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by FRANK LOVECE ANd WALT HELLSTROM

Doctor Doom, monarch of a nation;Rama-Tut, pharaoh of the Nile; ScarletCenturion, ruler of an.Earth; Kang, con-qutror'of the future; Immortus, masterof time.

These are the men that try time's soul.It has been hypothesized that these five

persona are but one Percon, each a mani-festation of the same being. There is evi-dence that they are indeed related: variousaspects of their saga have been recountedoften and by many. While the relativetruth of certain facets is unquestionable,there are contradictions, perhaps evendeceit, in the annals, a progression ofsec-rets known only to Immortus, the mostknowledgable of the purported chain. Itis Immortus who, alone in his Qhamber,states, "Five lives have I known. .. Oh, thatall might know what wonders there are tothis firmament."r

Obviously, to have reached a point tomuse on past lives, other lives had to havebeen. We will examine the known life his-tories of these five personalities to deter-mine what relatiorships there may be, andhow they might have come about.

VICTORVON DOOM

Of the five personalities examined here-in, Victqr Von Doom is the only one whose

birth and youth are documented, so it is

here we shall begin. Von Doom was bornin Europe sometime before \dorld War IIto Werner Von Doom, 1 Cypsy healer, andCynthia, a sorceiess. Both Werner andCynthia died during Vi.ctor's adolescence,and the boy was raised by Boris, the deputy

Originof DoctorDoom," 1964, p. lf .

r2

leader. Of the gypsy tribe. Victor threw siderable genius towards one end: worldhimself into study, learning from both the mastery. Foremost among the many dis-

domestic science of his father and the mp- coveries and inventions Doom made in his

tic talismans contained in his mother's quest for Power.was a working para-Ein-heirlooms. One of his early interests was steinian time machine, by which he had

robotics, and he perennialy outwitted auth- access to the past and future.orities rgith his automatons, apparently When Doom learned that his college

constructd with only the materials at hand rival Reed Richards had gained cosmic

andperhapsatouchofsorcery. powers, he perceived that Richards and

Von Doom's prowess with science and his band of adventurers, the Fantastic

sorcery, coupled with his thirst fgr power, Four, stood between him and his goal ofsoon made him leader of his tribe. His world domination. Despite the prolifera-reputation as a robot-builder even reached tionofothersuper-powered altruists, Doom

America, and prompted the dean of Em- single-handedly concentrated his resources

pire State University tb seek him out and on the downfall of the Fantastic Four,

offer him a scholarship. While in college, largely to the exclusion of other, equallyexperimentationwith"mattertransmuta- formidable opposition to his conquests.

tion and dimensional wa{ps" in an effort Although Doom's campaigns and setbacks

to contact his dead mother in the "Neth- have been numerous, the final episode oferworld," caused an explosion which scarred the man known as Victor Von Doom has

his face, and caused him to be expelled. yet to be chronicled'Despondent after the accident, Vrcn,!9om RI\MA-TUTtrekked through Tibet in search of "for- , -:bidden secrets 6f fU.t magic and sorcery." The first time the Fantastic Four met

lle was discovered by a"quasi-sor..roo, Doctor Doom, he used his time machine

,.a, *ft" taught him'theii'lore aird arts. to dispatch them into the past to fetch-the

In a short d;, his teachers were calling occult treasures of Merlin'3 Some time

him master, and he had them fashion him later, the Fantastic Four first used Doom's

a suit of atrrnor and a'rnetal mask. This time machine for their own purPoses: to

mask was "not completely cooled" when investigate the circumstances revealed inVon Doom first put iilon.i hicroglyphics of the apparent sight restora-

Returning to Latveria, the small coorr- . tion of a blind pharaoh some 5000 years

try in the Balvarian AlpS near which he had in the -past'1

'They encountered Rama-

bJen born, the self-styled Doctor Doom Tut, who, to their surprise, spoke English

overthrew Rudolfo, the lineal ruler of the and was familiar with them. Tut explained

tiny nation, and appoihted himself abso- that he came from the year 3000 AD, an

lute monarch. His appetite for power mere- unb@rably p91cef9! erl for a man as ad-

lv whetted. Doom beean to devote hib con- venturou$ as himself. Visiting the ruins ofJ . e 'l

2. Fantastic Four Annual #2, "The Fantastic E. Fantastic Foar#5,July 1962.

l. Aaengers #133, March 1975, p. 6. 4. Fantasth Four #19, October 1963.

AN@TFffiMES

art by SAM DELA ROSA and BILL NEVILLE

an "amazing ancestor's" property (whatlooked to be a castle), the man who wouldbe Tut came uPon what was left of his

ancestor's "greatest invention," a time ma-chine, along rfith plans for its operation.Rebuilding the machine inside a sphinx,Tut traveled back to ancient Eglpt with

;the intent to take over the Sreatest civiliza-tion of the time. Unfortunately, a mis-calculation on his part resulted, he daimed,in damage to both his optic nerves and histime machine, blinding him and snandinghim in the past. Although a rare herbsupposedly restored his eyesight, he madeno mention of how his damaged time ma-chine suddenly became operative.

Suffering a minor defeat at the handsof the Fantastic Four, Rama-Tut set forthin his time machine for the era he claimedto come from. Pausing briefly in the 20thCentury, Tut happened upon the driftingform of floctor Doom, floating in the voidof space nearJupiter.6 Taking him aboard,Tut conjectured, "It cannot possibly beblind chance that we have met. It mustbe part of some grand design...some mas-ter plan offate. For I, too, have good rea-

son to hate the Fantastic Four. I, too, have

been defeated by them."6Tut explained to Doom that he came

from the 25th Century (not the 31st, as hehad told the Fantastic Four), and that he"committed crimes in many centuries usingthe time machine which I stole...whichwas supposed to have been invented by myancestor, Doctor Doom."?

