Doctor Doom

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Doctor Doom, real name Victor von Doom, is a Marvel Comics supervillain. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he debuted in The Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962). His full origin was told in Fantastic Four Annual #2 (1964).

A brilliant scientist, Doom was once a classmate of the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards. However, he became embittered by his jealousy of Richards and by facial scars received from an experiment gone awry, and perhaps from impatiently donning a steaming-hot iron mask forged by mystic monks.

Doom is considered the archenemy of the Fantastic Four, but has also been added to the rogue galleries of the Avengers, the Punisher, the Silver Surfer, the Hulk, Iron Man and Spider-Man. He is one of the comic book industry's most recognizable and archetypal supervillains. His ruling of the small nation of Latveria provides him with diplomatic immunity, an ingenious element never previously used in comic books.

He is not to be confused with the obscure Fox Comics villain Dr. Doom, introduced in Science Comics #1 (Feb. 1940), and who, like Marvel's Dr. Doom in Astonishing Tales, was the star of his own features in Science, Big 3, and The Green Mask. Neither are to be confused with the supernatural monster-hunter Doctor Droom a.k.a. Doctor Druid, Marvel's first ongoing Silver Age hero.

Contents

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Character history

Vince was born to Werner von Doom, a noted healer, and Cynthia von Doom, who was said to be a witch. His mother was killed when Victor was an infant.

While a child, he discovered his mother's magical artifacts and von Doom began his studies into the occult as well as developing his innate scientific abilities. His astounding reputation came to the attention of the dean of science at State University in America, and von Doom was offered a full scholarship. At State, von Doom first met both Reed Richards and Ben Grimm, two men who would go on to become his enemies in later years as Mister Fantastic and the Thing, respectively. Richards, in particular, represented a substantial threat to Doom's self-perceived superiority. Doom began conducting hazardous extra-dimensional experiments. Image:Doctor-doom-mf.jpg The focus of Doom's research was to construct a trans-dimensional projection device with which he could communicate with his dead mother. There was a flaw in the design which Richards pointed out to him, but Doom's pride prevented him from accepting Richards' advice and fixing the device before testing it. The machine worked perfectly for two minutes and 37 seconds, in which time Doom discovered that his mother was trapped in Mephisto's Hell. Then the device exploded, permanently damaging Doom's face; the most recent retelling of Doom's origin attests that this was the work of Mephisto striking at him, and by some accounts, the facial damage amounted only to one cheek being marked with a long, jagged scar, a scar that Doom's incredible vanity magnified into a hideous disfigurement. Refusing to acknowledge his own fault in the matter, Doom blamed Richards for the accident, finding it easier to believe that Richards had sabotaged his work out of jealousy than admit to his own imperfection.

Doom was expelled from school afterward, and traveled the world searching for a cure for his scarred face, which he viewed as a symbol of his failure. Eventually Doom discovered a village of Tibetan monks amongst whom he lived for a number of years. Mastering their sorcerous disciplines, he took control of the monastery, and had the monks assist him in crafting a suit of body armor. In his eagerness to finish donning the suit and begin his new life as "Doctor Doom," however, he donned the armor's fresly-cast mask before he it had been properly cooled, ensuring that, if his face had not been seriously disfigured before, it now most certainly was. This suit would become his trademark, and thanks to his technological enhancements, it puts him on par in terms of personal power with most superheroes in the Marvel universe. After this, he returned to his homeland, overthrew the standing government, and crowned himself king. Ruling with an iron fist and an equally strong will, Doom began to redirect the small nation's resources to help him realize his goals. Image:Ff247.png Doom was briefly deposed by Zorba, a prince from the royal family Doom had previously overthrown. After months in exile, Doom managed to convince the Fantastic Four to aid him in taking back Latveria by showing them that under Zorba's corrupt rule, the nation had fallen into crime and poverty. Realizing Doom's rule was superior to this, the team reluctantly agreed. Doom soon killed Zorba and reclaimed his throne, but in the process one of his loyal Latverian subjects was killed before his eyes. Doom adopted the fallen woman's son, Kristoff Vernard, and raised the boy as his heir. In addition, as Doom considers his genius and leadership to be priceless assets to the Earth, he used Kristoff as a fallback plan to be used in the unlikely event of his premature death. When Doom was indeed seemingly killed, his robots enacted this plan and copied Doom's knowledge and memories into young Kristoff's brain. For a time, Kristoff even believed himself to be Doom, but eventually realized the truth and submitted to the true Doom's rule. Kristoff seems to be the half-brother of Doom's hated rival Reed Richards, though none of the three seem to be aware of this fact.

