Episode 08 - The Mask Of Doom, Part 1
Original Airdate 12th November 1994

Dr. Doom kidnaps Sue Storm and blackmails the remaining Fantastic Four into doing his bidding in order for her to remain unharmed. Whilst Sue is held prisoner, she convinces Doom to explain his origins to her.

Credits
Written By: Elwin Ransom and Ron Friedman
Music By: Giorgio Moroder
Guest Voices: Neil Ross as Dr. Doom

Review: Sometimes in comics, there are some villains that make such an impact they are automatically branded as their ‘chief’ villain. It happened with Spider-Man when Venom came along, it happened with Batman when Bane broke his back, and it happened with Daredevil when Kingpin moved over from Spider-Man. Most of the time, these are flash in the pan. They tend to stay a while, but lose a lot of their impact. It’s either because the stories were rushed in order to get the villains to reappear quicker, or they simply over saturate the market with them, and the character turns up everywhere, eventually annoying the hell out of you.

There are some villains, however, that make an impact from their first appearance and simply stay as their chief villain. This is a rare occasion. The best examples would be Joker, Magneto and Lex Luthor. The other, perhaps greatest example is Victor Von Doom.

This makes it all the more appalling of his appearance, as he is arguably the worst. He, the greatest Fantastic Four of all time, is given 3 episodes to explain an origin so boring words can’t describe it, a stupid subplot about a great weapon from Ancient Greece and an incredibly rushed, under whelming finale.

The most horrendous thing in the whole episode, however, was Doom’s design. Every single villainous cliché was in here; the super muscular armor, the long following cape, and glowing red eyes. The final one was fixed in part 2, but still managed to be terrible.

The Mask of Doom was undoubtedly an incredibly bad introduction to the good Doctor.

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