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For tying in Doom, I never liked the whole “They met in college” thing. It seems too coincidental. The Ultimate version of them meeting in a “think-tank” type environment was more believable.
If I were to do it completely from scratch I would make Doom and Reed meet through MySpace. Reed would have just posted a long blog explanation about the Negative Zone and Doom would have found it while doing a google search. After having his interest perked, Doom would send a friend request to Reed. Reed, being the kind of guy who only accepts friend requests from people he knows doesn’t accept it and thus the Doom is offended and vows to seek revenge.
Ok fine if I were to really do it… I would do the government ‘think-tank” thing.

That Captain America cover reminds me of one thing: Flash of Two Worlds (http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/comics/flash123.jpg)

I think Reed would have registered a domain that Doom wanted. “From this day forth, you and I are ENEMIES!”

doom could be a latverian benefactor of reed’s scientific exploits who, for his birthday, wishes to embark upon the fateful fantastic voyage which monsterises him

I wouldn’t tie them together at all. It’s a big world – why should there be a connection?

“If I were to do it completely from scratch I would make Doom and Reed meet through MySpace. Reed would have just posted a long blog explanation about the Negative Zone and Doom would have found it while doing a google search. After having his interest perked, Doom would send a friend request to Reed. Reed, being the kind of guy who only accepts friend requests from people he knows doesn’t accept it and thus the Doom is offended and vows to seek revenge.”

That is possibly the best idea I have ever read. Seriously. It would be even better if instead of Reed Richardds, Doom became arch-enemies with Tom.

The Cap cover looks like Tales of Suspense #78

http://www.paulmccall.com/tos78.jpg

First let me say that I think the original concepts for the Fantastic Four, Doom, etc. were great and that all this “Ultimates” version stuff sucks. Now, having said that, if I had to do it from scratch, Doom would be the real father of Sue and Johnny, who were raised by their adopted family, the Storms. Yeah, yeah, I know – they already did that with Magneto/ScarletWitch/Quicksilver. But I always thought the idea would have worked better with the FF as one of the main themes of their book was “family” and naturally brings up a lot of cool story ideas – my favorite being Doom trying the encourage the whole Namor/Sue thing. I love the idea of Namor as son-in-law – especially to Dr. Doom.

Jim Mooney on the fourth clue.

1. Trenchcoats may be cool, but the problem is that after one artist catches on to drawing a character wearing one that enhances that character’s look, other artists think they are talented enough to pull off the same thing with the character(s) he is drawing. This leads to things like the Great Leather Shortage of the mid-90s, which you may remember as being the result of entire teams being outfitted with leather jackets by artists thinking the result would be as cool as when Chas Troug put a leather jacket on Animal Man.

2. Personally, I don’t mind the Richards-Doom connection as presented by Lee and Kirby. If their knowing each other then in too coincidental, than any relation between the two is too coincidental, created only to put the two at odds. Credit should be given to L&K for not tying Doom to the group from the first issue. I don’t think a writer today creating a new hero would have the courage to introduce the character’s main antagonist until the fifth story arc (the modern equivalent of Fantastic Four #5.

3. Jim Mooney, #2.

4. The cover is a homage to Justice League of America (vol. 1) #77, “Snapper Carr–Super Traitor!”, though on the JLA cover the figure in the front faces the reader.

Ah, I can’t believe you’re missing two of (argueably) the best trenchcoaters — Sandman (Wesley Dodds) and The Question. Denny O’Neil’s Question series had a respectable run in the 1980′s and is still remembered fondly by many — keeping the trenchcoat flame alive in the days of Miami Vice.

I dunno – did the Phantom Stranger really wear a trenchcoat in the 70′s and 80′s? I vaguely recall his garb being more of the three-piece suit variety with a dress cape (not a superhero cape, but an actual dress cape). It was only after Crisis (and John Constantine) that I remember folks putting the Stranger into a trenchcoat. I could be completely mis-remembering though – I’m old, and the memory is one of the first things to go. I think.

