Doctor Doom is, without a doubt, one of the best villains in comic book history. Arguably, he’s the best; he has menace, style, wit, flair, power, and even when you defeat him, he’s still the ruler of an entire country and untouchable by the law. (Even better, when he loses control of Latveria, the writer gets to do a story where he crushes his enemies and regains power. Nothing keeps a villain menacing like a story where he wins.)
But like all comic book characters, he’s been handled by literally dozens of writers over the decades, and some of those writers have dealt with him better than others. Doom is actually the poster boy for the TV Tropes “Actually a Doombot” trope, where all of his more embarrassing stories are explained away as being the work of Doombots masquerading imperfectly as him. Some writers, on the other hand, have developed a reputation as handling the character so well that he almost becomes a second protagonist…but in a fandom that comments obsessively on the best writers and the best runs for heroes, the best writers of recurring villains often go overlooked. This essay attempts to rectify that by answering the question, “Who are the best Doom writers?”
5. Steve Englehart. Englehart’s main Doom credentials are his long run on ‘Super-Villain Team-Up’ and his slightly less-well remembered, but still interesting run on ‘Fantastic Four’ (he had the bad luck to be in between John Byrne and Walt Simonson, both of whom will be on this list.) His SVTU run showed Doom going toe-to-toe with Namor, the FF, and the Avengers, and coming out on top more often than not; in addition, Englehart’s Doom goes into battle directly, something that isn’t often seen even among the other writers on this list. When Englehart writes Doom, you remember that he built a suit of battle armor every bit as tough as Iron Man.
He also wrote the story where Doom was deposed by his own adoptive son, which was interesting and showed a side of Doom we hadn’t seen, but is also the reason he’s #5 on the list; Walt Simonson elegantly showed that a man smart enough to plan for his own death by brainwashing his adoptive son to replace him is smart enough to have countermeasures for that, too. A Doom that has problems with a ten-year-old kid is a Doom that gets bumped a few notches down on the list.
4. Walt Simonson. He’s #4 because he only wrote one Doom story in his brief-but-spectacular FF run, but it was a doozy. In the span of two short issues (okay, one double-sized issue and one short issue) Doom retakes Latveria from Kristoff, brainwashes Ms Marvel into fighting the Thing, imprisons the FF in perfectly-designed traps, and then battles Mister Fantastic in one of the most innovative issues ever written. (It’s a time-travel story, with a clock at the bottom showing the progression of “real time” and time-teleportation effects showing when Reed and Doom are traveling to each time they leap through time. So you can read it front-to-back to experience the story in real time, or jump around from page to page to experience it as Reed and Doom do.)
Simonson’s Doom is slightly different from all the others, almost an older and wiser Doom. (Some have speculated that this is Doom after returning from the “Doom 2099” series, a speculation supported by his altered armor.) He’s calmer, almost melancholy at times, but no less intimidating and powerful. Definitely worth reading, and it’ll make you wish Simonson wrote the character more often.
3. Jim Shooter. A surprising choice, as he never wrote an issue of ‘Fantastic Four’, but Doom’s appearances in the Shooter-written ‘Secret Wars’ and ‘Superman vs. Spider-Man’ are truly wonderful. Shooter writes a bombastic, almost-comic Doom who’s utterly megalomaniac, so convinced of his greatness that he literally tape-records his every utterance for posterity. (That’s right. You ever wonder who Doom is talking to when he delivers all those monologues? Motherfucker’s talking to history, bitches.)
And yet for all that his egotism is played for laughs, Shooter’s Doom is a character of terrifying intellect and deadly cunning, winning not just the Beyonder’s prize but the Beyonder’s power as he outwits an omnipotent god. In the end, the only thing that can defeat Shooter’s version of Doom is his own fatal imperfections. That’s a pretty deep take on a kid’s character.
2. Stan Lee. He created Doom, of course he’s getting a high spot on the list. Sure, there were some cheesy elements in the early Doom stories; in retrospect, it’s a little silly that he invented a time machine to force the Fantastic Four to steal Blackbeard’s treasure. But it was a sillier time, and it’s not like Lee and Jack Kirby (who deserves just as much credit as Lee) didn’t give us some of the iconic Doom moments, like the “Battle of the Baxter Building” (Doom vs the Thing in an absolutely unforgettable sequence.)
Also, they developed Doom’s unique aspects; his code of honor (there’s a wonderful scene where Doom has the FF trapped in his castle, but he lets them pass through the art gallery unscathed because it would be barbaric to risk damage to the paintings) and his downright mythic origin story. And, of course, Stan Lee’s dialoguing style is so distinct that even decades later, you can still tell when Doom is speaking without needing tails on the word balloons. Really, he’d almost be #1 worthy…
1. John Byrne. Except that Byrne didn’t just write half the classic, definitive Doom stories, he practically cared more about the character than he did about the FF. When Byrne wrote Doctor Doom, you could tell he was fully able to understand that in Doom’s world, he is the hero of the story and Reed Richards is the villain. It’s Reed who has to admit that Doom rules Latveria better than his successor, and that he is sincerely beloved by its people. It’s Sue who’s able to detect a Doombot by realizing that Victor would never be so uncouth as to strike a woman. And it’s Byrne who gave Doom his own issue without the FF even appearing, to show what the world is like from behind Doom’s metal mask. John Byrne “got” Victor von Doom, and after reading his comics, you will too.
