LIDDLEVILLE

Classification: Terrestrial technological construct

Creator: Dr. Doom (Victor von Doom), Mad Thinker, Puppet Master (Phillip Masters)

User/Possessors: Dr. Doom, Intelligencia (Leader/Samuel Sterns, Mad Thinker, M.O.D.O.K./George Tarleton, Red Ghost/Ivan Kragoff, Wizard/Bentley Wittman), Puppet Master

Inhabitants: Ben Grimm (Thing), Dmitri Fortunov, Alicia Masters/Alicia Masters Grimm, Phillip Masters (Puppet Master), Johnny Storm (Human Torch), Franklin + Reed (Mr. Fantastic) + Sue (Invisible Girl/Woman) Richards, Sergei, Tabitha Smith (Meltdown), Vincent Vaughn (Dr. Doom) - all former residents/inhabitants of synthe-clone bodies;
    Micronauts (Acroyear, Bug, Devil, Marionette, Arcturus Rann) - visitors;
    Mrs. Lucas, Betty Lou Anderson, Doctor Singh, Doom's robot guards - robots without known human hosts;
    Josiah Liddle (alleged town founder);
(virtual reality version) Bruce Banner, Beast (Henry McCoy), Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom), Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), T'Challa, Wasp (Henry Pym) - inhabitants
A.I.M., Betty Banner, Laurie Banner, Skip Banner, Leader (Samuel Sterns), M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only for Knowledge), Thaddeus Ross - digital constructs

Location: Dr. Doom's Adirondack Castle (though it has also been found in Doom's Latverian Castle);
(virtual reality version) mobile on the Intelligencia's flying Hellcarrier

First Appearance: Fantastic Four I#236 (November, 1981)

Powers/Abilities/Functions: Liddleville is a perfect scale model of a miniature town (no more than several feet across) inhabited by numerous miniature robots in humanoid form. There are several stations where people can be mentally linked, so that their minds are transferred into one of the "synthe-clones"--which are miniature versions of their original bodies, formed from their own cells and combined with circuitry--of Liddleville, and they believe themselves to be residents of the town. Within the town are working models of everything that would exist in a similar town at full-size.
    Robot Guards exist on the perimeter of Liddleville, to prevent any of its inhabitants from escaping the town.
     The style of the cars and shops of the original version of Liddleville were early 20th Century, but the version rebuilt by the Puppet Master was styled completely along the lines of the modern era.

   The Intelligencia's redesign of the original technology with Leadertech trapped the individuals connected to the machine in a virtual reality environment in digital versions of themselves.

History:
(Fantastic Four I#236 (fb) - BTS) - Wishing to regain control of Latveria, Dr. Doom concocted a plot to keep the Fantastic Four from interfering. He enlisted the Puppet Master to construct Liddleville to his specifications. Doom's technology provided the robotics and other means to facilitate the process. The Puppet Master then used his clay to control each of the Fantastic Four, as well as Franklin Richards and Alicia Masters, and bring them to Doom, who hooked them up to his device and transferred their minds into synthe-clones.
    Each of the subjects had no memory of their lives as the Fantastic Four and lived out imaginary lives where they never gained their powers. Reed and Sue were still married and had a son, Franklin, but Reed worked at Liddleville College, as a subordinate to Vincent Vaughn, who was really Doom. Doom used his technology to addle Reed Richards' thoughts just enough that he could never succeed as a scientist, to prevent him from realizing what was really going on, and to allow himself to enter Liddleville as Vaughn and humiliate and taunt his now-inept foe. Johnny was a young bachelor, while Ben and Alicia were happily married, and Alicia had never been blind. Masters' primary role in Liddleville was to enjoy his daughter's happiness.

