Loki: Agent of Asgard #6
The first of two good Doomy appearances this week!
As seen in the preview, the issue opens with Doom taking a hop into the far future and finding Old Loki hangin' out at the end of all things, in the ruins of what used to be Latveria. Old Loki claims the devastation is his doing, and unleashes a swarm of beetles on Doom, who calls on Valeria to transport him back to his own time.
Valeria shifts him back and asks if he's okay, saying that he sounded scared. He says, "You're hearing things, child. Doom is never afraid." She asks why he hopped so far into the future: he says to make sure the good works they've been doing are not in vain, and having seen how things are going to turn out, has concluded he needs to destroy Loki.
Young Loki has just had a visit from his maybe-sorta friend Verity, and is trying to explain why he left her in the dark about a previous scheme, when he smells ozone and realises something's up. He hands her something that looks like a pendant just before he's transported to Doom's palace, where Doom says it's time they talked.
Loki being a god and therefore difficult to destroy, Doom's tactic is to establish superiority on a symbolic level, by besting him in a war of wits. Doom's theory is that gods are creatures of story, and true magic is imposing your own narrative on reality. He talks about how his Doombots give him the power to control his own narrative, sowing confusion over whether any incident of defeat or dishonour was really the real him.
(In passing, Ewing also casually retcons this previous retcon. In brief, John Byrne retconned out a story where Doom worked with Arcade as having been a Doombot, because he didn't believe Doom would have stood for being disrespected the way he did. Ewing has re-retconned it to be real Doom deliberately putting up with the disrespect just to sow confusion over whether it was truly him. This is actually awesome, because that story was the one that kinda launched Doom/Storm as a thing, and now their interactions are officially back in continuity! Woot. Points for that, Mr Ewing.)
Doom insists that he's more than the flesh and blood body he can swap out of at will or the mind he's copied to his robots: he's a story himself, a self-made legend. Loki argues that Doom's no god, he's a mortal whose story will eventually end - and Doom counters that if his story has a potential end, that makes it a better story than Loki's. He traps Loki in a cube that freezes him in time and space, pausing his narrative. (But what Doom doesn't yet know is that the pendant Loki gave his friend Verity apparently rendered her invisible, and she's in the room with them...)
I really liked this! I know Al Ewing's writing of old from his work on 2000AD - he's probably the second best writer on Judge Dredd after the legend that is John Wagner, meaning shades of grey morality and fascist characters who believe their way is righteous are absolutely his jam - so I had high hopes, and wasn't disappointed. I find all the philosophical stuff about narrative as a form of magic and Doom's ability to give himself symbolic power by controlling and building his own story really fascinating. (There's also a second plot thread running through the issue about a conflict between two Latverians that manages to be more complex than "anti-Doom guy good, pro-Doom guy bad", since anti-Doom guy makes good arguments but also reveals himself as something of a religious bigot.)
I was briefly thrown by the art since I assumed Lee Garbett (who I love) would be doing the interiors like the earlier issues, but it turns out I dig Jorge Coelho's art too. His faces are very expressive, especially some of Loki's expressions, and he does a pretty good take on the Doom mask. I really love the subtle colouring job from Lee Loughridge as well, with its shifting colour palettes for each different setting. Very nice!
All in all, definitely quality stuff. (And dare I hope it's also a good intro to Doom for movieverse fans new to the comics who are following this title for Loki?) Very much looking forward to the next issue.
As seen in the preview, the issue opens with Doom taking a hop into the far future and finding Old Loki hangin' out at the end of all things, in the ruins of what used to be Latveria. Old Loki claims the devastation is his doing, and unleashes a swarm of beetles on Doom, who calls on Valeria to transport him back to his own time.
Valeria shifts him back and asks if he's okay, saying that he sounded scared. He says, "You're hearing things, child. Doom is never afraid." She asks why he hopped so far into the future: he says to make sure the good works they've been doing are not in vain, and having seen how things are going to turn out, has concluded he needs to destroy Loki.
Young Loki has just had a visit from his maybe-sorta friend Verity, and is trying to explain why he left her in the dark about a previous scheme, when he smells ozone and realises something's up. He hands her something that looks like a pendant just before he's transported to Doom's palace, where Doom says it's time they talked.
Loki being a god and therefore difficult to destroy, Doom's tactic is to establish superiority on a symbolic level, by besting him in a war of wits. Doom's theory is that gods are creatures of story, and true magic is imposing your own narrative on reality. He talks about how his Doombots give him the power to control his own narrative, sowing confusion over whether any incident of defeat or dishonour was really the real him.
(In passing, Ewing also casually retcons this previous retcon. In brief, John Byrne retconned out a story where Doom worked with Arcade as having been a Doombot, because he didn't believe Doom would have stood for being disrespected the way he did. Ewing has re-retconned it to be real Doom deliberately putting up with the disrespect just to sow confusion over whether it was truly him. This is actually awesome, because that story was the one that kinda launched Doom/Storm as a thing, and now their interactions are officially back in continuity! Woot. Points for that, Mr Ewing.)
Doom insists that he's more than the flesh and blood body he can swap out of at will or the mind he's copied to his robots: he's a story himself, a self-made legend. Loki argues that Doom's no god, he's a mortal whose story will eventually end - and Doom counters that if his story has a potential end, that makes it a better story than Loki's. He traps Loki in a cube that freezes him in time and space, pausing his narrative. (But what Doom doesn't yet know is that the pendant Loki gave his friend Verity apparently rendered her invisible, and she's in the room with them...)
I really liked this! I know Al Ewing's writing of old from his work on 2000AD - he's probably the second best writer on Judge Dredd after the legend that is John Wagner, meaning shades of grey morality and fascist characters who believe their way is righteous are absolutely his jam - so I had high hopes, and wasn't disappointed. I find all the philosophical stuff about narrative as a form of magic and Doom's ability to give himself symbolic power by controlling and building his own story really fascinating. (There's also a second plot thread running through the issue about a conflict between two Latverians that manages to be more complex than "anti-Doom guy good, pro-Doom guy bad", since anti-Doom guy makes good arguments but also reveals himself as something of a religious bigot.)
I was briefly thrown by the art since I assumed Lee Garbett (who I love) would be doing the interiors like the earlier issues, but it turns out I dig Jorge Coelho's art too. His faces are very expressive, especially some of Loki's expressions, and he does a pretty good take on the Doom mask. I really love the subtle colouring job from Lee Loughridge as well, with its shifting colour palettes for each different setting. Very nice!
All in all, definitely quality stuff. (And dare I hope it's also a good intro to Doom for movieverse fans new to the comics who are following this title for Loki?) Very much looking forward to the next issue.