Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Alternatively, file this one alongside Fantastic Four v1, #454. This issue marked one of the high points of Claremont’s run on Fantastic Four, following several months of rather tedious alternate-universe hopping crammed with villains devoid of personality and a lot of old Excalibur concepts regarding the multiverse thrown into the mix. Not the worst fit for Marvel’s explorers, admittedly, but you only had to look at the F4 fighting a legion of Captain Britains drawn from multiple dimensions to know that things aren’t being handled quite as tightly as they could be. Luckily, with Doom now scheduled to return to the spotlight following a 2-year absence from the Marvel stage, Claremont was free to begin the arc that ended his run, exploring the duality of Reed and Doom.

While Claremont’s run often suffered from fairly two-dimensional characterisation – something deeply evident in Claremont’s hammy dialogue – the plotting in the latter half is (believe it or not) engaging enough to make up for it. Claremont’s take on the F4 is at least consistent, so Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny all stick to their defined personalities just enough to keep you in the story, even if every time a character speaks it feels like they’re overacting.

This particular issue followed a 5th Week event full of comics set on the devastated Heroes Reborn Earth, which had been saved by Ashema in the “Heroes Return” miniseries, but not before it experienced massive environmental and social upheavel following the departure of the Marvel Heroes that had been living there while assumed dead for the past year. Free from (credible) interference, Doom effectively conquered the planet, becoming its champion in the process, and ”Heroes Reborn: Doom”, the final issue of the 5th week event, tied directly into the opening of Fantastic Four #25 as he finally escaped the Heroes Reborn pocket dimension, bringing the entire planet with him.

The Four spend much of the issue fighting Doom and his superhuman allies from the HR Earth, before guidance from Ashema leads them to the real threat – the insane and powerful Dreaming Celestial. With Doom now back on the table, Claremont takes the opportunity to explore the relationship between the teenage version of Valeria he added to the cast, and the man she knows as her father, and these two characters get perhaps the best material of the issue with their interactions. The story climaxes when Reed and Doom unite against the Dreaming Celestial and after the dust clears, only Doom appears to be left standing.

All is not as it appears, however - future issues reveal that Reed is actually trapped in Doom’s armour, with some fairly terrifying consequences resulting from this, and the remaining issues of the Claremont/Larocca run contain some unique and memorable moments. While many elements of the run go unacknowledged, a few have survived, such as “Wilhemina” Lumpkin, niece of the original (now appearing in Cornell’s Fantastic Four: True Story), Alyssa Moy (as previously documented

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) and Valeria, who was eventually added as a permanent member of the cast following some age-regression shenanigans. By no means is this a classic run, but certainly the “Return of Doctor Doom” storyline (encompassing #25) is a hidden gem that, at the very least, deserves to be collected.