(Fantastic Four I#236) - Within Liddleville, the Fantastic Four began to have dreams of their real lives. Comparing notes and noticing the similarities, they began to suspect some unknown connection. Eventually, as Vaughn continued to belittle Richards, he finally broke free from his conditioning and realized the truth, so he told the others, who initially doubted him. Ben was especially resistant to return to his real life, as he preferred this fictional one. However, when they confronted Masters, the Fantastic Four were taunted by the real Dr. Doom, who towered over the tiny city. Doom considered them to be helpless and left them to live out their lives trapped in Liddleville. Doom trapped the Puppet Master in Liddleville, as well.
    Using a functional particle accelerator at Liddleville College, Reed replicated the energies that originally granted them their powers and unlocked the power within the cells from which their synthe-clone bodies had been made. In fact, he subjected them to much higher relative levels, such that even in their diminutive forms, their powers would be comparable to their original levels, if not even greater. The Four then made their way to the edge of Liddleville, overpowered Doom's miniature Robot Guards stationed there, and escaped the village. They planned to return their minds to their own bodies, but found that Doom had removed the primary power shuttle module. Recognizing their need for a new power source, Reed and the boys rewired some of the equipment, while Sue attracted Doom to investigate. They then manipulated Doom into falling and contacting their power transfer device, which restored them all to their own bodies.
    At the same time, Doom--to escape the danger of the energies unleashed against him--had transferred his mind back into Vaughn's body. He planned to allow the FF to cart off his real body, and then to return to it when the Fantastic Four were off guard. However, the Puppet Master had reprogrammed the robots of Liddleville to serve only him, and they attacked Vaughn, destroying the device which controlled his mind transfer, and chasing him out of town.

(Micronauts I#41 (fb)) - Masters pretended surprise when the "people" of Liddleville elected him mayor, but the surprise was all too real when Dr. Doom returned and took over Liddleville by force. Having designed a miniature version of his own armor, "Vaughn" used it to defeat and imprison Masters.

 (Micronauts I#41) - Seeking to build a new Reducta-Craft to take them back to the Microverse, the Micronauts followed a recommendation from the Thing to try the reduction machinery present in Doom's Castle in the Adirondacks. The Castle was apparently empty, but the Micronauts encountered and investigated Liddleville. Based on the requests of the villagers, they investigated the miniature version of Castle Doom within the village, fighting off Doom's robots, but they were knocked out by anesthetic gas when confronted by Doom. In prison, they learned the origins of Liddleville from Masters, whom they then freed. As the Micronauts again confronted Doom and his robots, Masters used a small amount of radioactive clay he had sneaked into Liddleville to fashion a puppet of Doom, which he then used to immobilize his former captor. Masters mocked the helpless Doom as his castle went up in flames, and his own artificial face began to melt.
    The Micronauts left Doom to suffer his fate under Masters.

(Fantastic Four I#246) - Scant seconds after the Micronauts left Castle Doom, one of the Doombots approached Liddleville, confronted and smashed the Puppet Master synthe-clone, and removed the Vincent Vaughn/Dr. Doom synthe-clone, which they later used to restore Doom's mind to his true body.

(Thing I#4 (fb) - BTS) - Apparently after taking the Vaughn synthe-clone, the Doombots smashed Liddleville into pieces.

(Thing I#4) - Just a few rooms down from the smashed remnants of Liddleville, the Puppet Master's mind restored itself within some bits of his clay.

(Fantastic Four I#393 (fb) - BTS) - Masters apparently rebuilt Liddleville.

(Fantastic Four I#393) - Masters ambushed the Thing, gassed him, and brought him to the rebuilt Liddleville. There he transferred both Ben and Alicia's minds into synthe-clones so that they would live a happy life together. Ultimately, Masters awakened the Thing and asked him if he should keep Alicia in her happy, fictional world, or bring her back to reality, where she was sad and alone. Ben instructed him to wake her up and crushed the control device to Liddleville.

(X-Force I#63 (fb) - BTS) - Liddleville was apparently transported to Doom's Latverian Castle at some point.

