With Doc taking a break from the Defenders, we'll get to review his solo adventures with more frequency. That'll help us churn through this awful Creators saga more quickly. After Clea going missing, getting sidetracked into Phaseworld and rescuing his amnesiac and slightly balmy girlfriend, Doc has embarked on a mission to discover why this Xander character was bugging him. Marv writes his final issue here. It's also his final month as Marvel's editor-in-chief. Jim Starlin provides penciling duties, inked by the wonderful Rudy Nebres. The title makes me think of quadraphonic audio, an audio technology that was popular for about five minutes in the 70s.
Doc has found his way into the Quadriverse, just like the title says and it's a Ditko inspired bit of madness. It even has floating stone paths, jaws with no body attached and floating eyes. Doc comes across a woman against a bit of checkerboard that, I suppose, is the physical manifestation of this Quadriverse.
Well, our guardian looks really comfortable, but if a lack of gravity isn't keep her hair like that she must be keeping Aqua Net in business. With no external clues Doc deduces that the only way in is through the guardian's mind. It looks like he should be able to just fly past her, but this is Doc. It's gotta be difficult.
Even though he went through her mind, the guardian is present in this new world that looks like the previous one and she's bound to a meteor and speeding to a green and blue cyclopean thing with suckers for fingers. It sounds horrible, but it's actually slightly cute. Must be that expression.
Doc engages the cyclops and blasts away at it. It vanishes, but Doc knows it was another power that made it do so. Doc then goes after the guardian who is heading into a void. He manages to get her off the meteor, but the cyclops appears again. This time Doc uses the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak which look like a red funnel here.
Doc then attempts to talk to the guardian who remembers nothing except growing up and existing. She disappears in what looks like an electrical blast before Doc can press any further.
Doc heads to a nearby planet and finds the guardian near a castle and idyllic pool of water. The guardian sees Doc, tells him she loves him and starts mackin' on him.
Very forward, these Quadriverse women! She presumes that because Doc followed her and kissed her, he must love her too. Doc sets the record straight and says he did this because she was in trouble and I don't think he had a choice about the kiss. Doc turns around and there's a knight that wants to kill him.
It really is crazy here! The knight takes the guardian and Doc follows.
Doc then encounters a bunch of things called wormworlds that attack him. He fights back and they all die. Doc wonders why he's become so deadly all of a sudden.
Doc heads back to the planet and engages the knight while the ground itself grows arms and kidnaps the guardian. Doc gets fed up and punches the knight, who is really an empty suit of armor. Yup, crazy!
Doc heads underground to rescue the guardian and encounters a civilization of living roots. They explain things to Doc and he starts to get suspicious that this is all a performance.
Doc then casts one hell of a spell and blows up the root people.
Again he questions why he's so violent. Next he and the guardian head to an island floating in space. Man, the flat earthers must have loved this!
And old dude on the island explains the guardians to him. The guard until someone comes to the rescue and brings the guardian to flat earth. They then replace the prior guardian, until the cycle repeats itself.
The most recent guardian explains that Doc must replace her now, but he's like "no thanks, I have better things to do" and she wishes him farewell and Doc heads off.
Doc heads for the exit, he sees there is a plan B and an infant is the latest guardian.
I guess Clea hadn't recovered enough to accompany Doc and that's probably a good thing as she might have gotten jealous of the hot guardian who had actual comfortable clothing and night a skin tight cat suit with a crazy collar.
This is really just a bit of silliness. I think everyone wanted an excuse to draw lots of batcrap crazy stuff and a completely illogical plot that will have little bearing on the overall story arc.
Doc is definitely off-kilter here and we'll discover why early next issue. I get the feeling this was a bit of filler that may have been adapted from an earlier never published story. Where is Apalla the queen of the sun from last issue? She seemed like she was an import piece of all this. Like the annual, this is more of a fun distraction than anything else.
