Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: dr. doom, Silver Age, sub-mariner

Dr. Doom and Sub-Mariner Team Up in Fantastic Four #6, Up for Auction

Crossovers, major character team-ups and continuity are a near-inevitability in periodical storytelling.  It took place in dime novels and nickel weeklies, in pulps and it certainly did in Golden Age Marvel and other comics of that period.  Marvel launched its Silver Age superheroes with a new version of a Golden Age star in the Human Torch in Fantastic Four #1, brought back his actual Golden Age frenemy the Sub-Mariner three issues later, and teamed him up with their new star villain Doctor Doom for a Jack Kirby and Stan Lee epic in Fantastic Four #6. It is from such beginnings that the Marvel Universe as we know it today really began to take form.  A key early moment in the formation of that universe which continues to echo to this day, there's a high-grade copy of Fantastic Four #6 (Marvel, 1962) CGC FN+ 6.5 Off-white pages available in the 2022 January 9-10 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122202 from Heritage Auctions.

After tracking down the Sub-Mariner in this issue, Dr. Doom wasted no time in reminding him why he hated mankind:  after the Human Torch revived his memories in Fantastic Four #4, he returned to Atlantis to find it destroyed by H-Bomb tests, with no trace of his people left behind.  This plot device was used in regards to undersea kingdoms a number of times in Marvel and DC Comics in the 1950s and early 1960s.

In a stand-out 1952 story in Venus #18 by Sub-Mariner creator Bill Everett, Venus has to contend with Neptunia, daughter of Neptune. As Neptunia explains in dialog, she is laying waste to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States in vengeance for the death of her father: "Was it love that killed my father, King Neptune?  No! It was your evil, stupid humans with their underwater atomic blasts at Bikini and Eniwetok!  They killed him, and I'll kill–"

The reference there to both the Bikini Atoll and the Eniwetok Atoll is a fascinating artifact of the times of this early 1950s era during which this comic book was created and published, and this particular cultural influence would have long-lasting impact in comics.  Of course, Bikini Atoll was famously a U.S. Nuclear test site where 23 nuclear devices were detonated 1946 to 1958 — and it was referenced in comics about eight weeks after the first test in Action Comics #101.  An additional forty-three nuclear tests were conducted on nearby Enewetak Atoll during the same period.  Notably, Enewetak Atoll was making national headlines around the time Venus #18 was being created as the U.S. was ramping up its activities there.  Those newspaper journalists didn't know it at the time, but Enewetak would be the site of the first Hydrogen Bomb detonation later in 1952.

Underwater testing would continue at Enewetak long enough to inspire comics of the Silver Age, notably in 1958 as part of Operation Hardtack, early that year.  In 1959, this testing inspired the backstory of Aquaman's Silver Age reboot in Adventure Comics #260.  At the outset of the story, it is revealed that Aquaman is attempting to stop the U.S. Navy from conducting underwater atomic tests in a certain area of the ocean.  Such testing would have been in the news around the time that this story was being created. To prevent the atomic tests, Aquaman revealed his origin to the Navy commander in charge — including the secret that the lost city of Atlantis was at the bottom of the ocean directly below the prospective test site.

This backstory of Aquaman's Silver Age reboot provides us with a fascinating connection to The Sub-Mariner's Silver Age reboot three years later in Fantastic Four #4.  The Sub-Mariner was too late to prevent such atomic testing from destroying his Atlantis, turning him against mankind and the Fantastic Four — and inspiring his team-up with Dr. Doom in Fantastic Four #6.  An early issue of Silver Age Marvel's foundational title, there's a high-grade copy of Fantastic Four #6 (Marvel, 1962) CGC FN+ 6.5 Off-white pages available in the 2022 January 9-10 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122202 from Heritage Auctions.

Fantastic Four #6 (Marvel, 1962) CGC FN+ 6.5 Off-white pages. Sub-Mariner and Dr. Doom are featured in the first Marvel super-villain team-up. Second Silver Age appearance of the Sub-Mariner, and the second appearance of Dr. Doom. Jack Kirby cover and art. Overstreet 2021 FN 6.0 value = $723; VF 8.0 value = $1,988. CGC census 1/22: 69 in 6.5, 213 higher.

View the certification for CGC Certification ID 1975530001 and purchase grader's notes if available.

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