One World Under Doom #3: It’s Getting Predictable

Marvel’s current big event isn’t shy when it comes to real world parallels and thinly veiled commentary. This mostly worked in One World Under Doom’s first two issues as North was able to find a balance, however tenuous at times, between story and criticism. Unfortunately the strain becomes too much in One World Under Doom #3, and the series experiences its first major stumble.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the Avengers remain convinced that Doom has brainwashed or replaced all the world’s leaders in order to seize power. Hoping to confirm their theory, the Avengers team up with a group of villains in One World Under Doom #3. Their goal is to once more attack Doom directly. This time they seek to distract Doom while their mystics and telepaths find proof of his manipulation. But will this latest attack on Doom fare any better than the ones that preceded it?

One World Under Doom #3 offers nothing new. If the heroes’ plan is again doomed to fail, most readers will see why long before it happens. This predictability is a recurring theme at this point and a tiresome one at that. Perhaps this endless loop of obvious futility will play into a future resolution to the larger event. But for now it has turned into little more than filler, an excuse to shoehorn fight sequences into the political and philosophical story that North seems far more interested in telling. This is an ongoing source of tension for One World Under Doom. Walls of text that explore the political science and sociology of the story won’t play well in a visual medium that, in the case of Marvel superhero comics, relies on action. And yet that would likely prove far more interesting.

Tension can also be found in North’s continued effort to balance real world political critique with a story that requires Doom be presented in a positive light. With each issue this gets more difficult. Indeed, One World Under Doom #3 doesn’t even try to wage this conflict of ideas. That’s probably for the best. Wherever North is ultimately going with the story, the heroes’ parroting of the United States’ current political discourse in the face of Doom’s apparently successful and benevolent actions is a debate that currently makes no sense.

It’s unfortunate that One World Under Doom #3’s most compelling idea, Doom’s apparent simultaneous real-time negotiations with world leaders, is one that the issue speeds past almost without comment. North definitely has a viewpoint here when he lists some of the things world leaders demanded in exchange for their support: money, security, health, time, sex, and revenge. Given that Doom is an utterly ineffective stand-in for the real world figure North is criticizing, this backstory is one worth telling. But that doesn’t happen.

The fight sequence in One World Under Doom #3 may serve little real purpose, but it is nonetheless very well executed. Silva’s fine lines let him bring a high level of detail even when dealing with multiple characters in relatively small panels. In such cases shading is minimal, adding a couple extra lines here and there to accentuate necessary features.

Larger spreads or close-ups on single characters showcase this attention to detail even more. Silva’s lines are still very fine, so even when the linework is more liberal on things such as characters’ faces or costumes, the art doesn’t seem crowded or overbearing. This also proves effective during action sequences. All of the characters, heroes and villains alike, look like approachable people. The only character whose alignment is suggested via art is Doom. And this, again, is the result of very fine work. Silva largely eschews excessively dark shading.

Curiel’s overall palette in One World Under Doom has leaned toward vivid, though not excessively so in most cases. Color doesn’t usually take over. The fight sequence in One World Under Doom #3, like previous action sequences, is an exception. Various powers and energies are depicted in different colors. Fire takes over in some panels. And the green of Doom’s powers is the overriding color in the fight. Curiel layers in a variety of hues for all of these, creating considerable depth in the images.

Several sections of One World Under Doom #3 are heavy with text, particularly the opening pages where the heroes reveal their latest plan. Lanham keeps it well organized for the most part. In many cases he pushes as much dialogue as possible right up to a panel’s border, sometimes overlapping them when speeches or dialogue exchanges carry on from one panel to another. Even when text threatens to overtake a page, Lanham is able to keep it all relatively fluid.