by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 24, 2009

One of the most interesting things about the Ultimate marvel universe is that I never have a good idea where it is going. The characters are generally the same and often so are the circumstances but there are plenty of opportunities to have real surprises in these books because they are not the same characters as those we have been reading about for forty years and so marvel has far less invested in them.

There are a couple moments in Ultimate fantastic four: Doom Part six that surprised me, though I suppose they should not have. But before I get to those I want to discuss the basic story. The fantastic four have flown to Denmark to confront Victor Van Damme who is the Dr. Doom of the Ultimate Universe because he has the codes that Reed Richards needs to reverse the changes to the team.

Doom had attacked them even before they landed and in the last book he nearly defeated the team, but not nearly enough and in this issue it begins with Reed Richards and his former friend facing off directly for the first time. He is able to slow Doom down while the rest of the team recovers and then the real fight begins. Working together this time they are able to take down Dr. Doom, though he stands up remarkably well to Johnny's fire, and Sue creating a force field and finally the thing smashing him into the ground.

The things attack is the final straw it seems and Dr. Doom uses his last weapon. He has used an electronic mind control on most of the people in this part of town and though they are unable to really hurt the fantastic four the super heroes can't afford to hurt them so it slows them down.

And then the first surprise, though small occurs. The military shows up and explains that in this case Doom is not one breaking the law. The fantastic four, who have come here without any legal right to enter the country have and they are detained. And then comes the real surprise. As they are being taken away Reed Richards grabs a piece of one of the weapons that Doom has used and scars his face, intentionally.

This last bit is very interesting because it feels so little like the Reed Richards of the traditional marvel universe and yet it fits so well with the younger, colder Reed Richards of this universe.

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