In 2003, Doom realized he was unnecessarily limiting himself by focusing on technology, and only occasionally his magical birthright. He sold his childhood sweetheart's soul to a trio of demons in exchange for unlimited magical ability and new leather armour made of her skin. As a direct result of this storyline, Doom was confined to Hell, but later recovered by Reed, who intended to trap him in a small Moebius strip dimension forever. To effect his escape, Doom's consciousness possessed Ben Grimm, forcing Richards to kill them both. Ben Grimm was later brought back from the dead, but Doom remained trapped in Hell. Template:Spoilerabout Image:Doom hammer.jpgWhen the deceased Thor's hammer, Mjolnir fell to Earth, it passed through time and space, momentarily breaching the gateway to Hell itself, providing Doom a way to escape.

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Goals

Doctor Doom is driven by three principal objectives: the destruction of Reed Richards, world domination, and the liberation of his mother's soul from the demon Mephisto's realm. He has so far achieved two of these aims. With the help of Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts and Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, he wrested his mother's spirit from Mephisto's grasp; a vital step in this process turned out to be tricking his mother into renouncing her love for Victor, and though it was difficult for him he was able to make that necessary sacrifice.

He has also achieved world domination several times, but has relinquished it for a variety of reasons, including boredom. In the graphic novel Emperor Doom, he achieved control of the world by using and amplifying the mind control power of the Purple Man. And when the world's mightiest heroes returned from the alternate Earth to which they had been shunted following their confrontation with the sentient psionic being Onslaught, Doctor Doom remained behind and conquered that planet, which he dubbed "Planet Doom." On both occasions he was by most accounts a very good ruler, leading this world into a period of unparalleled prosperity. And on both occasions he eventually abdicated as ruler, finding the task of world domination to be tedious once it had finally been achieved. In a short-lived series of comics set in the year 2099, Doctor Doom was transported to that time from some point in our current near future and upon seeing the decrepit state of Latveria he becomes the President of the United States in order to curb the power of the megacorporations based there that were oppressing his people. As a side effect he begins improving the quality of life in the United States as well, re-instituting democracy and an effective non-corrupt police force.

Despite repeated attempts through the years, Doom has been unable to completely defeat Mister Fantastic, although several of their encounters have resulted in temporary victories for Doom. In hand-to-hand battle, he has also been physically humiliated by the Thing and Doom has vowed to take revenge on both men. He has come close on several occasions; however, he has failed to permanently defeat either of them (just as they have failed to permanently defeat him).

Doctor Doom's plans are fueled by his ego and his conviction that he is not only capable of world domination, but also worthy and deserving of it. While he is utterly heartless and places little value on the lives of others, he also follows a strict code of honor. Several times he has struck bargains with various characters in the Marvel Universe, and he has always upheld those bargains, honoring his word and following through with his promises to the letter. He is a cruel and ruthless dictator; yet while he rules his nation of Latveria with an iron fist and is willing to deliver swift and cruel punishments, he also treats his subjects fairly (as long as they acknowledge his absolute rule) and at times has even put himself at risk to protect his kingdom and subjects. This complexity has made him one of the more interesting characters in the Marvel Universe.

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Adversaries

Although he is primarily a Fantastic Four villain, Doctor Doom appears all over the Marvel Universe, casually stomping on anyone who gets in his way. He has faced the Avengers and the X-Men on numerous occasions. He is not above using them to get what he wants either. Only recently, Doom used the Avengers to add more territory to Latveria.

