In Part 2 of the PPC's look at the 2006 six-issue series
Books Of Doom, we reach the point where Victor von Doom has been contacted by a member of a sect of monks from a temple in Tibet, who, with his dying wish, implores him to seek them out and learn their secrets of science and magic and realize his destiny. The offer comes at a crucial time for Victor, following his expulsion from Empire State University due to an unauthorized experiment that critically injured another student and left his own face scarred and bandaged. Wandering Europe, he'd been found and comforted by the woman he loves, Valeria, who was attempting to convince him to return with her to Latveria; instead, he decides to attempt to find the temple in the vastness of the Himalayas, which long-time readers of Doom's history will recognize as the place where the character will eventually emerge as
Doctor Doom.
The story by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Pablo Raimondi, having dispensed with the preliminaries of the events which set Victor on the path that would lead to the adoption of his armored identity, will now have an opportunity to expand on Stan Lee's brief scenes of Doom's stay at the mysterious sanctuary where a group of monks nursed Victor back to health after his pilgrimage, a journey that in Brubaker's telling would prove more dangerous to Victor than simply the weakened condition he was left in following his grueling exposure to the elements. There's also the obvious dissimilarity of the character's motivation for making such a trek in the first place, which in Lee's tale was the result of Doom's anguished desire to hide his ravaged face "from the sight of mankind." It's interesting to see how each version makes use of elements from
other characters' origin stories from the '60s; for instance, the Mole Man retreated to his subterranean world in order to shun those above who mocked his appearance--while Stephen Strange was another who sought a temple in the Himalayas, in the hopes of repairing his damaged hands. With K'un-Lun also located in Tibet, the Chinese would be wise to start thinking of tapping into the tourist trade by mapping all the hidden temples in the region. (While giving the resident monks a cut of the profits, naturally.)
For now, however, our focus is Victor von Doom, who strides forward to meet his destiny.
Continued »»»
