Five Dooms to Save Tomorrow

The Avengers are on had to officiate the unveiling of a new super-computer called Nimrod at Stark Indsturies. In order to demonstrate its power, Nimrod is going to test its wits against a Chessmaster. With the current chess grandmaster busy, they have flow in the next best player, Sporadik of Russia. Sporadik questions the Avengers ability to keep him safe but sits down to play nonetheless. As the game begins, the Vision pays keen attention to the moves. Responding to one of the computer’s moves, Sporadik suddenly screams in agony before collapsing on the ground. An ambulance is quickly called and Sporadik is rushed to the hospital. Thor takes off after it, leaving the Avengers to investigate the scene to try and figure out what happened to the Russian chess player. Captain America is convinced that the chess piece that Sporadik touched before he collapsed holds the key to what happened.

Meanwhile, Thor arrives at the hospital just as Sporadik arrives and changes back into his mortal guise of Doctor Donald Blake. He announces his presence just as a team of surgeons wishes Blake would show up and provide his medical expertise.[1] After the surgery is complete, Blake returns to Stark Industries to tell the Avengers that Sporadik is in a coma and that he was exposed to a rare poison that is used in the Iguassu Falls region of Brazil. He fears that someone is trying to create an international incident by assassinating Sporadik.

Later that evening, when the Nimrod facility appears to be abandoned, a seemingly normal man named Leonard Tippit emerges from within the computer. However, he is caught in the act by the Vision. Having observed Nimrod intentionally making a chess move that had been discredited in a 1962 chess match to force Sporadik to touch the chess piece that was laced with poison. Suddenly, Tippit begins to glow demonstrating some unknown power. When the Vision tries using his phasing powers to knock Leonard out, it backfires and the energy feedback takes down the android instead. Hearing the commotion, Captain America rushes into the room and is surprised that the villain who felled the Vision also has a glass jaw. When the other Avengers enter the room they are unable to stop Tippit from melting through the floor.

Suddenly, they are all stunned by a blast of energy and find themselves witness to the past memories of Leonard Tippit. He was an unassuming man who woke up one night from a nightmare as the Watcher appeared before him. The alien being tells Leonard that he has the power to kill five people who will have an indirect hand at causing a nuclear war that will annihilate all life on the planet. With the wave of a hand, the Watcher then gives Leonard the power he will need to stop these seemingly innocent people. The Watcher shows him the images of each of those Tippit is to kill. With that, the Watcher departed. With the vision now over, the Avengers all agree that Tippit is wrong for trying to annihilate people for something that might happen. They then split up to try and to save the lives of the four next victims of Tippet’s list.

The next target is Mario Rizzo, a homeless child who lives on the streets of Naples, Italy. Leonard Tippit appears before the boy as he tries to steal an apple from a fruit cart. Although Thor is there to try and save the boy, Tippit manages to graze the child with an energy blast before teleporting away. The next is the daughter to the chief of the Massai tribe in Africa. Captain America and Hawkeye are there to stop Tippit but arrive too late to stop Leonard from putting the girl into a coma. Teleporting away again, he goes after the next target, Kiego Ozaki, in Japan. The Vision is too late to stop him there. The last target is Eliza Willis, who is busy working on her prize-winning rose garden when she is attacked by Tippit. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Although Tippit’s powers are growing weaker, he manages to zap his final target. Unable to teleport away this time, Leonard is knocked out by Wanda’s hex powers.

The other Avengers soon arrive and Iron Man fashions a device to strip Tippit of his power. That’s when the Watcher appears before them and reveals that it was actually Leonard Tippit who would have brought about the end of the world. Unable to directly stop Leonard, he instead manipulated him with misinformation in order to draw the Avengers’ attention to stop him. With Leonard now stripped of his power, the Watcher takes him away so he can never menace the world again. The Avengers protest this, but Leonard tells them to allow the Watcher to take him away so his life can mean something.[2]

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, the Vision), Leonard Tippit, the Watcher

Continuity Notes

1. The doctors here mention how Donald Blake had not been seen in a long time. This is because the last time Thor was in his mortal guise was back in Thor #194. Chronologically, this story takes place after Thor #205. Per the Sliding Timescale, Blake would have been absent for about a few months.

2. It’s later revealed in Avengers West Coast #61 that Leonard Tippit is a nexus being, one with the unique power to affect probabilities and affect the future.

Topical References

• This story states that chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer was supposed to test his skill against Nimrod. This story was inspired by the time Fischer played chess against the Greenblat Computer designed by MIT. He defeated the computer in three separate matches. Reference to Fischer in this story should be considered topical since he died in 2008.

• Speaking of Nimrod, this computer is depicted as a massive room-sized machine that has a chessboard display that lights up what chess pieces it wants to be moved where. Someone would have to physically move the chess pieces to where the computer dictates. That’s about as sophisticated as computers got in the 1970s which is laughable in the 21st Century where a computer has been developed to play Jeopardy against human contestants. The dated trappings of this computer should be considered topical.

• However, the reference to the discredited Curacao 1962 chess move would not be a topical reference, but rather a historical one.

• It is stated here that Sporadik has been playing chess since 1945. This date should be considered topical. Instead, modern readers should interpret this to mean that Sporadik has been playing chess professionally for 27 years at the time of this story.

• Dated pop-culture references: Howard Hughes, Richard Nixon

• Dated Cold War references: Reds, Commies, Soviet Union