All-New Doop #1

Issue Date: 
June 2014
Story Title: 
untitled
Staff: 

Peter Milligan (writer), David LaFuente (artist), Laura Allred (colorist), VC’s Clayton Cowles (letterer), Michael & Laura Allred (cover artists), Adi Granov (variant cover), Devin Lewis (assistant editor), Nick Lowe (editor), Axel Alonso (editor-in-chief), Joe Quesada (chief creative officer), Dan Buckley (publisher), Alan Fine (executive producer)

Brief Description: 

Doop lives in the margins of the X-Men’s world, popping out and interacting when needed. However, he wants more. He watches Kitty, the young original X-Men and Cyclops team fight some Sentinels and hands Kitty a note. Later, after young Cyclops is killed by a Sentinel, Doop helps young healer Triage to overcome his panic and revive Cyclops. Doop returns to the margins and returns to the story when the X-Men at the Jean Grey School are confronted with the future Brotherhood of Mutants. Doop, in the meantime, repairs the X-jet, allowing young Marvel Girl and Cyclops to flee without a hitch. Afterwards, Doop gets Kitty to read his note. She is horrified to find it is a proposal of marriage. Trying to let Doop down gently, she explains they couldn’t marry due to communication problems. Doop turns himself inside out and learns English. Obstacle removed…

Full Summary: 

Somewhere in Doopspace:
This is the story of a marginal character named Doop and an obsession that might change the world…

In his crowded room full of memorabilia, Doop looks up some words in a dictionary: I want… armpits… blancmange… all over…

Suddenly his alarm clock goes off going ‘Hi there, Kitty, Hi there, Kitty’. Doop grabs his camera and is off.

Back in the ordinary world:
Hi, there, Kitty’, Cyclops greets Kitty Pryde after he and his renegade X-Men team came to help her and the inexperienced original X-Men against the Sentinels. She is welcome, Emma Frost snarks. Okay, now they have a fighting chance, Kitty decides.

Doop, being marginal, can drop in, when and where he wants.

Cyclops criticizes Kitty for taking the time-displaced students into the field. They were out for a reconnaissance mission, she points out and suggests they shut his down fast.

Funny, she mutters. She has the feeling someone is watching her. Paranoid much? young Iceman asks her.

From the shadows, Doop records everything happening. He spits up a letter, seems content with its message and kisses it.

Kitty just comes down from disrupting a Sentinel’s electronics by phasing through it, which proved painful for her. She is surprised to see Doop. He says something in his weird language. She reminds him she can’t understand what he’s saying. Is this really important? She is kinda busy now.

She is nonplussed when with a grand gesture he presents the letter, saying something incomprehensible. She is distracted from reading it by young Iceman, who asks if she is okay after her fall. She corrects him that she jumped. He asks after the letter. Kitty makes an excuse and puts it away.

Doop films the following scene. The battle seems to be over, but the seemingly derelict Sentinel shoots young Cyclops and kills him. Kitty runs to his side. Emma Frost calls for the healer, Christopher Muse.

Christopher is panicking and Doop realizes he has a role to play. He holds the boy back and tells him something. Christopher doesn’t understand but tells him he can’t. That’s Cyclops. He’s a legend. What if he screws up? Doop slaps the hysterical boy and shoves him toward Emma. Soon, Christopher succeeds in bringing Scott back to life and Doop returns to the margins, falling through the further events.

He peers down from the ceiling to where the Jean Grey School X-Men meet for the first time the future Brotherhood (claiming to be X-Men).

Present and past Iceman are horrified at the thought of turning into mindless IceHulk. The present version confides to his younger self that he hopes this doesn’t give Kitty second thoughts about their relationship. The young version asks for some dating tips. He had to figure this stuff out for himself, the older version shrugs. He doesn’t see why he should help him. Man, when did he get so cold? the younger version sighs.

