I: Feature Story: "Enter...Dr. Doom!"

Pages: 20

Script: Stan Lee
Pencils: Jack Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnott
Letters: Artie Simek

Villain: Sandman, Wizard, Dr. Doom

Guest Appearance: Wyatt Wingfoot, Silver Surfer, Inhumans: Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak, Crystal, Black Bolt, Triton, Maximus, Lockjaw

Gadgets & Technology: Ato-Missile, Electro-Gun, Impregno-Lock, Pacifier, High-Intensity Inductors

Synopsis: Reed, Sue and Ben have responded to an urgent call to State Prison, when they quickly realize they've fallen into a trap set by the Sandmanand the Wizard. Sandman pounds on the team until Reed activates the air ducts, which begins to suck him out of the building. Sue attempts to trap some of his sand particles with her force field, but unfortunately, the Wizard grabs her at the right moment, ending her tactic to stop him, and the Sandman is free! The Wizard willingly returns to his cell, having enacted his plan to spring his Frightful Four teammate so he can come back for him later.

The Silver Surfer's travels have taken him to Latveria where he is summoned to the castle by Dr. Doom, via a message delivered by Ato-Missile. Doom puts on a good act, and warmly welcomes the Surfer. Doom asks for a display of the cosmic being's power, and the Surfer complies by turning his board into a coalescing field of energy. At Doom's request, the Surfer also creates a cosmic club which can destroy anything. After watching Doom use the club and experience its incredible powers, the Surfer makes it disappear into thin air, and tells Doom he does not want his power in the hands of mad Earthlings. Doom leads the Surfer on a tour through his castle.

The Thing scours the city on the back of his jet cycle for the Sandman, but the villain is already inside the Baxter Building! Reed and Sue's powers hold him off, and after a stalemate between Reed's Electro-Gun and the Sandman's powers over sand, he slips under the door of Reed's lab. Reed and Sue are helpless to get into his lab, since the Sandman has engaged the Impregno-Lock on the storage unit door. In the five minutes it takes for Reed to break through the lock, the Sandman has destroyed or stolen all the technology he can get his sandy mitts on and escapes out the window.

Doom shows the Surfer the wonders of his technology and boasts of being a benevolent ruler. He undercuts his own speech when he nearly attacks a servant who errantly bumps into him. His initial reaction is to bully the man and threaten his life, but he recoils, and showing off in front of the Surfer, sends the man to take the remainder of the day off from work and rest awhile. Doom then shows the Surfer his view of outer space through his powerful telescope, and as a wide-eyed Surfer surveys the universe he has lost, Doom slips on a strange apparatus he calls his High-Intensity Inductors and attacks the Surfer from behind. With the Inductors, Doom leeches the Surfer's cosmic power into himself!

While Johnny and Wyatt search for the Inhumans in a world of monsters (yet another weird world to which Lockjaw has teleported them), the Inhumans pine to be free of the barrier that encapsulates the Great Refuge. Crystal and Medusa maintain their vigil over the comatose body of Black Bolt, and Maximus enters the room to rub it in that the secret of the impregnable dome lies within the mind others call mad! As the Fantastic Four search for the Sandman in New York, in Latveria, Doom practices the use of his new cosmic powers. He steals the Surfer's board and cuts a swath of destruction across his own country.

(continued in FF #58)

--synopsis by Jonathan Clarke, aka doesitmatter, with Gormuu

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