Those are my top five. Anyone else got opinions? Feel free to put them in the comments!
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My opinion is that Kirby deserves more credit than Lee, not just as much. Probably a lot more.
I’m going to go to the mat for Mark Waid on this. I think his handling of Doom’s character was absolutely fantastic. It redefined him for me.
I’m not going to go so far as to say he should be replace a specific person on this top 5 list, as I have not read all of the runs involved, but I’m still surprised he’s not here.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who loved that Simonson Doom story. The first half was actually the first issue of FF I read that was written in my lifetime- my dad having had a ton of his early issues when I was a kid. It took me what felt like forever to find the second half with the time battle.
I see we forget Brubakers Books Of Doom.
I’m surprised how rooted Paul Tobin’s “Doctor Doom (and the Masters of Evil)” mini series has become in my head as a definitive Doom story. It’s a lot lighter tonally than most Marvel fare (and I’m an infrequent Marvel reader, at best) but it nails pretty much all the elements I consider “essential” to the character.
I’ll second that vote for Mark Waid. It was the first take on the character I’d seen in a REALLY long time that I felt captured how terrifying of a person Doom really is underneath all the codes of honor and royal trappings. I love how complicated of a character Doom is, but I also love that at the core of all that complexity is a guy who really is just a vicious bastard.
@Brad Ellison: Lee dialogued all of Doom’s early appearances. Doom wouldn’t be Doom without his distinctive “voice”, any more than he would be Doom without Kirby’s design. The two men co-plotted over the phone as much as through their scripts; honestly, I think that assigning specific credit is impossible.
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I’ve honestly always been fond of the idea from super villain team up that Doom’s only actual friend is Namor.
Mostly because it gives the image of two guys hanging out who communicate entirely in cod-shakespearian monologues over everything.
I have to say, Peter David should get an honourable mention for his use of old Doom in X-Factor.
I have to say, you probably could have made this a top 10 list and still have fairly strong stories all the way down.
I’m going to third the Mark Waid vote. His run might be my favorite.
Also, he did an interview with War Rocket Ajax last week, and he talks about his take on Doom, and why it’s 180 degrees from most interpretations on the character.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/20/mark-waid-podcast/
(the whole thing is worth a listen, but the specific doom stuff starts at about 53 minutes in)
Add another vote for Mark Waid as well. “Unthinkable” is still one of my favorite FF arcs.
My favorite quote by Waid on how he sees Doom:
“[Doom] would tear the head off a newborn baby and eat it like an apple while his mother watched if it would somehow prove he were smarter than Reed.”
most people who take the time for a Doom list don’t want him to be a viscious bastard underneath it all. THey like the royal trappings and code of honor. Think of the Emperor Doom graphic novel. He conquers the world via mind control and it doesn’t seem he did anything to Reed, he just set out trying to fix the problems of the world.
I’m no fan of villain protaganists and like my bad guys to be bad, but I felt it was OOC for him.
Well, I don’t think the trappings and talk about honor are completely meaningless when it comes to Doom. You can do a story about Doom where those are important parts to the character. But how Waid redefined him for me (and Gnosis’ quote is the essential example of this) is that for all his talk, Doom runs on an image more than a reality, and Reed Richards tears down that image without even trying to. There is nothing Doom wouldn’t do to beat Reed. Anyone else in the Marvel Universe, Doom can easily keep up the royal image and honorable behavior, so long as he can find some victory in it-and that victory could be nothing more than reinforcing his “honorable” image to the world. But Reed proved Doom wrong on the most important project Doom ever made, and it scarred the man for life, literally and mentally.
It of course needs to be stated that NO author has mastered the character of Doom unless they acknowledge his love of all things My Little Pony (I assume that’s why Byrne topped the list right?)
I’ll add my vote for Mark Waid and second Brubaker’s Books of Doom. That said, I have a special place in my heart for Shooter’s Doom, specifically Secret Wars; that was the incarnation that made him arguably my favorite comics villain. I also really dig his relationship with Namor, they’re the closest the other has to a best friend (though Jonathan Hickman gave us a peek behind the honorable facade in his The List short story where we see Doom would happily strangle the life out him if it advanced his cause).
Incidentally, Luthor vs. Doom is one of my big comics dream team crossovers.
They’re out of 616 continuity, but I also always liked Warren Ellis’ work on Doom in the Ultimate and 2099 books. His Ultimate Doom is a bit like Waid’s, I think, since it has Doom’s abusive upbringing as the root of his arrogance (and thus, his rage against Reed for being smarter than he is).
Doom 2099 is a bit of different, since it’s so early in Ellis’ career and in the service of a pretty dire imprint, but the ‘Doom in America’ stuff is pretty cool (and I like the red-cloaked costume look, too).
Not that I don’t agree with the above list, of course. The ‘time duel’ issue at the end of Simonson’s run that John mentions is one of my favorite singe issues ever.
