When we last saw Madame Doom, she had been bested at the game of espionage by the Black X and was fleeing the US for friendlier shores at the end of Smash Comics 004.
Madame Doom returns with a fresh new attitude for 1940 in Smash Comics 008, as now she is not just working for an analog of the Axis powers but explicitly for the Nazis. It's a lateral move at best but an important one nonetheless. She only actually appears for a page or so and acts as an obstacle to Black X's escape from Germany rather than a full-fledged villain, and is then left in his dust as he takes off into France.
In Smash Comics 012, Black X accompanies US Ambassador Blank to Paris as part of an attempt to initiate peace talks in Europe. Madame Doom is there too, attempting to disrupt the process by manipulating the Hunchback of Notre Dame into assassinating Blank. It's not explicit that she is still working for the Nazis on this, but c'mon.
This issue also marks the zenith of Madame Doom's investment in the will they/won't they relationship with Black X, but her plea to him to run away with her is an interrupted first by the Hunchback and then by the French authorities and so it is not to be.
Madame Doom returns in Smash Comics 014 with some snappy new henchmen, the Legion of Living Bombs, who have: a. very cool costumes (that they don't actually wear while they're outside of the house), b. a very cool name (as long as you don't think too hard about it in any context other than aesthetic).
More importantly, this story features the zenith of Black X's investment in the relationship between himself and Madame Doom, to the extent that he resigns from the Espionage for her.
This proves to be what's known as a Bad Decision, as Black X soon learns that while Madame Doom is not working for the Nazis this time around (that's good), that is because she has teamed up with a fellow named Count Mirov in a bid to conquer South America (that's bad), and that to that end she is dosing her fanatical minions with a fluid that eventually causes them to explode and sending them out to disrupt the Pan-American diplomatic talks (that's even worse). If there's a positive to this dastardly plot, it's that it seems to kill the romantic tension between the two once and for all.
(Madame Doom's height, hair colour and general appearance are fairly mutable during these appearances, as is not unusual for reoccurring female villains. I mention that here because in order to say that her height had fluctuated I felt compelled to comb through this issue like a foot pervert to see if she was wearing anachronistic 90s stiletto heels, but as you can see above she is not)
After some hijinks involving Black X's aide Batu stealing back his letter of resignation so that his boss can get back on the case, Black X returns to Madame Doom's underground HQ and proceeds to beat ass, and the ease with which he does so to an entire roomful of guys might just be another indictment of selecting your minions for their willingness to die over any other useful quality.
Defeated, Madame Doom decides to take what I would call "the cool way out" and guzzles some of her own explosive brew rather than be captured. It's a heck of a way to leave a final impression.
SPOILER: Madame Doom will return!
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