(X-Force I#63 (fb)) - With Doom missing in action as a result of the final confrontation with Onslaught, Dmitri Fortunov (apparently the grandson of the Latverian baron Doom had deposed decades before) sought to retake the castle for his family. However, upon breaking into the castle, he and his friend Sergei were captured by Doom's robot guards, who placed their minds into synthe-clones in Liddleville. Sergei's mind was apparently destroyed in the process, and he died.

(X-Force I#63 (fb)) - Seeking to take Doom's time platform, X-Force followed Nathaniel Richards into Doom's Latverian Castle. There Meltdown was separated from the group, captured by a robot servitor of Doom's, and placed within a synthe-clone in Liddleville.

(X-Force I#63) - Meltdown ran into Fortunov, and the two barely had time to swap stories when they were located by Cable, who returned their minds to their own bodies with the aid of Nathaniel Richards.

(Hulk II#19 - BTS) - The Frightful Four (Klaw, Lyra, Trapster, Wizard) kidnapped Reed Richards from the Baxter Building as the first of eight people the Intelligencia needed for their plan to change the world.

(Incredible Hulk I#606 - BTS) - The Intelligencia sent the Cosmic Hulk automaton to kidnap Doctor Doom from his castle in Latveria. Doom accidentally absorbed a radiant neural anesthetizer along with the Cosmic Hulk's power, which left his intellect massively reduced and made him an easy target for the Cosmic Hulk, who took Doom to the Leader to add him to the Intelligencia's growing collection of geniuses.

   Red Shulk attacked the Avengers to kidnap Pym for the Intelligencia.

(Hulk II#20) - On the Hellcarrier Reed Richards and Doom were connected to the Liddleville technology while Leader boasted how each member of the Intelligencia could've come up with a way to keep the eight smartest men alive and in check, but instead chose to use Doom's own Liddleville technology against him. While the first two were already trapped in a digitally created virtual environment, M.O.D.O.K. made it known to his allies that he desired the knowledge inside their brains. Mad Thinker was already working on the mind transfer process using the Liddleville technology. M.O.D.O.K. also believed capturing Tony Stark was not necessary due to his mentally disabled state at the time if they stayed on schedule. Leader sent Red Ghost and this Super Apes to Wakanda to capture Beast and T'Challa.

(Incredible Hulk I#607 - BTS) - Red She-Hulk succeeded to kidnap Pym after he got hit by the neural anesthetizer and accidentally shrunk his body instead of growing it. She just grabbed the tiny Pym and teleported away.

(Hulk II#20 - BTS) - Red Ghost captured T'Challa during a blackout he had caused in Wakanda. The X-Men (Angel, Beast, Cyclops and Iceman), who were attending the birthday of T'Challa's wife Storm at the time, went after Red Ghost, but his Super Apes stood in their way from reaching the Red Ghost. As planned Beast made it through and got knocked out by Red Ghost's gorilla Mikhlo, who got murdered moments later by the Red Hulk. Red Ghost took his revenge on Red Hulk by crushing his heart and then escaped Wakanda with the kidnapped T'Challa and McCoy.

(Incredible Hulk I#608) - On the Hellcarrier McCoy, Pym and T'Challa were connected to the Liddleville machine with its Leadertech redesigns. During an attack on the Hellcarrier by Banner and several allies of the kidnapped geniuses, Banner made it to the Liddleville machine thanks to the aid of Lyra, who had been working undercover for Banner the whole time, and his son Skaar, who had been oblivious to Banner's alliance with Lyra and the Red Hulk. Banner determined that he had to carefully extract each genius from the fantasy world their minds had been trapped in, but before he could start Red She-Hulk attacked Skaar. Banner quickly put together a gun to stop her and gloated how he would disconnect Reed and the others within 19 seconds while Amadeus saved Betty and Red Hulk destroyed the Cathexis-Ray to finally thwart the Intelligencia's plans. To Banner's shock Red Hulk had been caught by the Intelligencia and was now used as the Cathexis-Ray's power source, which turned an army of A.I.Marines and the heroes attacking the Hellcarrier into unstable Hulks.

