You may not think of Doctor Doom, Marvel's villain of villains, to be any kind of music fan - or at the very least, as Spider-Man teases in X-Men: The Hellfire Gala #1, the kind of guy who only listens to "fascist marching music". But that same one-shot implies that, like many of us, Doom is a sucker for the Man Who Fell to Earth, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Starman himself (not the DC one), David Bowie.
How do we know? Doom admits it himself.
Light spoilers ahead for X-Men: The Hellfire Gala #1
Among the many attendees of the 2022 Hellfire Gala, the hot topic of conversation is the recently revealed secret of mutant resurrection (find out how the secret got out to the rest of the world right here).
Though Emma Frost is quick to clarify to the Gala's many non-mutant guests - including current Sorcerer Supreme Clea, who seeks to resurrect Doctor Strange - that the Resurrection Protocols are only open to mutants, guests still find themselves speculating about which dead famous people may secretly have harbored the X-Gene in their DNA.
Enter Spider-Man, who finds himself startled by Doctor Doom, and jokingly asks if the Latverian Dictator and arch-enemy of the Fantastic Four would be more excited to find that Jimi Hendrix or David Bowie (both legendary dead musicians, of course) were a mutant and available for resurrection.
Quickly cracking the joke we mentioned at the start about Doom's dictatorial leanings, Spidey flees when Doom castigates him, flatly stating "Be gone from me."
But after Spidey is out of earshot, Doom wonders aloud, "Could Bowie have been a mutant?", openly implying that Doom is a fan of the dearly departed glam rock star.
And why not? Doom may find quite a bit to like in the music of Bowie, a fellow practitioner of magic and fictitious futurist who often put those influences right into his records.
That's not the only fun and funky moment in X-Men: The Hellfire Gala #1. As with last year's gala, there are some celebrity guests, including popular dance partner Jon Hamm (who Cyclops jokes is one of Jean Grey's 'Hall Pass' celebrities - if you don't get it, we're not explaining it).
But there are also a few more close-to-home cameos, including none other than former Deadpool writer Brian Posehn, who co-wrote Deadpool's title alongside current X-Men writer Gerry Duggan, who also wrote The Hellfire Gala one-shot.
And true to form, Posehn manages to get the side-eye from Deadpool himself, also a guest at the Gala.
Then there's current X-Men group editor Jordan D. White, who seems to be there with Gwenpool - though he jokingly demurs at her requests to join the cast of an X-title.
Finally - and this might be a biggie for all you recent Stranger Things season 4 fans - there's Eddie, the Iron Maiden mascot (who may or may not be a hallucination of Brian Posehn).
Up the Irons!
Meet the new X-Men team for 2022, revealed in X-Men: The Hellfire Gala #1.