Oh speaking of Simonson’s run, I always thought the reason his armor looked different at the beginning of that issue didn’t have to do with the 2099 stuff, but rather that his prior appearance to that was in an arc of Excalibur where he traveled to Otherplace and his armor was transformed into that more medievalish look there.
great list!
and i have to say, Shooter’s “secret wars” doom is the doom that made me realize just how cool and how much of a bad-ass doom really is. i mean, while everyone else is fighting the ole hero vs. villain game, he sees the big picture, steals the power of Galactus himself, takes that power to go fight the Beyonder, loses! but then, even in defeat (and while the Beyonder is performing a vivisection of him) manages to keep it all together and *still* take the power of the Beyonder for himself! (and then, like John already pointed out, he only lost because klaw (possessed by the remains of the Beyonder) managed to prey on his subconscious insecurity and he manufactured his own defeat. man! as a kid, reading that, i was like “…wow.”
(and i think Roger Stern should have been on the list since he wrote, what i think, is the second best Doom story ever. were him and dr. strange travel to mephisto’s realm to save the soul of Doom’s mother. just epic)
Whatever happened to your stories about Doom’s eternal quest for arcane My Little Pony totems?
Waid’s run was OK but something about his Doom always seemed . . . I don’t know, just slightly off to me in a way I couldn’t really put my finger on. It’s not that his Doom was OOC really, just slightly off-kilter.
Warren Ellis gets high marks. I can’t even remember his Ultimate Doom so who cares, but his year+ on DOOM 2099 is, bar none, the best run of Doom stories in existence, ever.
To All people who said that Waid should be on this list: YOU ARE RIGHT ON MONEY!
For me Victor Von Doom, while indeed having done wonders for Latveria, achieving wonders whether in alchemy or technology, & NEVER BOWING TO NO ONE(take that Bendis & Millar!),is for all intents & purposes, A MURDERER! Yes you may say that he is not a bloodthirsty maniac (& boy do I love this kind of villain!) BUT if you dare displease Doom, he would not hesitate tearing off your head with his bare fucking hands & throwing your corpse in the garbage, & he won’t even remember you for the cockroach you represented for him. Also , while Roger Stern wrote the good side of Victor by showing that he loves his mother more than life itself, Waid showed that Reed is also a factor in Victor’s craving for better & more …for himself. Of course he has no qualms about sacrificing Valeria, sure he loved her, as much as I love my self made toys, but in the end of the day Power > Women, besides in that single story he Humiliated Johnny, Sue , Ben & Dr Strange (no jobbing here it made sense!) & Punked Reed to a whole new level! This is why I really facepalm when writers make him team-up with the F4, I’ll never buy Reed seeing the guy before him without spitting on his face…
Besides that Leather armor for Doom was like J P Leon’s design for Sinister, AOA design for Apocalypse & the annihilation costumes for Annihilus , Thanos & Ultron: PERFECTION!
Also I’d like to add Chuck Dixon’s version : Doom found himself, post-Onslaught in a counter-earth & literally pulled the srings in 3-4 issues to rule the damn place while wearing a lion skjin! After all, DOOM SAVORS THE FLESH OF MUFASA!THE MONARCH OF LATVERIA EAT PREDATORS AS A REGULAR DIET!
This is where Doom belongs!
http://devilkais.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3kmz04
@Jason: it was not OOC or all that honourable! HE STOLE HUMANITY’S FREE WILL! yes he solved many problems, but it emphasised the fact that With Doom , it’s HIS way or NOTHING!
So “Emperor Doom” is not all that noble isn’t it?
@saidi:he had the capacity to do anything to anyone and yet he didn’t. And in fact he basically let himself lose, so the concept of things not being done his way is at least semi-acceptable to him. He just thinks his way’s best. Emperor Doom removed the challenge of proving that.
also another problem I had with Unthinkable was that when Doom turned his back on science he basically admitted Reed was better at it than him. It’s once thing to choose another weapon in your arsenal. Waid’s run basically made it so Doom felt he had to go with magic to beat Reed. Doom doesn’t just want to prove he’s superior to Reed, he actually believes it completely. So admitting inferiority doesn’t work there
Good list, but any list of the top Doctor Doom writers would of course have to include Tim “Dr. Doom’s Mailbag” O’Neil.
I miss that feature.
I think honorable mention also goes to Roger Stern, if only for “Triumph and Torment,” in which he ties up the whole “Doom’s mom in hell” plotline by having Doom simultaneously scam Dr. Strange, Mephisto AND his own mother in order to rescue her from hell.
@ Jason: Or maybe he chose sorcery over science because he fully knew that Reed can’t do a damn thing to him in a domain he, Victor, has experience with. Cowardice? No DOOM must teach Reed a lesson in humility & teach him the hard way so he can be crushed physically & mentally before DOOM’s awesomeness! Since he believes in his superiority ,then the BIG MEANS are the way to back up that claim & the mastery of sorcery shows that he controls something that is beyond Reed, that is a proof of superiority for DOOM!
But you all forget his biggest weakness!
his pettiness. Srsly, the guy hates a classmate because said classmate told him that he had a miscalculation somewhere… well honestly, Victor kinda brought this upon himself….
maybe if he just tossed out some magic spells, sure. But the extent he went to…. Doom believes his superiority is complete.
I’d have dropped Steve Englehart completely from the list and put either Bill Mantlo, whose issues were much better written than SE’s and even Gerry Conway. Roger Stern needs to be there also.
