with the What If? tradition of "the more universes change, the more they stay the same," like he does in the Marvel Universe, every Midsummer's Eve Doom conjures up demons and devils and does psychic and magical battle with the forces of hell to attempt to reclaim a soul from Mephisto's clutches: but this time his ever-fruitless attempts are to rescue Valeria, not Momma Doom. And ever Midsummer's Morning he fails, whines a lot, gnashes his teeth, curses his fate and stands with his legs disconcertingly widespread:



And the Watcher sums it up sadly as he always does: in this universe things happened dramatically different than they did in ours, that this'll probably somehow maybe will lead in a way he's not entirely certain how but should probably possibly lead almost inevitably to the death of Tony Stark, and hey kids, stay tuned, 'coz next issue Uncle Uatu's got a cool story about the Hulk doing a Conan impression.

I've made some fun of What If? #22 here but don't get me wrong: it's still one of my favorite Doctor Doom stories ever. I consider it the definitive portrayal of the hubris of Victor von Doom, and the best story from which parallels can be drawn between him and the greatest of Shakespearean tragic heroes like Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear. Kida's artwork is solid and dramatic and Glut's script is fast-moving and covers all the bases, but it's definitely not as fine a book as, say, Fantastic Four #57 or #247. But it is proof that Stan 'n' Jack created one of their finest and fullest-developed characters in a boasting iron-clad villain, an antagonist so rich in potential that even a one-shot issue of What If? that stars him could be compared to a Shakespeare play by a little stuffed bull without too many people laughing. What If? #22 was the second issue of the series that I picked up (following the interesting but confusing #21, a sequel to #1), and it's one of the comics that hooked me on Marvel in general and ol' Doc Doom in particular. This long and rambling post celebrating that issue is the first in an occasional series I'm working on covering Bully's list of The Most Fun Comics Ever, and to me, there's no better way to kick off the concept than with Doctor Doom doing battle with freakin' Mephisto. Shakespeare maybe coulda done better, but he likely would not have given us the immortal declaration "The world must not be deprived...of Doom!" No, it mustn't. And neither should we. On Shakespeare's birthday I thus salute you, Doctor Doom! Excelsior!

Who Does Mary Love?

Well, who else?!?

(Baffled? Blame Sleestak.)