A Brief History of Kang, Part 6: Kang is Doom?

By Owen Erasmus

The second of Kang's two pre-Avengers appearances, a short but important interlude which was published in:

Fantastic Four Annual 2
Written by Stan Lee
Penciled by Jack Kirby
Inked by Chic Stone

The Final Victory of Dr Doom

After escaping from the Fantastic Four in ancient Egypt, Rama-Tut encountersDr. Doom floating in space after one of his own encounters from the team. The pair of defeated conquerors compare stories and Rama, on his second appearance, comes up with his second origin.

He tells Doom that he was from the twenty fifth-century criminal who took a time machine designed by his ancestor Dr Doom and took over Egypt. Doom throws up a theory that rather than being Tut's ancestor he could in fact be Tut himself at a different point in his own personal time line. Tut seems to dismiss this but the pair decide not to attack the Fantastic Four together and risk history losing its greatest figure twice. Tut drops Doom off and heads back to the twenty-fifth century.

This interlude is one of the shortest Kang appearances and has largely been discredited by future stories but it is in my opinion one of the most important. Firstly, the story he gives Doom is different than the one he gave the Fantastic Four in Egypt. This was rationalised as him feeding Doom somewhat of a line, possibly to avoid trouble. However, while the idea that Doom and Tut are the same people was thrown out, the idea that the same person could hold different identities at different stages of his time travelling career would be kept. In his next appearance, Rama Tut would be revealed to be not Doom, but Kang.

Owen Erasmus