I want to not like Mark Millar. I want him to be the Rob Liefield of the current supermodern age—the mainstream guy who’s only liked by all the guys who only like mainstream guys, the guy I can dismiss (with a proud upward thrust of my indie-loving nose) as merely a writer of pseudo fan fiction. I want to point out that the plot to this issue is stolen from Moore’s “The Man Who Has Everything,” and the ending, where our snickering villains leave Dr. Doom in an unescabable trap rather than just kill him, is perhaps the oldest and dumbest of comic clichés. I want to be better than this issue. But then I think of Dr. Doom seeking revenge, of having his Wolverine-underneath-the-Hellfire-Club moment, and I just get giddy. I start to anticipate the sheer joy at witnessing what Doom will be willing to do to find and tear down the men who tortured them. I’m reminded of how in Secret Wars I, Doom looks at the Beyonder, basically at God, at says “that power should be mine”. I want to hate Mark Millar for preying on such base and surface emotions, for not being a more profound and challenging writer. And I want to buy the damn next issue.