As a rabid Doomophile I despise Englehart’s Doom in SVTU particularly for the scene were he’s strolling through the village for young maidens to exercise the medievel “droit de seigneur”. Mantlo’s issues afterward are much better, if only for the duel on the moon with the Red Skull. I wish contemporary writers would remember that the Skull and Doom hate each other.
As for Gerry Conway, he wrote the marvelous bit of Doom lore in Astonishing Tales #8 that introduced the annual ritualistic battle with demonic forces (Mephisto didn’t exist in the MU at that time IIRC) to redeem the soul of Cynthia von Doom. Roger Stern gave him full credit for inspiring his graphic novel follow up in “Triumph and Torment”
Conway and Colan’s run on Astonishing Tales was very brief (6-8) after being announced as the new creative team. They started out by doing a well done conclusion to the Black Panther story, the first time Doom makes a play for the vibranium. There’s also a little remembered follow up to the Conway/Gene Colan Astonishing Tales run that takes place in the Sub-Mariner series (#47-49) where Doom once again encounters an amnesiac Namor and forces him into helping him find the Cosmic Cube, which was lost beneath the Atlantic. The reason why Doom wants the Cube is not the obvious one.
As for Waid’s Doom? He wrote a great FF story but IMO not a great Doom story. For one thing his dealings with the Hazaareth was very careless considering how he knew what great risks where involved in making pacts with them from the fate of his mother. Plus it never made sense that Valeria got treated worse than what happened to the FF. Why didn’t he start out using that level of power on Reed? or Ben?
Oh, and Priest also wrote a great little Doom story in “Masks” just before it.
I always thought the Hazaareth were a different kind of demons than Mephisto, Besides they kept their words! the condition is that Victor has to acknowledge that they helped him… He claimed otherwise at the end! As for Valeria, I said that it’s like giving one of your favourite & most priced possession to obtain something just as great or better! Magic works that way , you don’t get something for nothing…
he didn’t burn Valeria, the hazaareth took her that way to make this PERFECT looking armor. To obtain such a power you have to give something as precious for you, you don’t get something foir nothing in magic!
Besides the demons were honest & the condition was simple “acknowledge we helped you…”.
eh sorry for double post, this computer is kinda screwed
Doom is at his best not when he’s a royal king, he’s at his best when he is absolutely crushing his enemies. He’s a monster, and he should be put over as such.
I wish contemporary writers would remember that the Skull and Doom hate each other.
@Iron Maiden – This is why I think Brubaker is disqualified. Not for the Books of Doom, but for the Captain America reborn where Doom works with the Skull and doesn’t betray him or set him up later. Epic fail.
(Personally, even just a little hint of something showing that Doom knew that Steve would kick the Skull out of his head would work for me.)
My problem with the list in the OP is way too much of a tendency to equate “great doom story” with “doom wins”. I’ve always preferred the stories that remember that he’s supposed to be a villain.
Agree with everyone who said Waid.
I think Marv Wolfman’s run on FF was excellent. Particularly the climax in which Doom totally loses it with Reed, demanding Reed not only acknowledge his superiority, but admitting he rigged that contact-the-netherworld gadget to explode (out of jealousy for Doom’s obvious superiority). It’s the flip side to Doom’s usual arrogance.
I enjoyed Englehart’s story in which Luke Cage attacks Latveria in order to collect on money Doom owes him. Not a striking handling of Doom but a fun story.
Also the climax of Tom deFalco’s last Fantastic Five series in which Doom throws away conquest of the world to prove he can kick Reed’s butt mentally. Because with Doom, that actually works.
All good choices (as is Waid, who deserves a spot), but my favorite Doom story was written by none of the above. Archie Goodwin/John Buscema, Fantastic Four #116, “The Alien… The Ally… and Armageddon” where Doom allies with the FF and goes toe-to-toe with the Overmind (and a brainwashed Reed Richards), gets beaten within an inch of his life but holds his ground in the face of almost certain death.
I remember reading that (not when it came out, I’m not that old…) and coming to the conclusion that Doom was a stone-cold badass.
Okay, really my favorite story was Doom skipping out on paying Luke Cage two hundred bucks (which has the added hilarity that Luke’s fee for being a “hero for hire” was two hundred bucks), forcing Luke to steal one of the FF’s Pogo Planes and invade Doom’s castle, uttering the immortal words, “where’s my money, honey?”
I really need to read that Luke Cage story. It sounds fantastic.
So everyone is agreed that when Squirrel Girl handed Doom his ass, that wasn’t a Doombot right?
I’m going to speak out against Mark Waid and “Unthinkable” being on any list of the greatest Doom stories. It wasn’t that good.
Waid’s always had a habit of ignoring history or just plain picking the wrong villain to tell a story–I remember a Flash comic in which he completely jobbed Mongul to Wally. Hal Jordan damn near killed himself taking Mongul down (which remains my favorite comic book fight to this day) and Wally West just… spanked him. He could’ve told that story with any B-List bruiser and it would’ve kept the same quality and impact.
The problem with “Unthinkable” wasn’t that Doom chose a different tactic or sacrificed something important to him to achieve his ends, it was that the character lacked gravity. With Doom, the most important element is that you feel compelled to watch everything he does, and listen to every word that comes out of his mouth. It doesn’t matter if he’s skipping out on a $200 dollar check or fighting the Red Skull on the moon.