And if I were creating the FF from scratch, Doom would be tied in mostly like Stan and Jack tied him in. He was an old college acquaintence who blamed Reed for his failure and his expulsion from school. After conquering his old homeland in a successful revolution, he sees that his old college rival Richards has become the world’s pre-eminent scientist AND adventuring superhero – living the life that Doom wanted for himself. Knowing that he’s better than Richards, and blaming Richards for his own failures, Doom decides to destroy Richards and his family.

The only real changes that I’d make to Stan and Jack’s formulation are that von Doom, Richards, and Grimm would actually all be friends in college before Doom’s big explosion. Not just collegues, but actual friends hanging out at the grad student bars on Thursday nights debating the finer points of their research. And I’d make Ben Grimm an engineering grad student – probably aerospace – back in school after leaving the military as a pilot. I also like the idea from the Ultimate version and from the movie that Sue was a fellow scientist, so I’d keep that (probably make her a biology or bio-medical grad student on the same campus) – Sue is smart, as is Ben – it’s only in comparison to Reed and Doom that they suffer.

In both the recent recastings of the FF’s origins (Ultimate and the Movie) I have been OK with the idea of tying Doom into their origins. It makes a lot of sense, to make him there from the beginning, considering how he is their main villain.

BUT, the big problem I always have is that they INSIST on giving him powers!!! This is a big mistake. What should happen is: he is present for their origin, and for one reason or another, he does NOT get powers- he only is scarred. For example: the movie had a great opportunity to do this. He was in the shielded area. If he ends up with NO powers and a scar face, and they end up celebrity heroes, he has much more reason to hate them. So I woudl tie him in in some way that resulted in that set up.

DC gets a Trenchcoat Brigade, because at Marvel, trenchcoats are 100% disposable. No one has ever worn one twice, as they are either thrown off dramatically to reveal the costume beneath, or shredded and destroyed when the hero Hulks out or powers up.

Conversely, anyone wearing a trenchcoat is completely inconspicuous; regardless of brightly colored boots, mysterious hunched back, or giant damn beak…

Speaking of trenchcoats, I think the Thing is a great trenchcoat-wearer, when he is trying to look inconspicuous. Also, You forgot the matching trenchcoats of Nextwave!

Jim Mooney on #5, but I’ll confess that it was more of a “Jim Mooney? I know he did Supergirl backups…maybe it was him” until I read other posters’ guesses.

I’d tie in Doom exactly like the movie did, but with one additional scene where he and his aide discuss the way Doom skimmed money from the station’s shielding budget for a private project, and how it might have affected the calculations. Doom blows it off, saying it was still Reed’s fault for not working with a larger margin of error. Because that’s ultimately what Doom is all about–he can never admit he’s wrong. That’s what Richards is there for, to be the fall guy for Doom’s mistakes…and because Doom keeps making mistakes, Reed has grown larger in his imagination over the years, as a symbol of his every failure and defeat.

Failing that, either the regular or ultimate origin is just fine…but the regular version does get higher marks for Doom putting on his own face mask while it’s still red-hot, so that he can hide his “horrific” scar.

Dude… The Spirit?

The Question is the best trenchcoater, but the mullet he sported in the ’80s series, whilst very zeitgeisty, almost ruined the character forever.

Doom and Richards?

How about the Magus solution: Doom is Richards, from twenty years in the future. Richards finds out that in ten years he does something horrible, killing his whole family and disfiguring himself. He becomes “Doctor Doom.” Later, Doom travels back in time to ensure that his Past Self, the Richards of Today, becomes Doom. Doom would always have a jump on Richards, plus there’s the fun of Horrible Foreshadowing. Muh-ha-ha-haaa!

Okay, that wouldn’t work for an ongoing character.

