Now that you are powerless -- you shall be treated the same as all my beloved subjects -- you will obey every order -- and be punished for every infraction – for the rest of your natural lives! 
Appearing in "Within This Tortured Land"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- ⏴ Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom) ⏵
- Doom's Servo-Guards
- Invincible Robots (First appearance)
- ⏴ Gustav Hauptmann ⏵ (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- Unnamed agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. disguised as a painter
- Citizens of Latveria
- Aunt Petunia (Mentioned)
- Fuehrer (Mentioned)
- Red Skull (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
Items:
- Fantastic Four Uniforms
- Doctor Doom's Armor
- Hypno-Persuader (First appearance)
Vehicles:
- Doom's armored vehicle
Synopsis for "Within This Tortured Land"
Unable to leave Latveria, the Fantastic Four find themselves unwilling guests of Latverian hospitality. However, after Doom has to deal with two dissident citizens who try to catch Doom off guard, he orders the slaughter of the entire village by Servo-Guards as punishment. In order to insure that the Fantastic Four do not attempt to stop this slaughter, he has them drugged, and, while they are unconscious, they are mentally conditioned to believe that they have lost their powers. They are also conditioned into abhorring violence of any kind. While Doom has a portrait painted of himself, he orders the robots to storm the city and kill everyone in it, including the Fantastic Four.
Back in the States, Sue goes house hunting for a home in which to raise her baby. She rejects her first choice, because it is located in a busy neighborhood where the residents stand a chance of being hurt in a super-powered fight between the FF and its enemies. Her real estate agent takes her to a house of mysterious origins located outside of town that their company has been struggling to sell.
Notes
Continuity Notes[]
- As revealed in Fantastic Four #87, Gustav Hauptmann is a Nazi war criminal who worked for Adolf Hitler during World War II. The narrative of the story places the war as having ended 24 years prior per the date of publication. Per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616, the amount of time between this story and the end of World War II is considered topical and relative to the Modern Age.[1] The implication of the Sliding Timescale here is that there is as the Timescale slides forward it will become more and more improbable that Hauptmann could still be alive after fleeing Nazi Germany after the war without some kind of means of increased longevity or was pulled forward in time. Given the amount of Wartime characters who either have slowed or non-existent aging or have been pulled forward in time to the modern age, this is certainly not out of the realm of possibility. However, as of this writing, there is no official explanation and is a matter of interpretation. One could assume he prolonged his life somehow or that Gustav is a Neo-Nazi who has family ties to the Nazis of World War II.
- Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four reveals Hauptmann's first name.
- Sue Richards is on a leave of absence from the Fantastic Four following the birth of her son in Fantastic Four Annual #6. It is revealed in Fantastic Four #88 that the bizarre home that she is looking at was built by the Mole Man in another bid for conquest of the surface world.
- Doctor Doom's face is obscured by a mirror in this story because it was horribly burned as revealed in Fantastic Four #278. Doom's face is frequently obscured in early tales likely due to restrictions placed by the Comics Code Authority that enforced censorship of certain content in comic books at the time. However this became a regular trope of the Fantastic Four comics even after the Code became more lax and was ultimately abolished.
Publication Notes[]
- This comic is reprinted in Marvel's Greatest Comics Vol 1 67.
See Also
Links and References
References
- ↑ This story was published in 1969, based on the Sliding Timescale rules, four years of publications equates to 1 year of Marvel time. As such, this story occurred during "Year Two" of the Modern Age of Heroes.