Given the campy nature of the “Marvel Swimsuit Special” comics, this panel isn’t too out of place. It’s simply Daredevil and Black Panther playing a practical joke on the unsuspecting Doctor Doom and Kingpin. It does seem to be a weird prank, having a bunch of chimps attacking the two villains, but it’s all in good fun nonetheless, as the caption on the page explains. Still, Doom hanging out in the Wakandan jungle with a blow-up doll is quite an unusual sight, even in this context, hence why Marvel fans still approach the scene with confusion and humor.
“Is Dr. Doom fighting with a monkey over a sex doll?” questioned one deleted Reddit user in a thread about the image. In response, u/DukeVaungur joked that it was merely a malfunctioning Doombot and nothing more. Looking more broadly, u/hibryd highlighted that someone at Marvel actually had to draw this fascinatingly strange scene, which likely took days to complete. While u/stink_182 made note of Doom’s fashionable choice to wear a tank top and shorts over a full suit of armor, u/emdeemcd brought the conversation back to the questions on everyone’s minds: “Why does Dr. Doom have a sex doll? What is going on here???”
The “Marvel Swimsuit Special” comics may not be looked at as classics, but their absurdity and wackiness have allowed them to endure decades beyond their time. Of course, evidently, the image of Doctor Doom — the fearsome leader of Latveria and rival of the Fantastic Four — holding a blow-up doll, has helped out considerably as well.
Marvel’s swimsuit issues were very weird, not least thanks to a wild image in “Marvel’s Swimsuit Special” #1, which shows Doctor Doom… and a sex doll? Read More