In “Unthinkable” I got the sense Waid was trying to reinvent the wheel, and alter the paradigm by which Reed and Doom interact. Mind you, there’ve been plenty of attempts since then to cast Reed in the image of an amoral tinkerer that are just as bad. Clor and the World Peace Equation come to mind.
In the end, the conflict axis between Reed and Doom is based on theory vs. application.
Reed is the theorist, the optimist, the man who sees all the possibilities of science and marvels at them. He was made this way by the love and support of others.
Doom is the brilliant man who got burned, metaphorically and literally. He’s interested in results. Everything else–Reed’s tendency to lose himself in possibility, Doom’s monstrous ego–is ancillary to the core of their conflict, that of the believer and the cynic.
The Luke Cage story is another reason I wouldn’t put Englehart on the list. When the subject of the story came up at Comics Should be Good Blog http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2010/06/03/a-year-of-cool-comics-day-154/
The way Luke Cage bests Doom is ridiculous. Yeah, pounding away at one point is going to work when you got a force field at your disposal.
Anyway, if you scroll down the blog comments, the late Dwayne McDuffie weighs in after I make a reference to his Damage Control story:
Dwayne McDuffie
June 4, 2010 at 11:26 am
My Damage Control story ” When Doom Defaults!” was a direct response to this one, which I hated as a child. Doom fires his assistant, who is relieved that he wasn’t killed.
RE: comments about “Unthinkable” and the pact with the Hazaareth demons and the sacrifice involved.
Still doesn’t ring true that Doom would fall for this if you read “Triumph and Torment”. He knew his mother got screwed over by Mephisto in the bargain. Sure she got what she wanted but the price was higher than she expected. The Devil in the MU as represented by Mephisto, Satan, etc and any of their lesser minions LIE. Any novice would know that. Remember, Doom turned down Enchantess’s offer in Secret Wars because he was wary of the price he might have to pay.
And did anyone esle thing the last minute whatcamacallit that Doctor Strange gave Reed after giving up trying to teach him magic on the fly) to fight with against Doom was pretty lame?
Adding my extremely late and extremely unoriginal vote for Mark Waid. “Unthinkable” is one of the best FF storylines put to paper.
The pro-Waid faction are flat-out wrong.
The problem isn’t so much “Unthinkable,” though as others have noted, the careless way in which Doom loses doesn’t seem right for the character, it’s “Authoritive Action.”
For those who forget, AA is the second half of “Unthinkable” and is Waid justifying the invasion of Iraq by proxy, with Doom standing in for Saddam Hussein.It’s terrible story with an unconscionable politics behind it. For that reason alone, Waid belongs no where near a list of the best Doom writers.
I cannot accept that the same Doom who could simultaneously con Dr. Strange, Mephisto, and his own mother in order to save her soul would so willingly offer up his love Valeria for power from demons without a back-up plan ready to save her in the end. Yes, Doom would bend over backwards to destroy Richards, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also smart enough to still win in every single way. But then, Waid purposely wrote Doom as not just petty, but also kind of dumb, at least as far as his hubris goes. It kneecaps the character, regardless of how one feels about his supposed sense of honor. Doom is a crafty bastard who has the angles figured out, and he damn well should have already figured out how to save Valeria in the end.
and I still side with Waid’s Doom! HE IS PETTY!
Hell any dictator or tyrant ,as much enlightened he can seem is at the end of the day a tyrant! It’s HIS way or NOTHING!
Maybe he wanted to cure himself of that obsession over Reed & put a final point to it. Besides the deal actually went smoothly until Reed pissed him off & let him unleash his ego, unnerving the hazaareth!
As for”authorative action”, yeah, you can argue it’s a commentary about the Iraq war, but Waid isn’t the only writer who gave his take on the matter. And quite honestly, I focused more on Reed’s intention of stripping Victor of everything he held dear to pay him back! (back when Reed had an admirable character…)
Victor Von Doom is defined by two people: Cynthia von Doom and Reed Richards. His mother Cynthia died when he was very young, and she represents his ideals of love and honour. Richards is the target of Doom’s jealousy, pettiness, and all the other traits that prevent Victor from reaching his true potential.And let’s look at what he IS;
#1. Doom is a Megalomaniac. A man with a serious Superiority Complex. He is the guy who knows he’s better then everyone else, will continuously remind you of it, and uses it as an excuse to do whatever the hell he wants. Why shouldn’t he take what you have? He’s Better then You, he deserves it more!
#2. Doom is a Dictator. This is something fans need to remember everytime they talk about how nicely Doom takes care of the people of Latveria.Doom’s rule is one of absolute power, with zero democracy. There is no Latverian congress, no Latverian senate, no Latverian premier. All power flows from Doom, and Doom alone. The most iconic exemple of this comes from the “Emperor Doom” story, in which Doom uses the Purple Man’s power to subjugate the entire world to his will, installing himself as absolute ruler of the world. Yes, his rule is benevolent and filled with admirable achievements… …If one forgets that he has to rob all humanity of it’s free will to achieve this goal.