Individual heroes such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Dazzler and Squirrel Girl have become embroiled in his schemes (the latter handed him one of the most inglorious defeats of his career). In the past, he has managed to usurp the omnipotent power of the Silver Surfer, Galactus, Aron the Rogue Watcher and the Beyonder. One of the few characters who have actually managed to forcibly humiliate and even outsmart and manipulate Doom is Hyperstorm, whose cosmic-scale power he tried to usurp but failed. On one occasion, Spider-Man reluctantly foiled an assassination attempt on Doom as the latter arrived in New York City, representing Latveria as its head of state.

Doom has occasionally helped the super-heroes as well. Seeing how he cannot abide by anyone else ruling Earth but him, Doom assisted Earth's super-heroes in the fight against Onslaught and Thanos. He would do anything to maintain his despotic rule over the kingdom of Latveria.

It could be reasoned that Doom is foremost of several villains who acts as an enemy for every Marvel hero, much like Darkseid in the DC Universe.

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Powers and abilities

Doom's most dangerous weapon is his genius-level intellect. He is easily one of the smartest human beings in the Marvel Universe, consistently beaten by Reed Richards largely due only to his own arrogance and egocentrism. Richards and T'Challa (the Black Panther) have proven to be his intellectual matches, and Iron Man, Spider-Man, and others may be able to approach his level; nonetheless, Doom is easily the smartest human villain in the Marvel Universe. Doom has constructed hundreds of devices, including a working time machine (the first of its kind on Earth), devices which can imbue people with superpowers, and many types of robots. His most frequently-used robots are his "Doombots," exact mechanical replicas of the real Doctor Doom. They look like him, talk like him, and even act like him. Individually, Doombots have an advanced A.I. program that causes them to believe themselves really to be Doctor Doom. In order to prevent his duplicates from harming or out-performing him, Doctor Doom installs each Doombot with a dampener program that reduces all of its abilities when activated. This program is triggered whenever a Doombot enters Von Doom's presence or the presence of other Doombots. These imitation Dooms have been created to impersonate Doctor Doom when he either cannot be present or is unwilling to risk his own life (such as when confronting powerful foes). They are also, in a way, a plot device: often, if Doom is apparently defeated, acts out of character in a story, or even seems to die, "it was only a robot". Another common sight around Latveria are the purple-and-grey Servo-Guards, who resemble hulking humans in metallic armor and enforce Doom's laws.

Doom also possesses a good deal of sorcerous ability which he learned from his time with a Secret order of Monks in Tibet, able to fire blasts of mystical energy from his hands, create protective shields of magical energy, ensnare foes in bands of energy (the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak), and create portals to other planes of existence, such as Mephisto's hellish realm or the Dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines. Doom has also developed the ability to transfer psionically his consciousness into another nearby human being with whom he's made eye contact, a process which he learned from the alien Ovoids. However, Doom prefers his own body and only uses this transference power as a last resort. It has been stated that Dr. Doom is, in fact, next in line for the title of Sorceror Supreme after Dr. Strange.

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Armor

Dr. Doom's iron-clad face is instantly recognizable to most of the world's population, a fact attributable to his infamous, high-tech, nuclear powered, computer assisted battle suit. Doom's first (and truly "original") set of armor was magically forged at a hidden monastery in the high mountains of Tibet; since then, his dark plated armor has been enhanced and repaired by normal technological means. Although a skilled practitioner of the mystic arts, Victor von Doom more often relies upon his armor for most of his powers. The armor is fashioned of a high-strength titanium alloy. Built into the right wrist is a video communicator, which he can use to stay in contact with all his bases from any point on Earth. To deal with those who would dare to touch Doom, the armor is built to generate a massive electric shock on command. The armor is equipped with twin jetpacks mounted at the waist which permit flight, though some suits contain a back-mounted single jetpack. Concussive bolts of force can be fired from the gauntlets and faceplate of the armor, though the mask only generates force blasts when it is not being worn. The suit's best defense is the force field generated by the armor, which has a maximum radius of eight feet (and so can encompass others); Doom cannot attack without lowering his force field. Infrared scanners in the helmet allow the wearer to detect heat sources, permitting night vision and the ability to see invisible persons (unless they do not give off or can somehow mask their heat signature). The armor is self-supporting, equipped with internal stores & recycling systems for air, food, water, and energy, allowing the wearer to survive lengthy periods of exposure underwater or in outer space. Optical scanners in the helmet allow the helmet's eyepieces to be used as high-powered telescopes, and parabolic ear amplifiers fitted inside the helmet allow Doom to detect extremely faint sounds and unusual frequencies within the audible range for humans. A thermo-energizer allows the armor to absorb and store solar and heat energy, and use it to power the armor's other systems; this system can only be used while the force field is deactivated. In addition, Doom often carries a pistol (a "Broomhandle Mauser", at least in older stories) to dispose of weaker enemies whom he considers unworthy to kill with his armor's weaponry.