Fantastic Four Annual #2, "The Final Vic'tory of Doctor Doom," 1964; P. 4.

Ibid.., p.5.Ibid., p.6.

5.

6.7.

Doctor Doom hypothesized; "What if Iam not your.aircestor? What if I myselfwent to the future? What if You are me?

What if Rama-Tut and Doctor Doom are

the same.nran?"e Discussing how such an

event could have occurred, the two simul-taneously utterd, "But.'.if we're both the

szune man, how can we co-exist at the same

moment in eternity?"e Unable to reach

any conclusion, they turned their attentionto their common goal, the defeat of the

Fantastic Four. Doom advised against ajoint campaign: "We dare not attack themtogether. If we are one and the same rnan,

"trd if .ith.t of us is slain, then the other'

too, will perish. For you cannot live in the

future if you are slain in the past. And Icannot live in the present, if my other self

dies at the same moment in eternity."roThat Doom draws the conclusion that the

demise of one of them will affect the other,

while their simultaneous co-existence does

not, may simply be, an act of caution.While agreeing wiih Doorn's suggested

course of action, Tut contradicted Doom's

assumption that Doom'sdeath might affecthim: 't shall brirrg you back to Earth, while

I return to the future...so that I shall stilllive to carry on your fight even though you

may be destroyed."tr

, SCARLETCENTURIONAfter transporting Doom back to Earth,

Rama-Tut found that his craft had fallen

Drev to "electro-stati,c disturbances in the

i"ulin timestream."it Th"t disturbances

s. rbid.ro. Ibid.1r. Ibid.L2. Aoengers Annial *2,1968, P. 43.

may well have been what caused his time-sphere to make a stopover in the 1960s inthe first place. Apparently, Tut was stran-ded in this era for a while, so he decidedto journey down to the. Earth's surface indefiance of his pact with Doctor Doom,to try a new tack at conquering this elusive

era.Aszuming the name and guise of the

Scarlet Centurion, Tut appeared to theAvengers following their battle with theSpace Phantorn,rt and claimed that he

could solve all the ills of the human con-

dition if the Avengers would agree to cor-rect "a cosmic imbalance...caused by anexcessive number of beings in your era

possessing so-called super-Powers. "ra TheAvengers agreed to the Centurion's termswith reservations and proceeded to over-

power and imprison all of Earth's suPer-

homars, beginning with Tut's mortal en-

emies, the Fantastic Four. Even DoctorDoomis taken by the overzealous Avengers,

a move that may have provided the Cen-turion with no small amusement.

A quintet of later Avengers, time-travel-ing via Doom's machine from a visit to1945, inexplicably materialized in,this al-ternate reality and set forth to disrupt theCenturion's plarn. Against incredible odds,

the new Avengers battled their foundingmembers in order to reassemble the Partsto Doom's time machine. In the final show-

down, Henry Pym tampered with some ofthe machine's settings and created somesort of field preventins the Centurion from

M""g"rt #2, N"vember 1963. Strict issue

dating lebld indicate that Rama-Tut back-- ttu.i.d several months before becorningthe Centurion.

14. Ibid.,p.44. :

t3

remaining tangible in that.era. The newAvengers, too, faded from that reality,.and found thernsblves in the.world theyknew, bereft of memory of the alternate,world. rs

That the reality of the present becamealternate because of the Centurion's short-lived success is an often-overlooked facetof this chronology, one unnoted by theWatcher himself at the end of the chron-

icle. Barring the alternate Avengers' in-tervention there; the Scarlet Centurioncould well have become the master of that20th Century.r6 The Centurion shcmldhave learned from his neai-sticcess that atime traveler caz succeed in altering thepast; he is responsible for diverging analternate reality from the Marvel main-stream, in which the Hulk remained withfhp Avcnoem

15. Apparently this memory loss was the handi-work of the Watcher,

16. An upcoming What IJ? depicts one version

The Watcher reported the,scarlet Cen-turion's movements from this point. Ac-cording to him, the Scarlet Centurioncontinued his journey to the year 4000 AD,and returned to battle the Avengers oncemore under his "50th Century name,"Kang the Conqueror.rT

At his first encounter with the Avengersin the guise of Kang,r8 he gave this accountof himself: He was born in 3000 AD, hejourneyed from that era into the past to

become Rama-Tut, his return tir the eraof his birth was disrupted by timestreamdisturbances, he met Doctor Doom, andhe eventually located himself in the scien-tific-cum-barbaric Earth of 4000 AD. Heclaimed that it took but weeks to conquerand grow bored with this particular futureEarth. Hence, it was but a short time afterhe assumed the guise of Kang that he re-newed his attempts to .conquer the 20thCrntury. Overcorne by the Avengers in hisfirst campaigrr, Kang escaped only to threat-

of what. would have happened in this al-ternate reality had the time-travelers. zolmysteriously appeared.

t7. Ibid., p.44.18. Aaengers#8, September 1964.

