Fantastic Four Annual #2

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The table includes 9 guide observations and 0 catalog references. These are reference values, not guaranteed sale proceeds.

Graded population

CGC records 1,657 graded copies for Fantastic Four Annual #2 (1964). Population is the number recorded by this grading source, not the total print run or all surviving copies.

Origin of Doctor Doom!

Doctor Doom is met by his minion Boris on the eve of his mother's death. Doom ventures out to the field where his life began and reflects back...

As a young boy, Victor von Doom's father --a gypsy healer-- is asked by the King's men to heal the King's wife. Werner von Doom tries his best but fails, and when the King's wife dies of her illness, he sends his troops to get Werner. Werner and his son Victor flee into the mountains, where the father wraps the boy in his own coat while they hide in the snow and ice. They are found by the rest of their clan and taken back to the village. Before he dies from exposure, Werner asks Boris to look after his son. Boris interprets this to mean to watch out for the boy, not look after him. Furious at the death of both his father and mother at the hands of the King, Victor digs up his mother's old chest, filled with mystical potions and books.

Doom soon becomes a master of science and sorcery, using both skills to protect his people and swindle the wealthy. He avoids execution by allowing the King's guard to capture robot duplicates of himself. Eventually, Victor's technological know-how attracts the administrators at State University, who offer him a full scholarship in America. Victor agrees, and while attending State University, he almost ends up sharing a room with Reed Richards. However Doom's arrogance and demands for private quarters prompts Richards to leave. This snubbing leads to Richards rooming with Ben Grimm. Victor becomes determined to contact the netherworld and one day, Reed enters Victor's room unannounced and looks over Victor's notes for the device that would allow Victor to achieve his goals. Victor catches him and instantly becomes angry, kicking Reed out and ignoring the warnings that some of his calculations are off.

When his device is complete, Victor has his assistant activate it, but the miscalculations cause the device to explode in his face. Scarred, Victor bandages his face and is ejected from school in disgrace for his unauthorized experiment. Victor travels the mountains of Tibet, where he finds an order of monks who teach him about magic. Later, Doom has them fashion him a suit of armor. Impatiently, Doom places the iron mask on his face before it has time to cool. Doom then leaves the monks and eventually takes over his homeland, where he becomes the arch-nemesis to the Fantastic Four.

... With his recollections over, Doctor Doom returns to his castle, leaving Boris to wonder when Doom will menace the human race once again.

While the FF deal with some troubles with the Fantasticar, Dr. Doom is rescued from deep space by the time-traveling Rama-Tut. Conversing, they somehow illogically theorize that Rama-Tut is perhaps a future version of Dr. Doom. Inspired all the same, Rama-Tut returns Doom to Earth while the ersatz pharaoh resumes his wanderings.

Back on Earth, Doom reaches the Latverian embassy and begins formulating a trap. With the FF unaware that Doom is really the ruler of Latveria, he invites them to a party, putting a drug in their drinks to make them see illusions. He tricks each of them into thinking they're being attacked by the others, before they eventually realize his machinations.

Regrouping, the team battles at their headquarters. Reed offers Doom a chance to destroy him, providing Victor can use a mentally-powered weapon against Richards before Reed can do likewise. As the contest begins, Reed offers Doom one last drink. Engaging the device, Doom believes he destroys Richards and departs the Baxter Building triumphantly. However, Reed has given Doom a taste of his own medicine, by drugging him with his own hallucinogen.

Creative credits

Writers: Stan Lee

Interior art: Jack Kirby

Color: Uncredited

Cover art: Jack Kirby, Sol Brodsky, Stan Goldberg, Artie Simek

Source records & attribution

Panel Profits keeps each source identity attached to its edition record.

GCD: 18070

PANEL PROFITS: 2409619