Being the leader of a sovereign nation, Doctor Doom enjoys the grace of diplomatic immunity while in America during the few times he is there for non-pernicious, political actions and diplomacy. He has even been accompanied and escorted by Captain America himself.

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Ultimate Doctor Doom

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Character history

In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Doctor Doom is Victor Van Damme, a direct descendant of Vlad Tepes Dracula, and was part of the Baxter Building, a government think-tank of young geniuses, such as Reed Richards and Susan Storm. Van Damme in this continuity is no longer the 'Marvel-wide threat' that he is in the normal continuity; that position probably belongs to Magneto. He worked to help Reed Richards develop a teleporter to the "N-Zone," but reprogrammed its coordinates without telling anyone. This caused the accident that gave the Ultimate Fantastic Four their powers. Van Damme was caught in the same accident, and his skin was changed into a metallic hide (with a somewhat reduced ability to perceive tactile sensations and pain), clawed hands, his legs transmogrified into demonic goat-hooved legs, and he re-appeared on Earth at an undisclosed location in Europe. He is now leading a small micronation called "Free State", "Freezone", or "The Keep", a Permanent Autonomous Zone located in Copenhagen, Denmark, where citizens live without rent in a shanty town under squatter's rights, and are given free comforts and necessities in exchange for loyalty to Van Damme. There, a tattoo is given to new settlers, which is made up of microfibres that mate with the brain stem so Van Damme can control them. However, the Fantastic Four eventually freed them from Doom's control during their first battle, and all subsequently left.

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Powers and abilities

Whereas the Fantastic Four attained the powers of the four classical elements - earth, fire, air and water - the Ultimate version of Doctor Doom has gained the power of the Chinese fifth element, metal. Additionally, Doom could expel the remains of his internal organs as a poisonous gas and could grow and fling porcupine-like volleys of quills from his forearms. He also possesses a regenerative power, but he cannot heal any wound caused by his own body. Therefore, the scar Reed made on Van Damme's face remains, because it was done with one of his own quills. Template:-

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Doom in alternate continuities

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2099

Doom held his own title in the Marvel 2099 continuity, appropriately titled Doom 2099.

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Age of Apocalypse

In the Age of Apocalypse, Victor Von Doom is an agent of the Human High Council and the Security Head of Eurasia. His facial scar is the result of a mutant uprising in Latveria. Like his 616 counterpart, Von Doom remains a ruthless man.

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House of M

In the recent House of M continuity, Doom is still the ruler of Latveria, but his mother is still alive, he is married to Valeria, and he has adopted Kristoff. Reed Richard's test flight still encountered cosmic radiation, but rather than empowering Reed, Sue and John Jameson, who went up instead of Johnny Storm, the radiation killed them. Ben Grimm survived, but his intelligence appeared to be reduced. This inspired Doom to create a Four of his own, consisting of himself, "The It" (Grimm), "The Invincible Woman" (Valeria), and "The Inhuman Torch" (Kristoff). However, due to Doom's arrogance, The It betrayed the team, Valeria and Kristoff were killed, and Doom was left broken and humiliated. In that reality, Doom possessed a liquid metal body, akin to the T-1000, which proved to be a major flaw when he tried to betray King Magnus.

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Mutant X

In the Mutant X universe, Doom is a hero and leader of his own super-team.

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1602

In Neil Gaiman's alternate-universe tale, Marvel 1602, Dr. Doom is "Count Otto von Doom", also known "Otto the Handsome". A mastermind genius of physics and even genetics, Von Doom keeps the Four of the Fantastik imprisoned in his castle. The Four eventually escape due to an attack on Doom's castle by the other heroes of the time, which also leads to the scarring of his face.