"t4

en them again a short while later with arobot of Spider-Man. 19 This scheme, too,was unsuccessful. His next strategem tookhim to medieval'England, where [i plannedto take over King Arthur's Round Tablein order to "change the past." Learningof Kang's plans, the Watcher dispatchedthe Fantastic Four's Human Torch andthe Thing to thwart the conqueror. Whilethe Wagher has always treated the Fan-tastic Four preferentially, it is interestingto note Kang's self-admission that his pri-mary concern is "revenge upon my enemiesin the 20th Century, enemies such as theFantastic Four."20 As Kang, he had never

ztltsr$$s

$Perhaps because of the shallowness of

his victory over the 31st Century, Kangpermitted the native royalty to serve as hispuppet rulers. Kang described the worldwhich his puppets ruled as a "postagestamp kingdom," an interesting 20th Cen-tury colloquialism. Perhaps he permittedthe royal family their figurehead rule be.cause of his affection for the royal PrincessRavonna. From what has been shown ofKang's courtship of Ravonna, his ideas ofchivalry and honor are decidedly archaicfor a self-styled conqueror. Once, whenhe brought the Avengers to his era to dobattle,zt it developed that Kang had toally himself with the Avengers to quell a

-19. Aaehgers #ll, December 1964.20. Strange Tales #l34,July 1965, p. 3.21. Aaengers #23, 24, December 1965-January

1966.

ficed the Fantastic Four before.

civil war and rescue his beloved Ravonna.Defeating the enemy forces, Kang wasrobbed of his victory when Ravonna inter-ceptd a traitor's ray-blast aimed for him.22

While the preceding events were takingplace, Kang made a rather intriguing re-mark: "Doctor Doom! Little do they dreamhow closely related I am to the greatestarch-villain of all time." Although Kangreferred to Doom as his ancestor on a singleoccasion,23 it seems unusual to refer to anancestor separated by at least a thousandyears as "closely-related. "

Kang returned to the 20th Century sev-eral. more times fon reasons relating to

This did not prove to be a real impedi-'.ment to Kang, for he sbon reappeared inhis 31st Century world, wliere he becameinvolved in an interdimensional chess gamewith the nigh-omnipotent Grandmaster,r,using the Avengers as pawns.25 The stakesof the game were the power over life anddeath, should he win. Kang was victoriousin all but one of the three rounds, and ashis prize he was offered the choice of either

grandfather, which in turn would d.ivergea reality without a Flulk. When the HuIkunwittingly.thwaned Kang's scheme, Kangwas mysteriously sucked into some sort oltemporal vortex, and it was stated that"the man who once was Kang the Con-queror drifts, his mind a blank white page,in the Limbo between the millennia.-"?oNo mention was made in his next appear-ance of how Kang regained his mindlfter

!

\

\

conquest. Once, he came back to checkup on his stimuloid known as the GrowingMan, which he built to combat "the forceswho oppose me in my own world...in myown century. . .in the far distant future. "2iThor banished Kang from the present withan "infinity vortex" created by his ha4nmer,which placed Kang "beyond all timb, be-yond all place," a fair description of thetranstemporal medium of Limbo.22. Apparently.Kang did not have sufficient

mastery of time travel at this point to takea slron hop backwards t9 pirevent Ravonna'sinjury by diverging an alrernate reality inwhieh she didn't ger hurt.

23. Aaengers#24,p,14.24. Thor#140, May 1967, p. 15.

the resuscitation of the comatqrc Ravonna,or the death of the Avengers. He chose thelatter, his lust for revenge proving strongerthan his love for the princess. Nevertheless,hq was robbed of his revenge by the medd-ling Black Knight.

Kang's next appeafance was a curiosity.His plan was a thinly-veiled reworking ofthe classic Grandfather Paradox, in whichthe Hulk was sent backrto World War I tokill the Phantom Eagle, which would resultin the death of Bruce (Hulk) Banner's

25. Auen6ers #69-71, October-December 1969.

O1979 Interfan

that defeat, leading one to suspect thatthat particular Kang had diverged fromthe previously-seen Kang at some pointprior to or during that episode.

In Kang's next recorded appearance,he sent a robot of himself to conquer the23rd Century ruled by Zarrko the Tomor-row Man, a ploy that inevitably drew theAvengers, the Inhumars, and Spider-Manintdithe melee. This scheme was as inspiredas it was successful,2T

I{ulh #l35, lanuary 1971, p. 20.Maruel Tearn-Up #9-ll, MayJuly 1973.

26.27.

t5

Kang's journeys to the 20th Centuryreached their zenith and apparent cul..mination during his quest f;; the Celes-tial Madonna., a woman of the 20th Cen-tury who, it was said, would bear a childwho would become the most importantman on Earth. Kangwas determined thathe would be that child's father, and heundertook his most concerted military ac-tion ever to achieve that end. His firstcampaign involved trapping the three migh-tiest Avengers: Thor, Iron Man, and theVision, inside "macrobots," automatonspowered by the heroes' energies.zE Hissecond, campaign invqfved drawing theAvengers to the catacombs beneath Im-mortus'castle in Limbo, there to battlethe Legion of the Unliving-six formidablesuperhumans plucked out of recent his-tory.rs His third campaign relied on noalli6s eih.1 than himself, as Kang traveledto the 20th Century from four differenttimes, so that he would have multiplecounterparts to aid him.10 In his fourthand final campaign, Kang set up a baseofoperations in 1873, apparendy reasoningthat by ruling the century prior to theAvengers'existence, he could rule the 20thCenturry, too.8t

After the masterful plan of deployingmultiple temporal counterparts in a singleassault (whose major drawback was thatKang summoned a mere handful ratherthan the nearly endless number at hisbeckoning), Kang! l9th Century operationseemed very ill-conceived, reminiscent ofhis aborted campaign of Arthurian Eng-land. Kang should have known by thenthat even if he had conquered the lgthCentury, he would have only succeeded indiverging an altenute reality, as the Scar-let Centurion had done, one that wouldnot affect the Avengers'pre-existing real-ity in the least.

