‘Interlude’

Several months ago, shortly after the Fantastic Four’s battle with Gladiator, Doctor Doom is in Latveria. For now, he has foregone any major schemes, preferring to concentrate on the rebuilding of Doomstadt after the overthrow of Zorba Fortunov, and to care for his adopted ward Kristoff. Doom allows himself to show an unexpected tender side with the boy, under Doom’s protection since Zorba’s troops killed his mother. He brings Kristoff to review his Doombots, one of which is destroyed for its failure to kill Arcade for striking a match on its armor during their confrontation with the X-Men.

Weeks later, Doom is notified by one of his scientists, Gert Hauptmann, on the completion of a crucial project. On Doom’s instructions, Hauptmann has built a device that can retrieve the cosmic power that Doom had once stolen from the Silver Surfer. Hauptmann eagerly invites his master to use the device immediately; however, Doom seizes the scientist and throws him in the chamber instead. Doom throws the switch and watches as Hauptmann’s body is disintegrated by the raw energy. Doom muses that Hauptmann, who had long hated Doom for killing his brother, would have claimed the cosmic power for himself if he truly believed in the machine’s safety.

Kristoff finds Doom in his study, searching for a more fitting vessel for the Surfer’s power — a being powerful enough to contain the energy while remaining craven enough to be manipulated by Doom for his own ends. Kristoff offhandedly suggests Magneto, innocently suggesting his power rivals Doom’s own. Doom, who considers no other being to be his rival, orders Kristoff away, his rage overwhelming whatever paternal feelings he may have harbored and nearly causing him to injure the child. In his fury, he suddenly remembers an ideal candidate…

Two days later, a pair of Doom’s sentry robots reconnoiter a Manhattan hospital, where they retrieve a heavily-bandaged ‘John Doe’ that had been found in a garbage pile, with every bone broken. The patient is brought to Latveria where, after being healed by Doom’s medics, is revealed to be Terrax the Tamer, former herald to Galactus. His recent memories stripped along with his powers, he now refers to himself as Tyros the Terrible, the name under which he ruled on the world of Birj. Doom convinces Tyros that he can regain his lost cosmic power; garbing the former herald in a containment suit, he bombards Tyros with the same radiation that destroyed Hauptmann. However, Tyros survives the transformation. Now, seething with unimaginable power, Tyros remembers the exhilaration of being a herald — and how the Fantastic Four led to his downfall. Doom easily convinces Tyros to seek vengeance against their common foes and provides a sky sled with which Tyros flies to New York.

Doom watches Tyros leave and reflects on his unfolding scheme. The containment suit on Tyros acts as a life-support system, preventing the cosmic power from consuming him, but it will fail within five hours. Tyros’s death will remove a possible rival, but in the meantime, the herald will succeed in achieving Doom’s ultimate goal — the destruction of the Fantastic Four!