Comic Book / Doctor Zero

"Can we stop him from saving the world?"

Doctor Zero is a superhero comic book series published by the Epic Comics imprint of Marvel Comics.

It's part of the Shadowline shared universe, set in a world where a second, hidden race - the Shadow Dwellers - evolved alongside humanity. Individually, Shadow Dwellers are more powerful than humans, but humans vastly outnumber them and so they've tended to stay hidden. Until now.

The being calling himself Doctor Zero is the most powerful of the Shadow Dwellers, and he's just made his public debut as the world's first superhero. However, his motives are not be as benevolent as they seem - and, when out of the public eye, his methods are cynical and manipulative.

Doctor Zero wants world peace. He wants to keep the Cold War cool and stop humanity destroying itself. And he's prepared to do many things to achieve that goal. Not because he loves humanity, but just because - at least for the moment - he's sharing the planet too.

The first issue was released February 16, 1988. The last issue (#8) was released April 18, 1989.

After the series was cancelled, Doctor Zero's story continued in Critical Mass, an Anthology Comic combining the previous three Shadowline titles.

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Doctor Zero includes the following tropes:

• All in the Manual: The in-house promotions state that Doctor Zero is the most powerful of the Shadow Dwellers, something that's not directly stated in the comic itself.
• Assassin Outclassin': Doctor Zero is on the receiving end when he first tries to kill Dr Clerk, a mere human. His energy powers are countered by a chemical spray, he's hit with an electric shock and his lifeless body's dumped in the arctic snow.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: A flashback shows Clerk, as a child, launching Snowball the cat inside a small rocket. He's listening to its panicked yowling over the radio right up until the moment the rocket detonates. Clerk later claims this was purely For Science!, not because Snowball scratched him, but doesn't seem entirely plausible.
• Bookends: "Things of Fire and Smoke" starts with Doctor Zero rescuing two American space program workers from an accident that would have killed them when a rocket's engines fired. It ends with Doctor Zero leaving an injured Marid to die in the flames when another rocket takes off.
• Byronic Hero: The immortal Doctor Zero himself falls into this category. He's intelligent, manipulative and scornful of others' ethics or authority. At times he's very much a Villain Protagonist or Well-Intentioned Extremist, but he also seems to genuinely care for people, even if he keeps most at arm's length. If it wasn't for his narration he would be a very enigmatic figure, though.
• Cape Snag: Defied. When the Merchants lure Doctor Zero onto the submarine Leviathan he removes his usual cape as soon as he realises he'll be fighting in a cramped environment.
• Chute Sabotage: After Major Preecit deserts the Merchants and tries to flee to South Africa, Doctor Zero intercepts the jet fighter she's flying. When she uses the ejector seat, he follows her down and snaps the parachute's suspension lines.
• Comic-Book Time: Averted. Specific dates are given for some events, with the first issue's air raid on Libya occurring on 15 April 1986.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Doctor Zero visits Guyana in the first issue, a newspaper on the plane shows a picture of "Ravenscore & friend" in a drug lord story. The Ravenscores are the Shadow family who act as the Big Bad for sister title Power Line. Later issues make it clear that Doctor Zero knows exactly who they are.
  • The Merchants are studying Power Line as well as Doctor Zero himself.
  • General Retler, commander of the Merchants, is getting information from the Father Abbot of the Order of St. George.
  • Shreck is seeking permission to deal with the latest knight of St. George, saying that this falls under Doctor Zero's authority.
  • The rocket Marid is tampering with at the US space program is based on a Henry Clerk design.
• Cruel Mercy: Rather than killing Mad Scientist Henry Clerk, Doctor Zero protects him from the nuclear explosion he triggered at the Toy Factory and then uses his mental powers to destroy Clerk's genius. He's left as a dull-witted fast food chef at "Stop & Stuff”.
• Doomsday Device: Dr Henry Clerk has created a modified nuclear bomb which, he believes, will trigger a world-destroying chain reaction via the Nitrogen in the atmosphere. He's going to detonate it just to prove it works. For Science!
• Enclosed Space: The immortal Marid is unable to leave Earth under his own power, as his body can’t escape its energy field. His plan is to escape on a rocket instead.
• Evil Counterpart: Marid and Doctor Zero share the same aim - they want to escape the Earth into space, to get away from mortal humans - and are both prepared to kill people to make this happen. But they have different timescales and plans for it, and end up fighting to the death when Marid's reckless scheme might plunge the world into war.
• For Science!: Dr Clerk's motivation for creating a world-destroying bomb is seemingly that he likes nuclear explosions, he likes killing people, and he wants to prove that he can correct the 'mistakes' that stopped the original atom bomb triggering an apocalyptic chain reaction.
• Fun with Acronyms: Downplayed, but the Military Response and Covert Techniques Squadron is better known as the Merchants.
• Heroic Dolphin: After Doctor Zero is left for dead by Clerk and ends up in the sea, dolphins bring him to Sheila.
• Historical Rap Sheet: Anubis was responsible for the Black Death sweeping Europe. From his perspective, it was apparently the best time of his life.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Marid's found a way to integrate with computers, infiltrating systems as a virus. But this connection also means that Shreck can use a programmer's skills to affect him via the computer, shocking him out of his Super Smoke form and letting Doctor Zero deliver some Laser-Guided Karma.