At the end of his last campaign, Kangwas apparently destroyed when his uni-form's temporal circuitry was damaged,dispersing his atoms throughout time.e2

RAMA-TUTIIReports of the chain's undoing to the

contrary, the progression of counterpartsdoes not end with the discorporation of aKang in 1873. One of the temporally div-ergent counterparts that survived the Cel-estial Madonna affair went back to the3lst Century, there to dwell on the coma-

28. Aaengers #129-Giant-Size Aaengers #2,November 1974.

29. Aaengers #f31, 132, Giant-She Aaengers#3, January-February 1975. .

30. Giant-Size Aoengers #4,Juire 1975.3\. Aaengers #l4l-143, November l97b-Jan.

uary 1976.32. Avengers#143.

tose Ravonna, who seemed forever out ofgrasp. He reflected, "As my sixtieth yearcfept upon me, I realized the void I hadmade of my life. Conquest was a drug-stimulating only for a time-and in theend, I woke up alone. I vowed to retirefrom the field. So I left the 4lst Century,with its royal city built on sand, and re-turned to a happier time. Once more inancient Egypt,...I smashed my time-sphereand returned to my people as PharaohRama-Tut. I ruled them well, with thevirtue I formerly loathed the most: com-passion. At seventy, I frnally felt fulfilled."s3

After ruling the Egyptians for ten yean,the second Rama-Tut began to regret hislife as Kang: "As Kang, I had wasted mylife in fruitless warfare - the most fruirlessof which-was my assault on the CelestialMadonna. I had no choice but to reachforward 5000 yean, to the 20th Century-and enter my own pastt"sr No longer pos-sessing a working time machine, Tutplanned to use suspended animation totraverse the millennia without aging, andwith the'aid of his court wizard, he under-took the journey. Tut arranged for himseHto be awakened when the Avengen' Swords-man stumbled upon his tomb, a circum-stance which he claimed to remember as

33. Giant-She Auengers #2, p.14,34. Ibid. , p. t7 .

happening from his days as Kang. DuringKang's first conquest of the Celestial Ma-donna, Tut fought his counterpart, andthe struggle ended with the two of themvanishing into Limbo. It is inteiesting toconsider the extent of Rama-Tut's mem-ory of this twice-seen encounter. Whilecertain events occurred as Tut rememberedthey would (e.g., the Swordsman's trip tohis tomb), the very resolution of the con-flict, where the two combatants slip intoLimbo, does not seem to.

In Limbo, ihe two counterparts weredrawn to the castle of Immortus, the self-styled master of time.35 Immortus seemedto be drawn into Kang's machinations;after summoning the Legion of the Unliv-ing, Immortus was imprisoned by Kangin a capsule of his own devisingi

IMMORTUSHis participation in the Celestial Ma-

donna affair marked the second appear-ance of the man called Immortus. His firstoccurred early in the Avengers' career,when he mentally contacted the AsgardianEnchanress to offer to aid her and theMasters of Evil against the Avengers. "Oneday I shall claim this century," he toldthem, "and I may permit you to serve asmy underlings."s6 The nature of Immortus'actions in this episode are curious. Ab-ductlng honorary Avenger RickJones, Im-mortus tried to turn Captain Americaagainst his fellow members. Failing in that,he summoned such legendary frgures fromthe past as Goliath, Merlin, and Hercules,to battle the Avengers. When that toofailed, Immortus disappeared with Cap-tain America, allowed him to rescue RickJones, and returned them to their owntime. To avoid capture by the Avengers,the Enchantress cast a spell to send herand the Masters of Evil back in time to

35. Aaengers#131.36. Aaengers#10, November 1964, p.4.

rh-mentwhenlmrtnortusfirstcontacted Following the Avengers' adventure inb. Thb time she broke contact with him, Immortus' castle, the master of time en-ercrting the chronicled events by creating ' ab.led the Vision and M:intis to witnesse dimgmce.tT Apparendy, this rudimen- their forgotten pasts. At the rirnd of those

tary time trick worked, for they heard no journeys, Kang made his third attempt atmore from the master of time.''Immortus the Celestial Madonna (now revealed todid not seem to be very masterful at this be Mantis), but Immortus tricked Kangorting, nor were his motives fathomable. into abducting the body-changing Space

Iluring his involvement in the second Phantom in her stead. Officiating at therrmpaign for the Celestial Madonna, Im- weddings of the Vision and the ScarletrrDttus'actions again were opaque, bearing Witch, and Mantis and the Cotati, Im-[tde continuity with his previously recor- mortus returned to Limbo, apparentlyded deeds. At first he seemed to ally him- unperturbed that Kang was still on theseH with Kang, providing him the means loose.to summon the Legion of the Unliving' When Kang next aPPeard, attemptingBut when Kang impfisoned him with to conquer the 19th Century, MoondragonRama-Tut, Immortus genuinely acted as menta\ bontacted Immortus through theif he had been outwitted. Only later do all mists of Limbo, to ask for his aid in loc-these occurrences seem part of a gtand ating Kang.4o Guiding them to the Amer-design. Design or not, Kang escaped from ican frontier, Immortus played no part inl.imbo and the Unliving.Legion fiasco to the final battle with Kang. Kang was de-plot anew. When Rama-Tut left for parts feated in battle with Thor when an over-mknown, Immortus revealed to the Aven- load of temporal energies dispersed hisgers: "Immortus himself is but another itoms throughout eternity. Only then didmanifestation of both Kang ind Rama- the visage of Immortus reapPear, to pro-Tut here in a nameless Limbo and future claim to Thor and Moondragon, "...Since

ofwhichevenRama-Tutwasunaware."ss the day I took this name, I have workedLater he explained how Rama-Tut be- subtly but unceasingly to bring about ancame !rim: after failing to stop Kang from

