DOCTOR DOOM

Victor von Doom has conquered nations, stolen cosmic power and rebuilt the universe in his own image, yet the debt that finally brought an angry hero through his castle gates was a two-hundred-dollar invoice. In Hero for Hire #8–9 (1973), a Latverian agent hired Luke Cage to hunt down four of Doom's robots that had fled to Harlem disguised as men, carrying state secrets with them.

Cage did the job, and the robots put up enough of a fight that he had to destroy them rather than deliver them intact. Doom's response, delivered with all the ceremony of a monarch ending an audience, was to refuse payment on the grounds that the merchandise had come back broken. Then he left the country. For most clients that would have ended the matter, because most clients do not keep a castle, an army and a diplomatic embassy between themselves and their creditors.

Cage treated the unpaid bill as a point of honor, borrowed a rocket from the Fantastic Four, and flew to Latveria to ask for his money face to face. He fought through Doom's guards, joined forces with a robot rebellion led by the alien Faceless One, and battered Doom's armor by striking the same spot again and again until it began to fail. When the Faceless One then tried to murder the helpless Doom, Cage stopped him — a man who owes you money is no use to you dead. Doom, impressed in spite of himself, paid the $200 in full and let his creditor walk out of Latveria alive.