In Latveria, Doctor Doom plans to defeat the Fantastic Four before ruling the world himself. Doom travels to New York and ensnares the Baxter Building with a giant electrical wire. He reveals himself to the Fantastic Four, and Reed recognizes Doom. Reed tells the others of how he and Victor Von Doom were once classmates at college years ago and that Doom's forbidden experiments resulted in an explosion which scarred his face and resulted in his expulsion. Doom travelled the world in search of specialists to restore his face, but to no avail. He eventually ended up in Tibet and obtained many secrets of science and sorcery from a remote monastery, along with a suit of armor. Reed agrees to go to Latveria in order to face up to Doom's challenge, and the rest of the team go with him. In Doom's homeland, he tells the Four of how he needs more wealth in order to rule the world and gets Reed, Ben and Herbie to travel back in time to take the treasure of Blackbeard the pirate, while holding Sue hostage. Back in the past, the rest of the team dress up as pirates in order to be less conspicuous, and end up joining a pirate ship's crew. They search the ship and find the treasure in the captain's quarters. After defeating the crew, Ben is hailed as being the greatest of all pirates by the crew, who dub him Blackbeard. With the real identity of Blackbeard discovered, Reed has to figure out a way of keeping the treasure safe from Doom before they return to the future and to then rescue Sue.