,twastinft endless years in conquest, Rama- 40. Moondragon said she was able to contact

Tut be"came despondent. "It^came to him him since she "learned his brain Patterns."

that despite his excellent intentions, his It seems odd that Thor didn't just use his

quest to undo the wrongs he had wrough, hammer's time'travel capacities here'

as Kang only resulted in the conqueror'sstrengthening. Thus, after returning frommy land of Limbo to his Egypt, he devotedhimself entirely to a further understandingof time to become its final master-my-self. "3e

37. It is curious that the Enchantiess and crewdid not meet themselves doubling back ontheir own tracks in time as they did. Per-haps Immortus maneuvered them so theywouldn't, for reasons that will be describedlater in this text.

38. Giant-Size Aaengers #3, p, 39.39. Auengers #f43, p.31.

,l

II

ending to this menace we [he and his coun-terparts] unleashed. Now, Kang no longerexists, and Rama-Tut shall never comeinto being. Neither too shall Immortushave been. The circle is broken. We areall free."ar With that pronouncernent, Im-mortus vanished, leaving Moondragon tobemoan.that there was one less god.

Immortus' last words turned out to beyet another deception,'and it is curiousthat Thor and Moondragon accepted hisclaim to un-being'so readily.rz For onething, they should have realized that theabsence of Immortus and Rama-Tut IIwould have made significant retroactivedifferences in their recent bouts with Kang,differences they could verify through mem-ory that did not exist. For another, thefact that the Avengers fought multipleKangs in his third campaign, and thatthese Kangs were subject to divergent fates(three were captured, one escaped), shouldalso have tipped them off that counter-parts are not bound by their fellows' fates.

It is Thor alone who learned of Immor-tus' survival and mysteries while journey-ing sometime later through Limbo. Again,Immortus' methods were oblique: insteadof simply asking Thor for permission tostudy his hammerb time-raveling proper-ties, he employed the Space Phantom todetain the Asgardian while he conductedhis experimens. By the time Thor trackeddown Immortus, the master of time hadlearned the nature of the hammer's magicenchantment, and Immortus maneuveredThor into voluntarily sacrificing the ham-mer's time-travel capacity. {3

In recompense for Thor's inconvenience,Immortus gave him the most sweepingaccount of his origins yet, speaking of thetransition between Rama-Tut II and him-self:

"In the twilight of my Earthly years, Idecided to thwart death's impending em-brace by sequestering myself in agelessLimbo. Here for eternity, I would furthermy studies of time. I built a wondrouscastle in which to dwell-built with stoneand laborers salvaged from the brokendreams of a former life. Donning my finalregalia, I took two subjects...Tempus, whoI fashioned from the very ether of Limboto guard my domain, and the Space Phan-,tom, who destiny delivered to me..."aa

Immortus also spoke of his cryptic firstmeeting with the Avengers, revealing thatthe purpose of his alliance with the Mas-ters of Evil was to learn what effect Kanghad on their early development. It seemscurious that Immortus would mention this

41. Aoengers #f43, p. 31.42. Apparently Immortus wiped Moondragon's

mind of her knowledge of his brain patterns.43. Thor #281, 282, March-April 1979.44. Thor#282,p.26.

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episode, since it occurred to a divergentThor, not the one he was addressing. Per-haps Immortus intended the anecdote toillustrate his purely clinical interest. In allprobability, Immortus' real purpose inthe Masters of Evil affair was to establishhis credibility as a villain for an observing.Kang, in order to set Kang up for theirlater "alliance."

Immortus continued his account: "Sometime thereafter, I had rny fitsr visitationfrom a trinity of beings spawned at thistime5cycle's end. They claimed to haveculled me from the ranks of time travelersto be tutored in the secrets of time so Imight help them in their custodianshipof the timestream."a5 This trinity of beings,heretofore unglimpsed in the annals, area new factor in the equation of time. Im-mortus revealed that "as their apprentice,I was assigned to oversee the seven millen-nia in which I had lived. My task was tomonitor all time travel therein and to un-tangle the multiplicities I had created informer lives. The Celestial Madonna af-fair was but one of many campaigns I un-dertook to curtail my renegade counter-parts throughout the multiverse. "a6

Immortus' revelation that the CelestialMadonna quest. was not a major turning

45, Ibid., p.27.46. This raises the theoretical question of whe-

fter it is pcsible for Immortus to truly makea difference in the number of waywardcounterparts he has, or if his task of "un-tangling multiplicities" is a quixotic one.If every time Immortus acts to thwart acounterpart, he creates a divergence (oneReality where he succeeded in permanentlycorrecting or eliminating a "bad" self, an-other where he failed), would he be ible toaffect the ratio of "good" to "bad" coun-terparts, or would he be constantly undoneby a reciprocal counterpart coming intoexistence through divergence? If Immor-tus is Omniversally aware (as he seems),does he not know that he cannrit stymie div-ergence, or have the trinity of time-beingsgiven him the secret of "divergence-freeinterference," something not yet describedby the Omniversal Theory?

point in his life, but merely one of many

, police actions he has been involved with,'is ripe with implications. First, it establisheswhy Immortus may have let Kang escapethrough time twice, only to wreak havocanew: Immortus had other irons in the fireat the time, equally important. Second, itindicates that despite one Kang's death,there exist other divergent counterparts

-perhaps even Kangs-who still continueon their unenlightened paths, creatingproblems for Immortus and the Realitiesthey plunder. Whether one of these coun-terparts will find the Reality we know as

Marvel-Earth remains to be seen. Immor-tus explained the reason for his deceptionwhen last Thor saw him was to reassurehim that the immed.iafe threat of Kangwas over.