(Incredible Hulk I#608 - BTS) - Banner got knocked out and captured during the chaos.

(Hulk II#21/Incredible Hulk I#608) - Banner got connected to the Liddleville machine.

(Incredible Hulk I#608) - Banner woke up in bed next to his wife Betty in events he believed to be happening one year later. In the real world M.O.D.O.K., Leader and Red She-Hulk gleefully watched Banner trapped in the Liddleville technology.

(Hulk II#22) - Red Hulk fought his way through some of the transformed heroes on the Hellcarrier and discovered that Banner had gotten captured and trapped in the Liddleville machine. Attacks by Spider-Man, Wolverine and Red She-Hulk prevented him from doing anything about it.

(Incredible Hulk I#609) - In the virtual reality Bruce lived happily with his wife Betty and their two children Laurie and Skip. Thaddeus Ross was close to the family and considered Bruce a hero for finally killing the Hulk and even playfully reenacted the event while playing with Skip. Bruce was still confused because he had only recently been added to the simulation and relied on Betty telling him what was going on. Betty accompanied Bruce to Founders' Village in the Library Square in Manhattan and showed him how he was part of a group of scientists, which also included Richards, T'Challa, Pym, McCoy and Doom, which kept everyone save. The facility was guarded by A.I.M. and everyone, including the Leader, loved Bruce because he was the one that killed the Hulk.

   In the real world Bruce clearly enjoyed the fantasy he was trapped in while Red She-Hulk asked Leader why he didn't just kill Banner. Leader revealed that they still needed 23 hours before all the useful information in his brain was downloaded into M.O.D.O.K., but assured her that the fantasy would keep him quiet. M.O.D.O.K. warned Leader that they didn't have that much time left because the Hulked-out Heroes were tearing apart the Hellcarrier.

   Back in the simulation Banner was working at the Founders' Laboratory when he was approached by Doom, who pointed out how they were all getting dumber by showing how Richards, Pym and T'Challa were impressed by simple long division. Doom had figured out that their work at the library provided M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only For Knowledge) with information he needed to run the world, but Doom was able to resist the process of losing his knowledge to M.O.D.O.K. to some degree due to his mystic knowledge. He knew they were trapped in a simulation and summoned a gauntlet that felt more real like anything else in the world, but he could only push at the edges of this fantasy world and not break them out. He proofed his point by turning Banner's hand green with a mere touch from the gauntlet and then handed it over for Banner to find out where the gauntlet came from because Banner had just awakened in this fantasy world and still possessed most of his knowledge, which Doom hoped could find a way to take them back to the real world. Back home Banner had the gauntlet analyzed and found out about its mystic nature, but not its point of origin. For a second he woke up in the real world, but his mind was quickly submerged in the illusion again when his son Skip interrupted him. Banner terminated the test sequence and dropped the gauntlet to be with his happy family instead. Some time later Doom turned up at Banner's home and congratulated Banner on finishing the gauntlet and figuring out how it worked. He asked Banner to turn it on, but Banner denied his wish and asked him to leave. Skip approached Doom and asked his dad to turn it on as well, but Bruce believed it was too dangerous and could kill them. Doom used his mystic powers to turn Skip into a Hulk to destroy the fantasy world they were trapped in because he was unable to escape it on his own. Bruce and his family fled to the Library where Leaderville autodefense guns were activated to fight off this new Hulk. Doom once again asked Bruce to turn on the gauntlet, but before he could do so, Skip was killed by Betty with a rocket. Betty promised that Skip would just wake up in the morning and their perfect world would continue, but Bruce couldn't continue to live in a fantasy and activated the gauntlet.