Influenced by Marvel Girl, Wolverine suddenly shouts it’s not him. Doop looks at his watch and counts. Wolverine goes ballistic.

Iceman tells his younger self to come on, they need to cool things down. Only if he gives him some tips, he demands. What about that note he gave Kitty? Are notes really useful? When it turns out the older Iceman didn’t give her a note, they wonder who sent Kitty a love letter. Adult Iceman tells him he is even more immature than he remembers.

In the hangar, Doop muses aloud about his hellish youth while working on a plane, the same plane Marvel Girl and Cyclops hijack. Doop stows away with them.

Cyclops worries this is the first time he flies a plane solo and worries about a weird noise. He presses a red button.

In the bowels of the plane, Doop is busy at work fixing things.

Moments later, Cyclops announces the noise is gone. They did it.

Doop jumps from the plane, distorting himself into a parachute. He races back towards the mansion. He climbs inside and watches as Xorn reveals herself to be adult Jean Grey in front of the baffled X-Men and reminds Kitty Pryde she made her a promise. He waits.

Rachel and Kitty leave the others. Rachel asks what promise Xorn meant. Kitty doesn’t know. She hates this. It all feels wrong. If they catch Jean and Scott, they’ll be forced to go back and that’s just a death sentence. She sees Doop, who waves at her and asks Rachel to go ahead to the kitchen.

She asks Doop if he is following her. He raises his hand to give her something and points at the note in her pocket. She realizes he wants her to read the letter. Annoyed, she pulls it out: Dear Kitty, I always… what? I want… armpits… blancmange… loved you… that’s so disgusting! she exclaims. Let me have the inestimable honor of… of being your husband? she reads in disbelief.

Doop hopefully holds up a ring made of rancid meat. And they say romance is dead, Kitty sighs. She asks him to put that disgusting thing away. There’s no way she could marry him.

Doop is clearly dispirited. He doesn’t even speak English, Kitty tries to explain. How would they communicate?

Doop literally pulls himself inside out in front of a horrified Kitty. Afterwards, suddenly speaking English, he announces now nothing stops them marrying. What does she say?

This is the story of an obsession. A love that dared speak its name. And the story it changed…

Characters Involved: 

Doop
Beast, Iceman, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey, Storm, Wolverine
Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magik, Magneto
Stepford Cuckoos, Tempus, Triage
Angel, Beast Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl

Deadpool, Molly Hayes, Ice-Hulk, Xorn III
Sentinels

Story Notes: 

The story takes place behind the scenes of the “Battle of the Atom” crossover, in this case X-Men: Battle of the Atom #1, All-New X-Men #16 and X-Men (4th series) #4.

“The Love that dare not speak its name” is classically a euphemism for homosexuality.

The issue has many references to famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman:

The actress Liv Ullmann starred in several of his movies.

Hour of the wolf, Wild Strawberries and Scenes from a Marriage are Bergman movies.

Doopspeak:
Page 1:
panel 1: I want… armpits… blancmange… all over…
panel 2: Crap.

Page 4:
panel 1: Wild… strawberries…
panel 2: yep… this sums it up.

Page 5, panel 4: Be my Liv Ullmann.

Page 6: The passion… of Doop.

Page 8:
panel 2: The cameras are rolling. That’s your cue.
Panel 3: Christopher Mu—

Page 11: eight… nine… ten…

Page 13: I was an unwanted child… in a hellish marriage…

Page 14:
panel 3: Must fix plot… must fix plot…
panel 5: Doopachute. Don’t fail me now.

Page 15:
panel 1: Uh… uh… wait… uh…
Panel 2: uh… uh… action… uh…

Page 16:
panel 1: Your lines. Read. Please.
panel 2: screenplay by Doop.
Panel 3: Hour of the wolf!

Page 17:
panel 1: Was Mama Doop’s
panel 4: No…scenes from marriage? Doop pain.

Page 18 panel 1: Make up!

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