>>151851728Can somebody refresh my memory how/why Doom became Val's godfather? And how that progressed over the years? When Reed and Sue accepted this claim of status and continued to allow their daughter to proudly proclaim her 'familial' status to him?? It's always creepy when made a key part to a storyline.
>>151938065Because she wouldn't be alive without him, same as why she's named after his first love (that he sacrificed shortly afterwards for power mind you)
>>151938065He was her father (maybe?) then Franklin did jiggerypokery with Reality Itself and made her firmly Reed and Sue's newborn, but also the stillborn that Sue'd had years ago. Oddly that was a tricky pregnancy and Doom had to help deliver her, which Reed rewarded by making her his goddaughter.Eventually writers tired of Franklin being God.
>>151940022Reed was always her father. Franklin sent her to the new universe to protect her life as Sue was going to be attacked and lose the baby.In that new universe Reed was hailed as a great hero for giving up his life and saving humanity in a gesture that moved even Doom and he wanted to redeem himself by joining the team.Over time he and Sue grew close and Baby Val latched on to him.It was all done because Marvel was too stupid to explain how Val loved him over her real dad during the arc where they swapped bodies as she should've known since she was from the future.
>>151938065My dude, she was originally Valeria von Doom. Reed looked at the mess his son handed him and decided it would be easier not to fight it.
>>151940115Except the time travel made things wibbly-wobbly. In her original timeline was she always Reed's daughter (a Reed pretending to be Doom, trapped in Doom's armor)? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly wasn't a "closed circle loop" time travel situation because, well, we're not currently looking at a teenage Val that's being raised by "Doom."
>>151938065They did a story about Sue having a stillborn, and people praised it. Then Franklin did some weird shit to try to help out in some other universe. And then Sue got the baby for real again but needed Doom's help to deliver her. Doom is so full of spite that he figured that if he could be a better role model than Reed, he wins and effectively cucked him out of being dad. I didn't like the reversal at first but the Valeria stuff has been fun enough that I'm okay with it now. Deep down, I always thought Richards was a bit annoying even if he's good at heart, so him having this really odd parenting rivalry has been fun.
>>151940238>>151940183god I hate the 90s
>>151938065It started with Claremont getting revenge on Byrne for retconning his usage of Doom in his X-Men run via undoing a storyline Byrne wrote in his FF run where Sue got pregnant and lost the baby his miscarriage. Via time travel/reality warping fuckery, Franklin caused his mom to have a do over of said pregnancy via recreating his unborn sister in his mom's womb.
>>151942161Later writers inherited the pregnancy story and had Doom deliver the reborn baby and Doom demanding naming rights for his service. Though the kid being named Val had been established in previous stories with her.However, Doom did some Satan shit with Val, turning her into a human version of a witch's familiar; basically imprinting both his personality and super intelligence upon her and allowing him to spy on Reed whenever he wanted to via said mystic psychic link.Val was a baby for a couple of years until Mark Millar took over the FF book, at which point she was aged up overnight to be around 8-10 years old and super intelligent. So much so that she hid this because she knew Reed would immediately abandon/disown Franklin to focus all of his love and attention on her and cause Franklin to turn evil.Then Hickman happened and Val's genius was suddenly common knowledge and per Hickman whitewashing/ignoring Doom's crimes like the murder of Cassie Lang, causing No More Mutants, and killing half the Avengers team and framing Wanda, he had Doom move into the Baxter building and being an active mentor to Val so that Franklin had all of Reed's love and attention. As well as continuing Millar writing Val as a super cynical girl genius type with amoral tendencies.