—Doctor DoomYou are a fool, Benjamin Grimm. I crawled through hell itself to get here. Do you really think you and your outgunned comrades are going to stop me when I'm this close to my goal?
Appearing in "The Hammer Falls: Part 2"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Unnamed Latverians (Only in flashback)
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- ⏴ Donald Blake ⏵ (Return)
- Demons (Only in flashback)
- Asgardians (Vision or hallucination)
- Loki (Vision or hallucination)
- Balder (Vision or hallucination)
- Tyr (Vision or hallucination)
- Skurge the Executioner (Vision or hallucination)
- Heimdall (Vision or hallucination)
- Warriors Three (Vision or hallucination)
- Thor (Mentioned)
Locations:
- Oklahoma
- Hell (Only in flashback)
- Latveria (Only in flashback)
- Castle Doom (Only in flashback)
Items:
- Mjolnir (Main story and flashback)
- Doctor Doom's Armor
- Bloodaxe (Vision or hallucination)
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "The Hammer Falls: Part 2"
Victor von Doom explains to Reed and Sue how he escaped from Hell, having been trapped there by the Hazareth Three: while battling against a horde of demons, an interdimensional rift created by the "final pitched battle of the Asgardians" rends "the very fabric of Hell itself," and Doom dives into the rift, nearly catching Thor's hammer Mjolnir before they are both ejected back on Earth.
In Latveria, ten days later, the Prime Minister discusses plans to repurpose Doom's army of Doombots before Doom announces his presence by killing the Prime Minister, then orders a pair of cabinet members to find the object that came out of the rift with him.
At the research installation, Doom approaches Mjolnir as Reed and Sue fight off the advancing battalion of Doombots; Grimm attempts to intercept Doom and keep him away from the hammer, but Doom overpowers the Fantastic Four and lays his hand on the hammer, igniting a massive detonation of energy. He is unable to lift Mjolnir, however, and resigns himself to failure, summoning his jet to escape the scene. Reed hypothesizes that the energy blast may have been "a signal of some kind," while Grimm also attempts and fails to lift the hammer, "just in case."
Elsewhere, during a driving rainstorm, a man purchases a bus ticket while listening to a news broadcast announcing the energy blast and subsequent blackout over most of Oklahoma.
Notes
Continuity Notes[]
- Doctor Doom has been trapped in Hell since Fantastic Four #507.
- The strange armor that Doom is wearing in hell was made of the skin of his childhood love, Valeria. Doom skinned her alive and used her flesh to make his armor in Fantastic Four (Vol. 3) #67.
- The vision of Asgard falling happened in Thor (Vol. 2) #80–85.
- In the flashback in this story, Doom's "replacement" states that Doom had been gone for two years. This is a measurement of time between the publications of Fantastic Four Vol 1 507 and this issue. Per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616, the length of time has actually been a few months.
- Castle Doom seems to have been entirely rebuilt during Doom's absence, following its destruction by Daisy Johnson as depicted in Secret War #5.
- The man buying the bus ticket is Donald Blake, the mystically created alter-ego of Thor. As revealed in Thor (Vol. 3) #1, when Thor seemingly died in Thor Vol 2 85, he was actually transformed into Blake.