Issue(s): Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #2
Cover Date: Jun 75
Title: "To bestride the world! / Pt.1: The slaying of a titan! / Pt.2: When monarchs meet! / Pt.3: The armies of Andro!"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Mike Sekowsky - Penciler
Sam Grainger - Inker

Review/plot:
This time Doom comes to Namor requesting an alliance but by now Namor has changed his mind.

Doom takes him to Latveria where Doom demonstrates his nuclear capabilities and his robot army.

Not just nuclear; Doom is also experimenting with green energy (only Dr. Doom could announce the installation of some solar panels with such menace!).

Then - and this should never have happened - Doom's robots, which Doom already knew were worshiping a robot god, decide to rebel against Doom in a bid for their independence. The robot army is led by Andro, aka the Doomsman from the Astonishing Tales stories.

Namor reluctantly helps Doom put down the robot rebellion. After they're all put down, Doom reveals he's got a back-up robot army in storage.

This is not a story that portrays Doom in a very good light. It's also pretty ham-fisted in addressing the old "do androids dream of electric sheep?" issue.

This issue starts with Namor chasing off an oil tanker. They refer to him as the SubmaREEner, a joke on the way a lot of people mispronounce his name.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Has to take place after Fantastic Four #160 (see reference below).

References:

• A nerve gas explosion put all the Atlanteans in a coma in Sub-Mariner #67-68.
  
• Namor thought he had found a scientist - Dr. Henry Croft - that knew of a cure for his people in Sub-Mariner #70. But that cure turns out to be "useless".
  
• The Doomsman that appears in this story has "No relationship to Doomsman II" in Fantastic Four #157. "Andro's referring to the now-classic Astonishing Tales #1-3".
  
• The Doomsman escaped the other dimension that Doom trapped him in during the Thing and Lockjaw's extradimensional hop in Fantastic Four #160, which hadn't been published yet: "No, you didn't miss a story, friend! Ben and Lockjaw's little trip scheduled for FF #158 has been delayed till #160, so you're getting a preview of coming attractions."

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I have to agree with the quality rating on this one; well....maybe I would give it a "C". This was definitely not Roy Thomas' best work; it would have been nice to see the Doomsman re-appear at some point in time; and perhaps with a better writer, he could have been more than the one-dimensional character that he was here.

This is pretty much the end of the whole "robot rebellion" subplot running through the last several years of Doom appearances. It won't be missed.