(Science Comics 003, 1940)
Flashback to my times in the Fiction House content-recycling mines of Planet Comics! What we have here is a Dr Doom story nestled snugly into an issue of Science Comics just where Dr Doom stories always go, but it's not the right Dr Doom! Was this a story about a different science villain that was renamed to fit the space, or did "Richard Crater" (Dick Briefer, possibly) just kind of freestyle a fill-in gig and go wildly off-model? Who can say?
What I can say is that this Dr Doom is a villain both more entertaining and more ambitious than our regularly scheduled one. Instead of tormenting a handful of people for his own entertainment, this Dr Doom is blowing up buildings as part of a campaign of terror designed to put him in charge of the world, and he shows off some fantastic bombast while expositing all of this. "Fools! Fools! Fools!"
Of course this sort of thing can not allowed to go on, and since this Dr Doom is very much not a future-man, J Edgar Hoover sends the rough and tumble Bob Steele to take care of him.
Bob doesn't have much trouble making his way to Dr Doom's lair - he merely hops out of his plane and into the remotely-piloted one that Doom uses as a relay for his destructive ray, and after that it's just a matter of waiting to be flown back to a mountain full of costumed goons and then beating all of those goons up. Simple stuff.
Bob and Dr Doom provide an object lesson on the limits of bombast as a tool in everyday life, as it proves ineffective in convincing Bob not to punch Dooms lights out and smash up his laboratory. So long Dr Doom, it's neat that there are two of you (and more to come).
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