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Appearances in other media

Image:Drdoom.gif Template:Wikibooks

Doctor Doom has appeared in several video games. He was the final boss in the 1989 computer game "Spider-Man and Captain America in Doctor Doom's Revenge" and in Sega's 1991 Spider-Man arcade game. Later, he was featured as a boss character in the Capcom fighting game, "Marvel Super-Heroes," who only became playable after the game was beaten once and a code was entered. He returned as a selectable character in "Marvel vs. Capcom 2". He is particularly notorious for the so-called "Strider/Doom trap" in the latter game. He also appeared in Marvel Superheroes: War of the Gems for Super NES, and the various games based upon the 2005 Fantastic 4 movie. He most recently was an exclusive character for the PSP version of Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.

Dr. Doom has also appeared in several cartoons, including "The Fantastic Four" (1967-1970), "The New Fantastic Four" (1978-1979), "Spider-Man" (1981-1982) and "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" (1981-1983). In "The Fantastic Four" (1994-1996), he was voiced by Neil Ross in season one, retelling his classic origin and his theft of the Silver Surfer's power, and by Simon Templeman in season two, as he struck at a powerless FF, had his hand crushed by the Thing, directed the Hulk to attack the team and once again acquired the Power Cosmic. Templeman reprised his role for guest appearances in two episodes of "The Incredible Hulk" (1996-1997), in which Doom held Washington DC captive, only to be defeated by She-Hulk, whom he later attempted to claim revenge upon. Tom Kane took over the character for a three-part guest spot in the final season of "Spider-Man" (1994-1998), re-imagining Doom's role in the Secret Wars.

Dr. Doom was parodied in the animated TV series "The Venture Bros." in the form of the menacing Baron Underbheit. Like Doom, Underbheit rules a small fictitious European country known as Unterland, and has a rivalry with one of the protagonists (Dr. Venture to be precise). Whereas Doom blames Reed Richards for scarring his face, Underbheit blames Venture for violating a so-called sacred pact of lab partners, resulting in the loss of his lower jaw. It should be noted that another villain of the series, The Monarch, considers him a "Dime-store Dr. Doom".

A film based on the Fantastic Four was produced by Roger Corman in 1994, though never publicly released. In it, Doom (portrayed by Joseph Culp) was a college classmate of Reed Richards, who was nearly killed in an accident and brought back to life by loyal henchmen as a cyborg. Image:Doommovie.jpg

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2005 film

A new film version of the Fantastic Four came out in July 2005, in which Doom is a billionaire industrialist and old college rival of Reed Richards. In addition to funding Richards' trip to space, he also accompanies the future Fantastic Four on the ship. In this newer film, Doctor Doom is played by Julian McMahon (Charmed, Nip/Tuck), and, similar to Ultimate Doom, receives superpowers in the same accident that creates the Fantastic Four.

Here, he is endowed with two abilities by the cosmic rays — exposure to the rays imbues him with electrokinesis, and an injury caused by a piece of irradiated shrapnel from the shields intended to protect the station steadily begins to mutate his body into an organic-metallic compound. Doom accelerates the process to completion by exposing himself to a duplicated version of the cosmic rays. However, this process deforms his face, so Doom angrily dons his familiar mask to hide his face (Which is portrayed as a mask given to him by the people of Latveria as shown on a plaque on display in his office/boardroom). In another parallel with their Ultimate incarnations, the Fantastic Four receive abilities based on the four classical elements, while Doom again gains the Chinese "fifth element" of metal as his power.

Similar to reactions to Ultimate Doom, some viewers have also panned the film Doom's origins and powers due to their vast divergeance from the comic-book source material. Others believed that the script, combined with McMahon's performance, did not befit a villain such as Doom. While some fans liked Doom's mask and costume (Which, unlike the comic book version, did not expose his primary limbs and had a second layer on underneath), many others critized McMahon's physical and vocal performance (Eg. His actions when blasting people with electricity were unbelievable, as he usually kept his arms by his side), suggesting that a fully-masked villain requires a matching voice talent, such as James Earl Jones's fearsome Darth Vader voice in Star Wars.

