Mighty Avengers #9
Doctor (Victor Von) Doom has spent the past 3 days in the days of King Arthur spending time with Morgan le Fay in the Valley of Wailing Mists. However, the time has come for him to return to his own time. Morgan demands that Victor bring her a gift next time. He refuses because of the impact it may have on the time stream and threatens to alter the history of this meeting in his favor if she presses on the issue. She retorts by threatening to curse him to make his ending days miserable. Unphased by this, Doom activates his Time Platform and returns to the present day.[1]
When he appears in Castle Doom the red alert is sounding. Doom demands to know what’s going on and learns that, in his absence, the Venom Bomb satellite was compromised and launched an attack on New York City. Worse the Avengers were able to trace it back to them and are now coming with a full SHIELD invasion force.
In fact the Mighty Avengers — Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers), Iron Man (Tony Stark), the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Wonder Man (Simon Williams), Black Widow (Natasha Romanov), the Sentry (Bob Reynolds), Ares, and Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)[2] — and the SHIELD helicarrier are right on his doorstep. Ares has come up with a plan that involves crashing their Quinjet at Castle Doom’s gates, and Doom responds by deploying an army of Doombots to defend him.
While the rest of the Avengers are busy dealing with this defense, Iron Man fights his way into the castle and confronts Doom and orders him to surrender. Victor, however, refuses to acknowledge Tony’s authority as Director of SHIELD.[3] The two lock hands and pit the defensive capabilities of their armors against one another. However, Doom ends up being more powerful of the two as he can also use magic on top of his technological weapons. Seeing the flare of mystic energies from outside, Ms. Marvel orders the Sentry to go into the castle and help Tony out. While the Sentry is able to fend off Doom’s magical attacks, he ends up knocking all three of them into the Time Platform. This wrecks the machine as well as pitches all three men into the timestream. When the rest of the Avengers arrive they realize that they will have no idea where Tony, Doom, and the Sentry went until they get it fixed.
When Iron Man comes out the other side of the Time Platform, he has just enough time to notice that he has been transported to New York City a few years into the past.[4] He only has enough time to make sense of his surroundings before Doom ambushes him from behind!
Recurring Characters
Mighty Avengers (Ms. Marvel, Iron Man, Wasp, Wonder Man, Black Widow, Sentry, Ares, “Spider-Woman”), Doctor Doom, Doombots, Maria Hill (voice only), Morgan le Fay
Continuity Notes
This encounter will anger Morgan le Fay enough that she will attack him soon after a seen in Dark Avengers #1-4.
This is not the real Jessica Drew but another Skrull infiltrator named Veranke. She took the place of the real Spider-Woman circa Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1 as seen in New Avengers #42.
Tony was appointed SHIELD’s new Director in New Avengers #25. He will hold this title until Secret Invasion #8.
Given the esthetics and context clues used here, Tony and Doom have been transported back to the era of Marvel books that were published in the 1970s. Per the Marvel Chronology Project, this incident occurs prior to the events of Fantastic Four #151.
Topical References
Tony Stark laments that a Quinjet costs him $250 million dollars. This price tag should be considered a topical reference as it reflects how much it would have cost in 2008 when this comic was published. For example, adjusting for inflation a Quinjet would cost $364 million in 2024.
When Doom and Iron Man end up in the past, this sequence is depicted as though it was printed in the old 4-colour process that was used to print comic books in the 1970s. New York (and specifically Times Square) is depicted as it would have appeared at that time. There are advertisements for Timex watches, Camel cigarettes, Pam AM airlines, the AMC Pacer, and a theater is advertising the 1976 film Rocky on its marquee. These are all presented to give readers context as to what publication date they have gone back to, signifying that they have arrived in the era of comics that were published in the late 1970s. These references should be considered topical due to the Sliding Timescale and are presented as a real world reference point for readers as opposed to any specific era in universe.