#3. Doom’s sense of Honor is Medieval at best. He sees himself as a monarch, and tries to act as such. This is why he keeps his word, and protects his latverian subjects as he does. Because that’s what’s expected of a monarch. One should not confuse this with actual honesty or compassion. He’s intelligent enough never to make a bargain that he can’t turn to his advantage (or at least believes so), and his generosity comes at a serious price.
#4. Doom’s hatred of Reed Richards is an obsession he cannot overcome. And let’s face it, with his brilliance, he could do it a thousand different ways without being a villain. He could create a solution for Global Warming, a cure for Cancer, desktop-available Cold Fusion for all, and get the world to hail him as a greater genius then Richards. But it’s not enough for him to just prove he’s smarter anymore. It’s not enough for him to just kill Richards anymore. He wants to BREAK Richards. He wants to make Reed’s world collapse into ashes, then rub Reed’s nose in it before finishing him off.
All of these are NOT the mark of a nice, stable and noble person. They’re the mark of an unstable, sociopathic man who plays by his own rules, and will have no qualms about killing you horribly if you stand in his way or just displease him. Therefore I accept the Victor who loves his mother as much as the Doom who HAAATES the BLASTED RICHARDS!
P.S.; the leather armor is still fucking badass!
I, too, don’t care for Waid’s take on the character. Not really top 5 material.
My problem with Waid’s Doom (along with what others have said here) is how it damaged the way people see the character.
Before Unthinkable, Doom was, in essence, the dark reflection of Reed Richards. Equally brilliant (if not more so), and driven by the need to prove it.
Since then, he’s been “generic mystical villain”. As I throw my mind back the last few years, it seems like every major Doom arc has been him trying to get more mystical power, from Doctor Voodoo to Doomwar. It’s become a cliche.
Chris Bird. I’m not sucking up, you all know it’s true.
The most important point for telling a good Doom story from a bad one: DOES HE CALL ANYONE FAT? That’s all.
“When Byrne wrote Doctor Doom, you could tell he was fully able to understand that in Doom’s world, he is the hero of the story and Reed Richards is the villain.”
Interesting how this corroborates your earlier note that, when written well, Doom becomes “almost a second protagonist.” Because in most comics, the traditional roles of hero and villain relating to protagonist and antagonist, respectively, are reversed. Most superheroes take their responsibility as to protect and serve, for the most part, devoting their super powers not to actively making the world a better place but rather to preserve a certain status quo (one notable exception is the Superman: Peace on Earth one-shot, which features Superman actively trying to end world hunger and create world peace).
Being a hero or protagonist typically involves wanting something (and often a quest); in comics, the villains are often the protagonists–they want something that the heroes must prevent them from achieving.
Doom, I think, is a terrific villain partly because he’s a fantastic protagonist; he doesn’t want to take over the world just to have the world but rather because he legitimately believes he’d do the best job running the show (and his citizens’ enthusiasm for his leadership only corroborates his belief).
I am glad that I am not the only admirer of the crossover story where both Doctor Doom and Superman appears. The Doom there is both entertaining and menacing. The story also has my love for the fight between Superman and the Hulk, which I have been using to teach conservation of momentum in physics class ever since.
I also want to chime in and add my displeasure with Waid’s Doom and the story ‘Unthinkable.’ Much of the entertainment value from Doom is the awesome factor. He looks terrifyiing, of course, and he has his unapologetic megalomania and his unquestionable competence.
And then Waid gives us a story about a creature that is, at all levels, pathetic. Doom was awesome when he tricked Mephisto so that his mother was freed from hell in ‘Triumph and Torment’ and is willing to make genuine sacrifices for his mother’s sake. In Waid’s ‘Unthinkable’ he is pathetic as he trades the soul of the other woman he loved to other demons out of desire for revenge. He is also pathetic because he is willing to trade away the science that he has spent his entire LIFE learning and accomplishing in just like that. Furthermore, he is pathetic because he does not even become a particularly powerful magic-user – Reed tells Doom straight to his face that he will never become more than a mid-level magician, then beats Doom and proves his point. Finally Doom’s dialogue is that of a wretch, telling the rest of the FF of how he would let them go if they could, while he is torturing them.
That story removed so much awesome and so much menace from Doom that I’ve not even bothered buying stories written after it.
BUT he’ll LET THEM GO! Doom never specified when or in what state!& Doom shall free Franklin… later, the show Cats is on.
His speech in ” unthinkable” to Reed , when he lectures him about being a megalomaniac while he, DOOM, is a better man was legendary & didn’t go against the claim “in Doom’s world, he is the hero of the story and Reed Richards is the villain.”, It was pushing that sentence to a whole other level!
& for citizens loving him, you don’t have much of a choice in dictatorship now do you?
I genuinely despise Waid’s Doom for a host of reasons, not the least of which being that it’s entirely out of character for Dr. Doom to turn to demons for help. He simply is too arrogant for it to EVER occur to him that he needs help, and has destroyed Doombots for making the mistake of thinking he might. He may be the WORST Doom writer ever… and the people that think his Doom’s so awesome totally miss the point of Dr. Doom. It’s a heck of an FF story, but it’s a waste of Dr. Doom. That said, it’d have been an excellent Wizard story…
Brubaker’s Doom bit doesn’t work for a few reasons. For one, he has Doom raping a girl in college, which is pretty much the same horrifically out-of-character mistake that Englehart made which keeps him down the list for me too. Doom simply doesn’t give a crap about things like that.