Several comic-industry publications have lampooned the film's portrayal of Doctor Doom, and in a recent 2005 issue Toyfare magazine claimed that "Doom [i.e. the original comic book character] should sue for defamation of character".

Director Tim Story has confirmed that Doom will be in the sequel, though in response to criticisms stated, "He will be back in full DOOM, not like we had him in the first film."[1]

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Daniel Dumile as MF Doom

Rapper Daniel Dumile has launched a career under the Dr. Doom-esque pseudonyms MF Doom and more recently, Viktor Vaughn. The covers of MF Doom albums portray a dark-skinned character with Dr. Doom's mask and green hood. In the 2004 release, MM..Food?, Dumile used samples from old Fantastic Four read-along records, as well as featuring a fellow rapper named Mister Fantastik on the song 'Rapp Snitch Knishes'. Additionally, Dumile's album under the name Viktor Vaughn, Vaudeville Villain, is ripe with samples from various Fantastic Four records. MF Doom also almost always performs live in a metal mask extremely similar to that of the comic book villain.


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Influences on other characters

  • Some fans suspect that he was an inspiration for the Star Wars villain, Darth Vader. Mark Hamill noted that when he saw the preliminary designs for that character, he temporarily confused him for the Marvel supervillain. George Lucas has on rare occasions admitted the influence, although not in recent years, as cited in the book The Science of Supervillains.
  • In Stephen King's Dark Tower series of books, robots wearing green hoods and iron wolf masks are apparently Doombots, according to Eddie Dean, one of the main characters. They, however, carry lightsabers (probably a reference to the Doom/Vader comparison), along with other assorted weapons, and ride mechanical horses.
  • In a Duck Dodgers episode titled Enemy Yours, Dodgers appears as Dr. Destructocon with the exact costume, minus the iron mask.
  • South Park features a Doctor Doom parody named Professor Chaos. He wears a similar costume and also has similarly high ambitions, but he is limited by scale.
  • KRO and the House Band of the Apocalypse recorded a tune called "Doom (I'm the Doc)", an obvious reference. The song features a sample "Murdered by Doctor Doom" from the Fantastic Four comic as well as lyrics that relate to the villain.
  • The MMORPG City of Heroes features a supervillain named Nemesis who is in many ways a homage to Doctor Doom. He is never seen outside of his steam-powered suit of Brass armor and even has duplicates of his armor that are autonomous and appear often in the game as Fake Nemesis. The player can fight the supposedly 'real' Nemesis three times in the game but never knows if he finally got the real one as Nemesis has a knack for faking his own death.
  • A Jewish children's audio series called "The Marvelous Middos Machine" contains a character named "Doctor Doomstein" as the primary villain.
  • The webcomic Rob and Elliot features a recurring character named Baron von Doomsday, who appears mostly the same except for wearing a purple cloak and shares his predecessor's hatred of Reed Richards. He also maintains a MySpace account in which he details his plans for world conquest.
  • The Venture Bros. have a villain known as Baron Underbeit. Werner Underbeit was a classmate and lab partner of Dr. Thaddeus Venture in college, but Venture's incompetance led to a lab accident that blew off Underbeit's lower jaw and disfigured his face. Underbeit now resides in the Unterlands, serving as dictator, and wears a metal jaw.
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Trivia

  • Although Von Doom has significant scientific knowledge and ability, he lacks an advanced university degree; hence he should more appropriately be called Mr. Doom. Von Doom apparently likes the sound of "Doctor Doom"; as the absolute ruler of a country, he simply started calling himself that. It has been suggested that Doom granted himself an honorary doctorate from a Latverian university, though he has never formally obtained a doctorate and considers it a mere technicality.
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Bibliography of comic books starring Doctor Doom

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116,142-144,155-157,193-201,236,246-247,
258-260,268,278-279,287-288,304-305,311-312,
318-320,330,350,352,361,374-375,379-381,405,
407-409,413,416

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External links

de:Doctor Doom es:Doctor Muerte fi:Tohtori Doom fr:Docteur Fatalis it:Dottor Destino pt:Doutor Destino

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