Marvel Super-Heroes - The Demon And Doom!

Doctor Doom was a villain who got above his station, demanding and actually getting the treatment usually reserved for respected heroes. Doom, a complex character intricately linked into the saga of the Fantastic Four time and again, but always failed to finish them off. And despite being thought dead himself, always managed to survive and turn up to threaten the world all over again. A master of science in Marvel Super-Heroes #20 we encounter Doom's supernatural roots by way of his Romany ancestry.

This comic produced by Stan Lee's stalwart brother Larry Lieber with help from Roy Thomas and Frank Giacoia and inker Vinny Colletta features Doc Doom facing off against another Fab 4 enemy -- Diablo. The deadly alchemist from days gone by seeks Doom's assistance in taking control of Earth's satellites giving the deadly duo power over all of the planet. To woo Doom's help Diablo presents him with a lovely woman from Doom's past named Valeria. But in the end Doom defeats Diablo and loses Valeria too when she rejects him for becoming the villain he is.

This is the finale of Marvel Super-Heroes brief one year (or thereabouts) run as a "showcase" for Marvel. Despite the promise of a story about an intriguing hero called "Starhawk" by Dan Adkins, he'd have to wait for Marvel's prozine Marvelmania Magazine to get published some years later.

The next issue of Marvel Super-Heroes would be all reprint, and awesome reprints too, in what I've always considered one of Marvel's single finest individual issues.

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