Roger Stern deserves to be on this list for Triumph and Torment alone, probably in the place of Jim Shooter.
@Iron Maiden: Phooey on Dwayne McDuffie. Chalk it up to being a Doombot or whatever. I am happy that a story exists where Luke Cage gets to steal a Pogo Plane and say “where’s my money, honey?” to Doctor Doom, because *that* is comic books. The rest is details.
P.S.: I’m just kidding about the phooey on D.M., who I became acquainted with for a short time and worked his way up to being one of my favorite people in the comic book industry. Smart, no-nonsense, thought-provoking guy who could talk art, film, music, politics, economics, and just about everything else. I remember a lunch that lasted three hours because neither of us could shut up. Life is so fucking unfair; he left us way too soon.
Or perhaps, AH, those of us who think Waid’s Doom is awesome get that the point of Doom as a character is that he wil do anything, go to any length, if he thinks it will force Richards to admit that Doom is superior.
@ Prodigal: DOOM says Understatement ! & Doom shall revive Valeria… after the Ramadhan ends!
I have to second the inclusion of Roger Stern for his unforgettable “Triumph and Torment” graphic novel. Doom’s final “Doom begs for no man’s help” statement (I’m paraphrasing) zeroes in on both his pride and genius in engineering his mother’s release like no other panel I’ve ever seen.
That and it’s a super kick-ass Dr. Strange story.
I still feel that Doom’s pride is a heck of a lot more important to him than beating Reed. If it wasn’t, he’d have murdered him first thing upon gaining the Beyonder’s power, or taking over the world via mind control any of the times he’s done it, while Reed was unable to fight back in the Overmind event, or any number of other times. Doom wouldn’t need to prove he was superior to Reed by going about it in such a way that proves he ISN’T. Doom’s an arrogant, egotistical madman but he’s proven in decades worth of stories that a win against Reed that isn’t based on Doom being more awesome than him ALONE doesn’t count. Doom would gladly die, or sacrifice ANYTHING to destroy Richards… EXCEPT for his own pride and self-reliance, and that’s what Unthinkable does to the character. It’s a step back from what makes Doom a bigger character than the FF, and drags him down to the level of a Norman Osborn, a Magneto, or a Red Skull… and that’s not worthy of Dr. Doom, unquestionably the greatest villain comics has ever created.
HEY NOW! AH take out Norman Osborn of these comparisons! HE IS NOT WORTHY TO EVEN PUT IN THE SAME SENTENCE WHEN TALKING ABOUT DOOM!
THIS IS WHAT MUST HAVE HAPPENED TO THAT WRETCH:
http://devilkais.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3k8pcp
Down to the level of a Magneto? I know Mags has seen better times, but you’re making him sound like a crap character.
And for me Lex Luthor is greateast villain comics has ever created. I like Doom and all, but I like Luthor better.
And finally, at least we can all agree what Millar did with Doom was total shit, right?
I think we can agree that Millar and Bendis are total shit with the Doomster.
Personally, I never read Unthinkable, so I’m not weighing in. 😉
I did like the Doom representation in the FF v. X-Men mini, though.
My nom is Christopher Priest, in Double Shot #2.”They know they cannot defeat me, so they instead wound me with visions of evanescent waifs”
Speaking of Doom’s armor being comparable to Iron Man’s, in the X-Universe series the Big Brains create their own Heaven. Characters in heaven have palette-swapped costumes basically to help the reader keep ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ storylines straight.
Iron Man and Doctor Doom switched color schemes precisely.
Magneto’s a great character, but he’s inextricably intertwined with the X-Men, to the point where he’s not capable of doing things without them. (Note that this wasn’t true back in the Seventies.) Whereas Dr. Doom pretty much can show up anywhere, do anything, and works without the FF as well or better than he does with them, as well as being the guy who created the “villain with a code of honor” thing that keeps Magneto popular. Magneto’s a great villain… but he’s not in Doom’s league, and half of what keeps him even a contender is concepts stolen from Doom to begin with.
Luthor’s closer. He has a lot of Doom’s great characteristics… but lacks the sympathetic code of honor that Doom does which makes Doom more protagonistic than he is. Luthor may be a great villain… but Doom transcends that title.
As for Norman? I have to admit that he’s wiggled out of his traditional role under Bendis, but in the end, he’s always going to snap and throw everything away to kill Spider-Man. Whereas some of Doom’s best stories don’t even have Reed Richards IN them… they are either solo tales, fighting another villain, or the like. Unthinkable turns Doom into that sort of villain… and it LESSENS Doom. Sure, you might get a little more scared when Doom pops up in FF, but if you weren’t already excited when Dr. Doom shows up, then you probably weren’t reading the FF title anyway.