The original Stan and Jack idea was a great one. They’re the world’s top super-geniuseses. They used to be classmates. Now they’re rivals, driven apart by Victor’s arrogance and hatred. Works for me. Making them any closer would be a mistake, I think. Distancing their origins wouldn’t be a good idea either, since Doom would lose a lot of his appeal.

Bah! It matters not! He is DOOOOOOOOM!

[cue the cracks of thunder]

You’ve forgotten that The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wore trenchcoats when they went out in public.

“If you were creating the Fantastic Four from scratch, how would you tie Doctor Doom to the group?”

Duct tape.

!!!

Re: Commish Gordon and Batman 212.

212 was the original area code for NYC.

I know this as I made my first phone call to NYC when I was but a child. Circa 1954-6, I dialed 1212xxxxxxx and someone answered.

I quickly hung up. A few weeks later, a door-to-door salewoman showed up at our house.

You also forgot Dick Tracey.

Man, those Columbine kids totally ruined trenchcoats for everybody, huh?

Loekemper said: “thinking the result would be as cool as when Chas Troug put a leather jacket on Animal Man.”

The jacket was canvas, which is why it was blue. I don’t know if this was ever mentioned on panel, but Morrison definitely mentioned it in a lettercolumn or interview.

“Man, those Columbine kids totally ruined trenchcoats for everybody, huh?”

Nah, not really. Nerds did. Trenchcoats lost their cool when the place you’d see the most of them would be in a crowded convention hall on a hot day. You can always spot the nerds by their black trenchcoats and ugly haircuts.

Besides, The Basketball Diaries had kids in trenchcoats shooting up a school before the Columbine kids did it.

Shame on you, Brian Cronin, for not providing a picture of the Trenchcoat Brigade.

I disagree that Lee and Kirby deserve some kind of credit for holding off on Dr. Doom until the fifth issue – it’s not like they KNEW he was going to be the main villain, it just worked out that way. Might as well give Lee and Ditko credit for holding off on the Green Goblin, or giving two decades’ worth of creators credit for not introducing Apocalypse in X-Men #1.

So far, I think Harpo’s “family” connection is the best. And although I like his idea better than my own, I still want to play:

I would give absolutely NO existing ties between Doom and Richards. Not friends, not roommates, not at the same school, never even met. Reed has as much connection to Doom as you or I have to the Prince of Monacco – he may have read about him in a magazine, but Doom certainly doesn’t know he exists.

Until the accident, and the team’s fame. Though he is unquestionably a dictator, Doom tries to run Latveria as some technological paradise. Here’s this tiny Eastern European country, and it looks like the current DC version of Metropolis. You go across the border to Symkaria, and it’s all castles and gingerbread houses, but Latveria could honesly boast some of the greatest cities on earth.

Seeing himself as the great champion of scientific knowledge, Doom wants to honor the FF, and invites them to visit his country. They go, and they’re uncomfortable with what they see, but they keep their mouths shut because they’re guests.

With all the heavy security focused on protecting the FF, a rogue faction takes the opportunity to strike at doom, who is wearing his ceremonial ancestral armor for the big ceremony. A fight breaks out, during which Johnny is knocked into Doom, turning the armor white hot. It nearly destroys his body, it welds the armor into a solid mass and seals him inside permanently – everything except his face, which was exposed to the flame. THAT he willingly covers to hide his scars.

Then you could get a whole arc of the US Government trying to prevent war with this country that’s the size of Lichtenstein but could realistically kick our asses. The FF have attacked a foreign dignitary (that’s the story Doom chooses to remember), so they’re basically thrown in jail as soon as they set foot on American soil.

I like the idea of Ben and Sue being scientists, too, but the one Doom has a rivalry with is Johnny, the tag-along who scarred him. In fact, if they agree to turn him over to face Latverian justice, Doom is willing to not only drop all charges, but to share his technology with the US and underwrite the Fantastic Three’s work. Basically, in every battle he’s trying to destroy Johnny while he tries to court the others.