Immbrtus ended his address with a clari-fication of the relationship of his divergentselves: "The death of one counterpart doesnot affect the lives of the rest of my legionof temporal counterparts one iota.'Thetree of my existence is ever:growing, andonce having been, always is."{7 Immortusis immortal, after all.

CORRELATIONSImmortus spoke of both his ever-growing

legion of temporal counterparts, and thathe has known but five lives. How can thesetwo seemingly contradictory statementsbe reconciled? Given our knowledge ofdivergence, the matter is simple: thoughImmortus is the culmination of five per-sonae, he is not the only possible directiondivergences could take. Any of the fourpersonae rrirho became Immortus couldhave diverged at any'point down the lineto culminate in something other than Im-mortus. We have already seen at least onecounterpart who did not become Immor-tus, whose life reached a dead end-theKang who disintegrated in 1873. Thatparticular Kang diverged at some pointfrom the Kang who would become Rama-Tut II and then Imrnprtus.

In Immortus' metaphor of the tree ofhis existence, only one sequence of bran-ches extends to the very height of the tree.While that sequence of hve main branchesgrows in height, the rest of the tree growsin breadth, despite occasional pruning of

crooked branches. As the highest reach ofthe tree, Immortus has been given chargeof the whole, overseeing its nurture.

Thus, only one specific progression ofpersonae becomes Immortus, but Penionaebranching off at earlier points may atrophyor culminate in other guises.le Immortusstated that he has also taken responsibilityfor those selves he has never been but couldhave become through other permutationsof divergences.

It is now apparent why Rama-Tut IIknew solne of Kang's future, but not all.At some point, his actions or reactionsdiffeied from those he remembered as

having occurred to him as Kang, and thedifference was enough to diverge a Kangthat would not become him. Perhaps oneof the reasons why Imniortus wanted todeal with his counterparts as indirectly aspossible was to prevent the divergencesthat are so likely when counterparts meet.{e

Having established how Immortus may.have an ever-growing legion of counter-parts, let us now examine simply the onesin the progression to Immortus. The Ra-ma -Tut/Scarlet Centurion,/ Kang/Rama -

'47. rbid,48. Some theorists suggest, for example, that

Victor Von D'oom's frequent assotiationwith the Sub-Mariner m"y h"u. Ied him totravel to pre-cataclysmic Atlantis, there toestablish himself a$ the sorcerer ThulsaDoom. This would be a path that does notculminate in Immortus.

49. Again, this is assuming that Immortus isable to. make divergence-free interferencesunder special circumstances.

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Trlt Illlmmortus chain has been docu-mented and corroborated as representingfour of the different personae of Immo.tuslclaim of "five lives." Yet, no persona, noreven Immortus, has di!finitively spoken ofthe missing root persona. The evidencethat it is Victor Von Doom is extensivebut circumstantial, with many facets un-explained.

Victor Von Doom is the,only one of thepersonae whose parentage and childhoodhave been depicted. The only other figrrrewho makes any claim of actual birth isKang, but as Rama-Tut he merely claimsto be "from" the future, not born in it.When Doom and Tut. have their classicfirst confrontation, Tut claimed Doomwas his ancestor, but it was Doom whofirst framed the hypothesis that they couldbe the same man. Tut suggested that Doomcould have traveled to the 25th Centuryto become him; Doom suggested that Tutcould have traveled to rhe 20rh Centuryto'become him. However, since we haveseen Dootn as a child, not Tut, and sincewe are assuming that we are working witha natural chronological progression inwhich no one mysteriously becomes youn-ger, Tut's theory of Doom coming firstseerrrs more plausible. One wishes the twowould have compared childhood mem-ories or lack thereof.

Centuries of origin, if nbt necessarilybirth, provided by the personae of Rama-Tut and Kang differ in various accounrs.In Rama-Tut's firsd encounter with theFaniastic Four, he claims.to come fromthe year 3000 AD (i.e., the Slst Century)

just as Kang told the Avengers in theirfirst encounter. However, Rama-Tutclaimed to Doctor Doom that he was fromthe'25th Century, not rhe 3lsr, the sameploy that Kang told Merlin before his en-counter with the Thing and the Human[orch. It seems almost like a rehearseddeception. Further, the reputedly all-see-ing Watcher reported that the ScarletCenturidn "helplessly continues his jour-ney into the year 4000 fthe 4lst Century]... 'Tis written that he returned to battlethe Avengers once more under his 50th-Century name of Kang the Conqueror."50One wonders where " 'tis written" that abeing based in the 4lst Cenrury is knownunder his 50th Century name. The 50rhCentury may simply be one of the manycenturies that Kang has conquered.

It is Immortus who sheds the most lighton the subject of which century the chainof personae originated in. Speaking of hisfirst appearance to the Avengers, he re-marked that he began his studies of timewith the era in which he originated.5rThough we can conclude thar ir is the 20thCentury in which he originated, that aloneis not proof that Victor Von Doom is thefirst persona.

Let us look at some commonalities thatexist between Doom and the others, to seeif any patterns emerge.

The biggest similarity among the five istheir thirst for power. Each has been rulerof an increasingly greater domain. ForDoom, it was the tiny mountain kingdomof Latveria; for Tut, it was all of ancientEgypt; for the Centurion, it was 20thCentury Earth; for Kang, it was rule overseveral centuries.; and for Immortus, itwas mastery over Limbo. Yet there areother conquerors, others who seek masteryover men, who are not in the progression.