Oh, and Doom in X-Men vs. Fantastic Four is classic Doom… he’s perfectly willing to plant a twenty year old journal to screw with the FF’s heads purely out of malice, but he’s also honorable enough to assist the X-Men, and classy enough to politely host the FF and the X-Men for a nice dinner when his overall scheme falls apart due to Reed again finding his confidence and corrects Doom’s math in his process to cure Kitty Pryde. Claremont is clearly a Doom fan, hence his outright theft of large portions of Doom’s personality for Magneto, and use of Doom as a protagonist in his FF run for a healthy portion of it. Somewhere along the line he’s forgotten that Doom’s a scary, scary man, which keeps him off the list, but his pre-FF run use of Doom’s pretty good.
Like a better list of good Doom writing would include the story where Doom is so angry about getting a boo-boo – which of course he blames on RICHARDS! – that he shoves burning hot iron onto his face and melts off all his skin.
Versions of Doom that try to pretend that flat-out stupid shit like that isn’t just as much a part of the character as everything else aren’t versions of Doom I’m interested in.
In the Lee/Kirby years, you will never find a story where Doom blames the accident on Reed. That doesn’t come until much later in Wolfman’s FF#200.
Check out FF annual #2 and Doom clearly realizes it is self-inflicted. Wolfman’s Doom was seriously paranoid and the story ends with his complete mental breakdown. I tend to like Stan and Jack’s version better. He knows he screwed up. Then you have to whole small scar (Kirby) vs the completely destroyed face argument but that could be a whole topic in itself.
Reggie Hudlin. He understood Doom like no man before him. That is: not at all
The Hudlin line actually made me choke on what I was drinking. 😛 It’s also 100% accurate. It’s a genuine tragedy that Hudlin understands the Black Panther on the same level.
Priest’s Doom, on the other hand, is definitely a great one, missing my personal list solely due to the fact that he hasn’t written him a lot. His use in Priest’s Black Panther run is VERY good, showing Doom’s ability to play politics at a level few can.
Still agree with dangermouse here, Doom has magnificience but his hatred towards Reed IS petty (kinda unfair that Eddie Brock always gets the shaft on the motivation matter while Doom’s motive for hating Reed is weaker…)! it’s an interesting mix that puts in the EPIC villains list for me!Even in the Lee/Kirby he Gives his word but it’s not how YOU intended because you’re Not VICTOR VON DOOM! UNDISPUTED RULER AND SEX GOD OF LATVERIA! WOMEN PLACE IS TO ADORE DOOM ‘S THRONE!
I give shouts to the comments about Claremont’s Doom and Priest’s Doom. Claremont’s Doom is just a class act, and Priest…well his Doom isn’t so remarkable in and of himself, it’s just that Priest is one of the best at writing genius & manipulative characters.
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As for Waid, and the “Doom will do anything to beat Richards.”…that’s just not true, is it. A “the honor thing is a lie, he just hates Richards” Doom, just goes right out and kills everyone around Reed. Sue, Johnny,Franklin and Alicia? Dead from sniper shots to the head. Ben, just disintegrated when he’s stepping out of the bar. A truly monsterous non-honorble Doom just takes everything away from Reed and leaves him with nothing.
@Scavenger: I think Waid’s point is that everybody knows that Doom has honor, because he keeps telling people he has HONOR, over and over. However, about half the time his actions give the lie to his statement (or at least display that he has a very pliable definition of that word). He steals the power cosmic from Silver Surfer. He pulls the Baxter building into space. He pulls the the ‘rules in a knife fight’ gambit from Butch and Sundance on Reed during their time duel. He manipulates the space/time continuum so Sue will have an affair with Namor. These are not the works of an honorable man.
I imagine that what Waid thinks stops Doom from hiring that sniper, or placing a Thing-sized landmine outside of every Yancy Street bar is that if he went that far EVEN HE couldn’t buy his ‘honorable man’ bullshit any more. Doom will lie to himself, hell, his inability to face his own failure is at the root of his conflict with Reed, but he’s intelligent enough to have to keep that lie plausable to himself.
Of course, Waid himself admits that people either love or hate his take on Doom. So reasonable people can disagree.
& reasonable people can also agree, it goes both ways. Hiring a Sniper? DOOM is NO COMMON MURDERER! WHAT DOOM DID IN UNTHINKABLE IS JUST SHOWING THE BLASTED RICHARDS WHO HIS MASTER IS,DOOM HAS TO TEACH THAT MEGALOMANIAC PRETENDER SOME MODESTY!THE ONLY UNTHINKABLE THING IN THAT STORY IS THAT DOOM WAS NOT TRIUMPHANT! FOR DOOM IS A TRAGIC HERO THAT HAS TO DEFEAT THE VAIN & VILLAINOUS & INADEQUATELY NAMED MR FANTASTIC!
JUST AS DOOM SHOWED THE PATHETIC DELINQUENTS ON COUNTER-EARTH WHO THEIR KING IS!
FOR DOOM IS SUPREME!
Doom could snipe them himself.
For what it’s worth, I’m convinced the Hudlin Doom was in fact a Doombot, programmed that way just so that Doom could test T’Challa’s arrogance. Especially after the conversation with Dracula on the moon, where Doom rips the heart out of any racist’s argument, forever.
Word to Austin Clark, above. I really liked the way Paul Cornell wrote Doom in the sadly few scenes that character had in “Captain Britain and MI: 13”.
JACK KIRBY CREATED DOCTOR DOOM, NOT STAN LEE.
Stan Lee can’t even SPELL.