   In the real world Bruce awakened and while he was still connected to the Littleville machine saw A-Bomb fight the Red She-Hulk in front of the machine. Doom had been awakened as well and tried to take control over the machine to upload all the other subjects' minds to his brain, but his mind had still been diminished and he accidentally fried his own brain instead of downloading the others' when he plugged in an unshielded Sterns Y-cable into a 15 teraflop Stark CPU. Banner knew, but didn't tell Doom before it was too late. Doom tried to take his revenge on Banner, but got punched through the Hellcarrier's wall by Red She-Hulk.

(Incredible Hulk I#610) - With the simulation broken McCoy, Pym, Richards and T'Challa woke up in the real world as well and immediately began to work with Banner to reverse the Cathexis Ray and thwart the Intelligencia's scheme by using some of the components of the Liddleville machine.

Comments: Created by John Byrne.

    I realize that it wouldn't be as good of a story and would basically ruin everything else, but it always makes villains lose credibility in my eyes when they capture a hero and then put him through some elaborate plot--which they always escape--rather than just kill their foes when they get the chance. I call it Dr. Evil syndrome.

    It was never specified where the Puppet Master rebuilt Liddleville, but it was described as distant from Castle Doom in Latveria. It may well have been Doom's castle in the Adirondacks, or somewhere else entirely.

    Those robots in X-Force were apparently able to manufacture synthe-clones in mere minutes.

In What If? II#109 (Earth-989), there was an alternate world version of Liddleville:
    In this alternate reality, Ben Grimm chose not to join his comrades in their attack on Doctor Doom, but chose to remain in Liddleville. However, Reed Richards gave him instructions in case they did not contact him within a certain amount of time so that he could become the Thing and investigate what happened to them. Indeed, Grimm did not hear from his comrades for some time, and so he decided to become the Thing again. Doing so, he ambushed one of Doctor Doom's guardian robots in Liddleville and forced it to take him to the sky in Liddleville. To his horror, Grimm saw that all of his comrades were dead. Without his aid, they did not defeat Doctor Doom.
    Grimm returned to his home with Alicia only to find that Doctor Doom (in his Vincent Vaughn identity) had taken Alicia, Franklin, and Jacob Reiss (?, probably Phillip Masters?) captive. Realizing that Vincent Vaughn was of course Victor von Doom, the Thing demanded that he return them to their true bodies, and stole the ring that Doom used to jump from body to body, stating he would not return it until his demands were met.
     Franklin, Alicia, and the Thing then woke up in their true bodies-or so they thought. Immediately, Doom appeared above them, revealing that he had created a miniature version of his castle in which they would be forced to persist in their artificial bodies for the rest of their days.
    Also, that story had Ben Grimm go to "Sam's Tavern and Lounge" and talk with Sam.
    --Per Degaton

Inside the simulation the autodefense systems were refered to as Leaderville technology in Incredible Hulk I#609. Considering the fake virtual reality was set in Manhattan it was probably not the name of the world as far as its inhabitants knew, but it is possible that it was the name used by the Intelligencia to refer to the virtual reality.
--Markus Raymond

Profile by Snood. Update by Markus Raymond (Hulk stories).

CLARIFICATIONS:
Liddleville has no known connection to:

Dr. Doom's "Vincent Vaughn" alter-ego has no known connections to:

Vincent Vaughn

With the assistance of the Puppet Master, Dr. Doom trapped the Fantastic Four in tiny "synthe-clone" bodies, and the powerless quartet lived mundane and imaginary lives within the miniature town of Liddleville.

Doom would occasionally interact with Reed Richards by transferring his mind into the tiny robotic facsimile "Professor Vincent Vaughn," president of Liddleville College-- the robot's appearance was based on that of Victor von Doom (before his face was disfigured), and Doom controlled the mental transference process by means of the ring on "Vaughn's" left hand.