Most of the counterpirts share Doom'spenchant for the trappings of royalty.Kang_and Immortus have castles, similarin architecture to Doom's, as does Rama-Tut's "amazing ancestor." Tut himselfhas the equiva-lent of a castle in his Egyp-tian temple. Immortus'castle, seeming toencompass an entire plAnetoid, was "sal-

50 . Aaengers Annual #2; P. 43.51. Thor#282,p.26.

vaged from the broken dreams of a formerlife,"52 which may simply be a referenceto Kang's castle. However,'the laborerswho constructed Immar1lus' abode look

,.rnore like Doom's servo-boG-than any ofthe automatons of Kang's design.

Doom, Kang, and I*-ort-.rr not onlybuild r6bots ro serve them (lmmortus'servant, Tempus, is conceptually a robot;instead of being built of meral, he wasfashioned.from the ether), they are alsoelaborate games-players. Doom buih arobot called the Prime Mover for the ex-press purpoFe of gaming, and is notoriousfor his manipulation of people like pawns.Kang, too, displayed his bent for games-manship when he took up the challengeo{ the nigh-omnipotent Grandmaster. Im-mortus is perhaps the biggest gamesmanof the three, utilizing elaborate deceptionsand ploys to unwittingly coerce others todo his bidding.

Doctor Doom, rhe Scarlet Centurion,and Kang all possess force fields built intothe circuitry of their arrnor. All three hidetheir faces behind helmets.

Doom and Kang have the greatest num-ber of commonalities. Besides those alreadylisted, both have strikingly sirnilar objetsd amour, Valeria and Ravonna, both havedomains they describe as "posrage stampkingdoms," both have fanatical obsessionswith a single 20th Century superhero team:Doom with the Fantastic Four, Kang withthe Avengers. Kang's seeming confusionin referring to his "20th Century enemiessuch as the Fantastic Four" does not seemquite as misleading in this comparativecontext.

Finally, the similarity that is at the rootof this multiple personae problem: allthree are time-travelers. This, in itself,is not proof of interrelationship. Thereare other known time travelers in the an-frals, the best-known of which are Zarrkothe Tomorrow Man of the 2lst Century;Sise-Neg, the Slst Century sorcerer, and

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Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, whoduplicated Doom's own time machine. Of '

these individuals, not enough is known todefinitely include or exclude them fromcounterpart consideration. Sise-Neg's ori-gins are unknown, but his magical pro-

' clivity is certainly similar to Doom's. Zarrkohas battled Kang on at least one occasionfor supremacy over his own century. ReedRichards' origins are also unknown (wehave yet to learn of his parentage andchildhood), but he does seem to share

'with Doom what Immortus claimed washis "originating era," the 20th Century.Still, Richards' personality orientation andidiosyncracies have so little in commoowith those of the other known counterparts,that there is virtually nothing to substan-tiate him as the first persona from whichthe others sprang.53

We are still left with a puzzle or two- inour conjecture that Victor Von Doom isthe root persona in the progression to Im-mortus. The first of these is, if Doom wearsa mask to conceal some facial disfigure-ment, why doesn't the next peniona, Rama-Tut?

Doom's naked face has not been shownsince the time of his accident decades ago.Although a handful of people have seenf)oom unmasked, none has ventured a realdescription. Despite the original account'sstatement that the explosion left Doom"hideously disfigured," some theorists haveproposed that Doom's face is not as ravagedas he would make it out to be. Rather,Doom is but slightly scarred, and it is hisenorrnous ego that magnifies his imper-fection.5{

Whatever the extent of his ugliness,Doom seems to be moving toward a greateracceptance of his appearance. While therewas a time when he would not allow hisclosest associates to see his face, lately hehas permitted his greatest enemies casuallooks. Whether his face is a mass of scartissue or is only pallid from years beneatha stifling metal mask, Doom seems to belearning to cope with his physical imper-fection. It is no great stretch of the imagi-nation to envision a time when, under the

53. For another thing, Richards does not seemlikely to own a castle which Rama-Tut candiscover his "ancestor's" time machine in.

54. ln Thor #183, Doctor Doom revealed hisface to surgeon Dr. Donald Blake in hopesthat cosmetic surgery might be possible.Gazing at his face, Blake gasped that therewas "nothing medical science can do to helpyou." The ambiguity in this statement ispoin-ted: it could either mean that Dooiir'sface was too deformed to salvage, or thatit is impossible to fix by plastic surgery amind tha.t perceives self-ugliness. ln Fan-tastir Four #199, the clone of Doctor Doom

right circumstances, Doom might be ableto discard the psychological crutch of hismask.55

Even if his deformity is real, it is prob-able that by the time of Rama-Tut, science

will have advanced to the point where anysort of cosmetic repairwoik would be pos-sible. This would also explain why Doomcould remove his mask when assuming a

new identity. However, with the assump-tion of thg 1tri1d;persona, Scarlet Centur-ion, we must pgstulate a new reason forDoom's resumed preference for concealinghis features.

The final question to consider beforethe lifelines of the four personae can beinterwoven with Doom's is, are the fourlater counterpart$aware of the identity ofthe root persona? If so, why have they beenso reluctant to disclose it? Has some unin-vited trick of time robbed them of know-ledge of their true origins, or is their lim'ited comprehension a part of an unseendesign?

kt us suppose that Rama-Tut did knowthat he was Doctor Doom at the time oftheir first meetiig. What motive mightTut have in giving Doom the notion thatthey are mere ancestors, letting hlzl framethe hypothesis that they are closer thanancestors, they are the same being? CouldTut have been leading Doom on to makea self-fulfilling prophesy, or might he ac-

lually have been trying to dissuade Doomfrom trying to become him bymaking himponder his free will in deciding his destiny?Although there were any number of tests

the two could have used to determine theirrelatioruhip (from comparing frngerprinato searching for Tut's first appearance inthe 25th Century), neither Doorn nor Tutseemed curious enough to resolve the mat-ter.