• Immortality: Shadow Dwellers such as Marid, Anubis and Doctor Zero himself are immortal and unaging, but at least some of them can be killed if you try hard enough.
• Jackass Genie: Marid is a Shadow Dweller with the powers of a genie, although most of his gifts are just illusion. He uses his abilities malevolently when humans make wishes.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Doctor Zero is fond of using this to edit people's memories. The branding team who designed the Doctor Zero superhero costume and persona for him immediately forgot their involvement.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Marid, a Jerkass Genie who kills his victims by fire, ends up incinerated under a rocket's exhaust flames at take-off.
• Mad Scientist:
  • Dr. Henry Edward Clerk, who's very fond of nuclear explosions, murder, and murder via explosions. He's also smart enough to analyse Doctor Zero's powers from circumstantial evidence and design countermeasures. Clerk would quite happily destroy himself along with the world, if he could, purely For Science!
  • Anubis, aka Soviet biological weapons researcher Corporal Anubich. His Shadow abilities make him a Plague Master who's immune to the diseases he absorbs and spreads, but he's very keen to design new and better plagues to kill the humans.
• Master of Illusion: Marid is a murderous Jackass Genie who grants wishes with illusions.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Doctor Zero and Sheila. She's a normal human, he's older than the human race.
• Mind Control: Doctor Zero has some level of this, over and above the ability to induce Laser-Guided Amnesia. It sometimes seems to cause permanent damage to his target's mind, though.
• Molotov Truck: Doctor Zero assists William Belluts with his plan to drive a truck bomb into a US government SDI facility, in revenge for the way they closed down the previous factory on the site and left some workers redundant and in poverty.
• Noble Demon: Doctor Zero himself seems to fall into this category. He's quite prepared to kill innocents, directly or indirectly, but does have some sort of moral code.
• No Name Given: The Doctor Zero persona is a new invention and neither humans nor Shadows who know him refer to "Zero" by any other name, although Marid calls him "old one". Not even Sheila calls him by name.
• Only Mostly Dead: Doctor Zero is left in this state after Clerk's initial attempt to kill him, and again after the Merchants trap him on a scuttled submarine. He gets better.
• Plague Master: Anubis is a Shadow who absorbs and spreads diseases. He's the inspiration for the Egyptian deity and his contagions are one of the reasons the Egyptians started mummifying their dead. He's also at least partly responsible for the Black Death sweeping Europe.
• Playing with Fire: Marid has some fire powers, although they seem limited to killing those who he lures into making wishes via his Jackass Genie powers. The third wish always ends in death by fire.
• Renegade Russian: Corporal Anubich plays this role, although he's actually far older than Russia. KGB Colonel Gerasimov works with Doctor Zero to hunt him down.
• Sapient Cetaceans: Doctor Zero talks with dolphins, and seems to consider them a better species than humans. He's offered to take them with him when he finally leaves the planet.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Merchants manage to leave Doctor Zero himself in this state, unconscious on the scuttled nuclear submarine Leviathan, which has crumpled and flooded thousands of feet below the surface. His narration before he passes out suggests that he's expecting to be down there for a long time. Unfortunately, they just can't resist retrieving the wreck to analyse what's left of him.
• Show Within a Show: One data page features a TV schedule listing including a Doctor Zero movie based on the previous issue's battle with Anubis. The jokey tone and inclusion of information that's not public suggests it's not supposed to be taken as canon, though.
• Sue Donym: The Soviet biological warfare researcher Corporal Anubich is actually the Egyptian god Anubis. Or, rather, the Shadow who inspired those myths.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: An invoked trope. Doctor Zero is an identity crafted by branding and marketing consultants. He wears a cape because it helps to reinforce his desired image as a superhero.
• Super Smoke: Marid can shift into an intangible smoke form.
• Synthetic Plague: The Taymyr Facility's created an incurable cryptosporidium variant that affects humans. It'll cause victims' intestines to rupture and burst their skin. And then it'll go airborne. Anubis, aka Corporal Anubich, is very proud of it.
• Take That!: One issue's data page is a jokey Show Within a Show TV listing with a Doctor Zero film (based on the previous issue's plot) prominently listed. It also includes a listing for Star Trek: The Next Generation that explains how Picard "looks on uselessly" while Wesley Crusher saves the day.
• Telephone Teleport: A variation. Marid has adapted his Jerkass Genie abilities to work through computers, manifesting as a virus, and can travel through them as well.
• Time Abyss: Doctor Zero is far older than humanity, old enough to remember the continents shifting, and possibly as old as life on Earth. Anubis is at least four or five thousand years old, so may also fall into this category.
• Vampiric Draining: Doctor Zero can steal Life Energy from others. He doesn't seem to need it for his immortality, but it does speed healing and fuel his powers.
• Villain Protagonist: Doctor Zero is never far away from this, but his Byronic Hero nature means he's sometimes in shades of grey instead.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The Merchants lure Doctor Zero onto a nuclear submarine by using a fake distress call, claiming that there’s been a reactor failure.

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