"Vaughn" employed Richards as a mere instructor at the college--Doom was using technology to addle Richards' thoughts, to further humiliate his foe; but Richards eventually discovered the truth of the group's plight, and the FF returned to their original bodies. Doom remained behind in Liddleville as "Vaughn," but his ring was destroyed by the Puppet Master and Liddleville's robotic citizens, who chased him out of town.

"Vaughn" later built a miniature version of Doom's armor for himself, then took control of Liddleville and forced the robots to build him a castle, where he imprisoned Puppet Master. The Micronauts intervened and fought Doom's forces, while the Puppet Master used a bit of his radioactive clay to fashion a puppet of "Vaughn," which he used to immobilize his former captor. Puppet Master mocked the helpless "Vaughn"/Doom as his castle went up in flames, and the artificial flesh of his handsome face began to melt.

But scant moments after the Micronauts left, one of the Doombots retrieved the "Vaughn" robot, and Doom's mind was eventually restored to his true body.

--Fantastic Four I#236  (Fantastic Four I#236, Micronauts I#41, Fantastic Four I#246

images: (without ads)
Fantastic Four I#236, p19, (Liddleville, surrounded by Dr. Doom, Fantastic Four, Franklin Richards, and Alicia Masters)
Fantastic Four I#236, p17-18 ("giant" Dr. Doom looms over Liddleville and Fantastic Four)
Fantastic Four I#393, p16, pan3 (Liddlevile, surrounded by Puppet Master, Alicia Masters, Thing)
X-Force I#63, p17, pan1 (Liddleville, surrounded by Dmitri Fortunov, Nathaniel Richards, Tabitha Smith, Cable)
Fantastic Four I#236, p12, pan4 (Vincent Vaughn; Reed Richards (background))
Fantastic Four I#236, p24, pan6 (Reed Richards discovers inert Vincent Vaughn robot)
Fantastic Four I#236, p40, pan2-3 (Vincent Vaughn with mental transference ring; ring smashed by thrown rock)
Fantastic Four I#246, p4, pan6 (Vincent Vaughn (face melted) in Doom armor; Puppet Master (background))
Hulk II#22, p2, pan4 (geniuses connected to Leaderville machine)
Incredible Hulk I#609, p2, pan2 (Founders' Library in Leaderville)

Appearances:
Fantastic Four I#236 (November, 1981) - John Byrne (writer/artist), Jim Salicrup (editor)
Micronauts I#41 (May, 1982) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Gil Kane (pencils), Danny Bulanadi (inks), Al Milgrom (editor)
Fantastic Four I#246 (September, 1982) - John Byrne (writer/artist), Jim Salicrup (editor)
Thing I#4 (October, 1983) - John Byrne (writer), Ron Wilson (pencils), Hilary Barta (inks), Ann Nocenti (editor)
Fantastic Four I#393 (October, 1994) - Tom DeFalco (script/plot), Paul Ryan (plot/pencils), Dan Bulanadi (inks), Ralph Macchio (editor)
X-Force I#63 (February, 1997) - John Francis Moore (writer), Anthony Castrillo (pencils), Mark Morales & Chad Hunt (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
Hulk II#19 (March, 2010) - Jeph Loeb (writer), Ed McGuinness (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Incredible Hulk I#606 (March, 2010) - Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Hulk II#20 (April, 2010) - Jeph Loeb (writer), Ed McGuinness (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Incredible Hulk I#607 (April, 2010) - Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Hulk II#21 (May, 2010) - Jeph Loeb (writer), Ed McGuinness (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Incredible Hulk I#608 (May, 2010) - Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Danny Miki & Crimelab Studios (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Hulk II#22 (July, 2010) - Jeph Loeb (writer), Ed McGuinness (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Incredible Hulk I#609 (July, 2010) - Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Incredible Hulk I#610 (August, 2010) - Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Mark Paniccia (editor)

First Posted: 01/23/2004
Last updated: 01/09/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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