Now let us suppose that Rama-Tut didnot knor / he was Doctor Doom at theirfirst meeting, that he thought he was in-

refers to Doom's face as "battle-scarred"rather than accident-scarred, and that he(the clone) is "not the hideously deformedmockery that you see yourself to be" ratherthan "that you are." In this same chronicle,Doom allows his hated foes, the FantasticFour, to see his visage as his sculpture is

being chiseled. Although the Thing tauntsDoom with unflattering comparisons oftheir appearances, the Thing has also in-sulted any number of the FF's foes on simi-lar grounds. More telling is that none ofthe Fantastic Four seems taken aback oreven surprised upon finally getting to see

Doom's long-rnasked face.55. One theorist has suggested th4t Doom's

scar is a single gouge along his chin, forthat is thc one place that all five counter'parts keep concealed either by mask or,fa.,cial hair.

deed Doom's ancestor. How might he havelost the knowledge of his former identity?Time travel in itself does not play memorytricks on the qaveler, but "rough landings,"as it were, could always be concussiveenough to cause selective amnesia. Butsince we arb dealing with an identity con-firsion that prwailed over decades of chron-ological life, accidental amnesia seemsi4probable. SeH-hypnosis $eerns a bit moreplausible, although a motive for eradicat-ing knowledge of his past life would haveto be found. Perhaps the least contrivedexplanation would be that one persona ismanipulating the memories (if not thelives) of his other selves. The likely can-didate for this, of course, would be Im-mortus, the most advanced persona of thechain. Perhaps Immortus has beenmani-pulating his counterparisi memories inkeeping with his mentors' directive to un-tangle the multiplicities he created in for-mer lives. 01, perhaps Immortus' ends arenot as noble as he would have us believe.What if his real reason to obfuscate thelives of his legion of counterparts is to en-sure that none of them advances to hislevel of enlightenment, so that he remainssole master of time? Only one of Doom'slegion ofcounterparts who diverged throughtime travel need become Immortus, afterall.

Any of these scenarios will account forthe haziness of the transition between ther:oot and later personae. Only time willtellwhichone, if any, isvalid.

The progression of personae from thepeasant Victor Von Doom to the'masterof tirrie Immortus is a journey towards self-mastery and enlightenment. Is this processa random occurrence, or is it guided bysome unseen hand? In a multiverse of ac-tualized probabilities, virtually every per-mutation of character could reach fruition,given the divergence-potential of a timemachine. But what then of the "trinity ofbeings spawned at this time-cycle's end"that Immortus speaks of, those shadowyfigures who "culled him from the ranks oftime travelers to help them in their cus-todianship of the.timestream"? Could tbeyhave picked the man who would be Imrnc-tus at birth and groomed him over theyears to be precisely the man for the tasl?

The skein of probabilities surroundingVictor Von Doom and his projected selveris among the most fascinating and pervasivein the Marvel Multiverse. Spanning ouseven millennia, the possibility for char-acter evolution is endless. Perhaps whenmore is known, it shall be sa.id that VictqVon Dooni is not only the most fascinatiryindividual of the 20th Century's Supcr-heroic Age, he is also the all-time ch:rn-pion of self-realization. t

20

the journo I f ict ionol reolityof.?.

a,^-,^-.'rlfu Da/-tts ^D

T\rlftll/f I

EditorMARKGRUENWALD

Associate EditorDEAN MULLANEY

TypographerGEORGE OLSHEVSKY

Design / ProductionMARKGRUENWALD

DEAN MULLANEY

StaffDENNIS JENSENBELINDA GLASSJOHNWILBURN

WritersMELONEYM. CRAWFORD

GENE ENTWENDERPETER B. GILLIS

MARKGRUENWALDWALTERHELLSTROM

FRANK S. LOVECERICH MORRISSEYDEAN MULLANEYKIMTHOMPSONEDWARD B. VIA

Artists'MARKALEXANDf,R

CRAIG ANDERSONRICH BRUNING

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(DC Comics, Inc.)ROGERSTERN

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Cover LogoPETE POPLASKI

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Editorial: OF OMNIVERSAL CONCERN.....THE SOURCE OF SUPERMAN'S POWER. . . .

ArtWHO NEEDS COMICS WHEN THERE ARE

SUPERHEROES IN REAL LIFE?.

e.i uyf arrarc. PEATT.|.v TfNI.S

Case Studies: SCIENCE FICTION.. . . . .

FROM RAGNAROK TO APOKOLIPS.

Reality Spotlight: AVENGERS. . . . . . .. .

THE.LIVES AND TIMES OF DOCTOR DOOMFrank Lovece

Walt HellstromArt by Bill Neville

Sam dela Rosa

Gene EntwenderArt by Craig Anderson

Mark Gruenwald

Dean MullaneyArt by Rich Bruning

THE CASE OF THE DIVERGENT DETECTIVE. .

Melor\eY M. CrawfordArt by William Poplaski

f'-"- Sr"li-". f.fr'tuffflS

L2

2l

25

3l

38

42

RESURRECTION IN THE DC MULT'''0"*'"I]T,::::::::Edward B. Via

Art by DennisJensenCover: O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?. . . . .

Jerry Ordway

48

52

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