Doug: Today's discussion is actually a debate of the following statement. Feel free to take a side, pro or con, and defend it.
Kang the Conqueror would have made a better villain for the Fantastic Four, as Dr. Doom would have made a better villain for the Avengers.
P.S. And Happy Holidays to all! We'll be back on Monday with the second installment in our look at the early days of the Thomas/Smith Conan the Barbarian collaboration. Be well!
6 comments:
I see the point, but despite what current continuity might say (and frankly I lost track quite a while ago), I've always been attracted to the early notion that they might indeed be aspects of the same villain.
The myriad stories which have derived from Kang's ever-changing back story are ripe for many great tales.
But the FF are explorers and so is Kang, so I get the connection and it might make sense all other things being equal.
Rip Off
As I said the other day on the 'hero with best villain', obviously we see the even the greatest, most heralded villains shaped and defined by their adversaries.
Victor was touted in many early tales as having a matching, perhaps superior intellect to Reed. If originally put as an Avengers baddie, how would he have developed differently..? Even against the Vision's computer logic, he still morphs more into a smart super-villain, without the added layer of matching superior intellects, losing a lot of philosophical musing and banter when Victor seeks to best his closest intellectual rival.
By nature, while Kang rules in the future, he still is a popping-in/zipping-away type villain, a style which seems consistant with other Avenger villains.
Not to diminish clever motives or ignore the subtleties drawn out over the years but purely from a Bronze and Silver Age perspective, in terms of pomposity and never-ending penchant for 'Master Plans', I frankly regard Kang and Victor more similar than not.
I honestly see Doom and Kang (great name for a metal band, by the way) as almost the same.
The main difference was that Kang was used more sparingly than Doom, which resulted in the latter getting more character development. I suspect had Kang fought the FF, he would have evolved to be much like Doom is today.
I once saw a metal band called Kong in Sammy Dow's in Nithsdale Road about ten years ago.
I agree with David B, re Doom more fitting as an FF foe, and Kang for the Avengers. The best Dr. Doom stories tended to focus on the personal nature of his rivalry with Reed Richards in particular and his loathing of Ben Grimm. Doom was out to prove he was better than everyone else and Reed shamed him intellectually twice, as shown in FF Annual 2, while Ben thoroughly physically beat Doom in ish. #39. That particular dynamic really only works with a team like the FF that has mostly retained the same few members for much of its history rather than a group like the Avengers with routine changes in membership and for much of its history, at least since 1970, often has 8 or more regular members. Kang's vendetta has been against the team itself rather than any particular members of it.
I can see the argument: despite the presence of Thor, Hercules, Eros, Captain Marvel and others, Earth’s mightiest heroes generally did remain Earth bound. The FF were usually more ‘cosmic’ not just in terms of origin, but the Neg Zone and a long history of space bound stories.
David B – completely agree about the intellectual face off. I think the Avengers offer other interesting confrontations (Stark’s inventing genius vs Doom’s, armour vs armour, Doom’s megalomania versus Thor’s Godhood, etc), but that’s not the same as the Battle of the Brains.
I’ve also always seen them as tied in. I remember a REALLY early Doom appearance (10 points to anyone who can name this one) where Doom is watching Kang on some kind of future-viewing-device (as you do) and he says something like ‘ah my accursed descendant, or is he my forefather? I’ll never know’. That always seemed to capture it for me.
Last point: would it have been as GOOD? Think of the great stories. Remember Doom shrinking the FF down and making them live out their lives in Pleasantville? That was too personal for a non-related team like the Avengers. Remember Englehart’s Legion of the Lost resurrecting Wonder Man and the Torch/Vision reveal. If that had been an FF story it would have just been a lot of running about in corridors. Too many more to name, but it’s also hard to have a personal grudge against the ever-changing Avengers in the same way as Doom’s decades of despising the FF.
Richard
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