Everything MCU Fans Need to Know About Doctor Doom

Victor Von Doom, Marvel’s First Family’s primary antagonist, is set to debut within the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the recently revealed Avengers: Doomsday (or in Fantastic Four: First Steps if theories are to be believed), marking the beginning of a new era of the franchise as it moves away from Kang The Conqueror. If that announcement wasn’t exciting enough, the actor portraying Marvel’s next big supervillain is someone who portrayed the Infinity Saga’s biggest hero – Robert Downey Jr. With the Russo brothers returning to direct both Doomsday and Secret Wars, hope for the MCU is slowly returning.

Victor, more commonly referred to as Dr. Doom, has a long and complex history in Marvel Comics, debuting on July 1st, 1961, in the fifth issue of Fantastic Four. This series kicked off the Marvel Age and debuted as Marvel’s very first ongoing superhero comic, created by the now-infamous Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Doom’s primary goal is world domination, like many iconic supervillains. Still, he has so much depth, decades of character development, countless iconic comics, and so much more, making him such a great character. Doom has faced off against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and other groups, and has even seen him spend time as a hero. This is a character worth fans learning about before his incredibly exciting MCU debut.

Who Is Victor Von Doom?

Doom started with a simple goal of world domination, motivated by a dark, never-ending desire for vengeance, perfection, and power

Jack Kirby designed Dr. Doom to embody the approach of death, similar to the Grim Reaper, with his mask, armor, and hood included to cover any human flesh, as he wanted Doom to be merciless. Despite the mask, Doom’s face is relatively unscathed, with Kirby designing it to have only a single scar, enough for the perfectionist Doom to hide himself away. Here, Doom’s original desire to conquer the world is obvious – he saw others, unscathed, as inferior and strove to be above them. Additionally, in his book Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre, Peter Coogan described Doom’s first appearance as a portrayal of the change from mad scientist to supervillain, demonstrating that Doom would become a fascinating character.

Furthermore, Stan Lee’s writings often showed that it was Doom’s arrogance that led to his defeat, with his obsession for superiority leading to his disfigurement and failures. Over time, as the superhero genre grew and Marvel Comics became more expansive, Doom’s motivations changed, becoming more complex and targeted. Doom grew to outlast most villains the Fantastic Four faced, becoming their primary foe and Reed Richards’s arch enemy, and began appearing in different comic book series after gaining popularity. Despite many iconic supervillains like Magneto and Thanos debuting through the decades, Doom has remained the most terrifying, constantly returning in attempts to enact his vengeance upon the world.

Doom’s medieval monologs and nature truly complement his role as a supervillain – he acts as the bridge between mad scientist and villainy, determined to achieve world domination but tragically failing due to his simple flaws. Besides his iconic role as a villain, Doom is a monarch, ruling over his own nation – Latveria. With no legislation, Latveria is an absolute monarchy in that Doom alone decides what is right and wrong. Doom has defense mechanisms that force individuals to stay in Latveria, as well as an army of Doombots to protect Latveria and deal with diplomatic meetings/negotiations, such as with other world leaders. With his world leader status in mind and his quest for world domination, it is clear why Doom is such a unique and exciting supervillain.

Essential Dr. Doom Reading

The Origins Of Dr. Doom

Doom’s humble beginnings paved the way for his genius to thrive, with one devastating moment sealing his fate forever

Before the tyrannous Dr. Doom became obsessed with power and conquering the world, he was a promising young genius, born in a Romani camp just outside Latveria ruled by the Baron, to his sorceress mother, Cynthia Von Doom, and his father, Werner Von Doom. When Cynthia makes a deal with Mephisto that goes wrong, she loses her life. Werner took young Victor and fled – where he, too, lost his life. At this young age, Victor sought to learn as much as he could about magic and science to rescue his mother’s soul from Mephisto, and his journey to Dr. Doom truly began. During this time, Young Victor also met Valeria, somebody he truly fell for. Doom created machines through his brilliance and sorcery to protect his people from the Baron, attracting the attention of American institutions.

Enter Reed Richards, Doom’s arch nemesis, who he met when offered a position at the Empire State University in New York City and began an academic rivalry with. The two geniuses would debate advanced theories, which surprised academics, consistently trying to be better than the other. While Reed focused on developing a starship for interdimensional space travel, Doom was set on creating a machine that projects the astral form into different dimensions. Through this machine, he hoped to get closer to freeing his mother’s soul. However, something was seriously wrong with his calculations, and despite Reed’s educated warnings, Doom ignored him – leading to an explosion that destroyed his work and scarred his face.

Doom blamed Reed for his scarred face and later his expulsion from the university due to his unethical experiments. Resentful and malcontent, Doom traveled the world and was rescued by a group of monks in a village in Tibet after he collapsed. Doom quickly ruled the monks and mastered their ways, who helped him forge a suit of iron armor and mask. Before the mask had cooled, Doom placed it on his face – permanently burning it and adopting the moniker Doctor Doom. Leaving Tibet, Doom overthrew the Baron and Latveria’s monarch, finally situating himself as the ruler of his nation. He changed the capital city’s name to Doomstadt and began his plans for change. As the new ruler of Latveria, Doom sets out to enact vengeance on the world, rescue his mother’s soul, and terrorize The Fantastic Four to prove himself better than Reed Richards.

Doom’s Powers And Machines

Doom has mastered sorcery, science, cybernetics, martial arts, and more

Doom’s powers primarily originate from his incredible intellect and skills as a sorcerer and have grown immensely over the decades. Through a combination of these, Doom has invented many things, such as the Time Platform, which he can use to go into the past and change history. He’s also designed multiple variations of his Doombots, which can act as Doom when he is unwilling to risk his life and protect Latveria and help him effectively cheat death and multiple world-threatening machines. Doom’s knowledge extends to physics, biochemistry, genetics, cybernetics, weapons technology, science, robotics, and time travel. He is a brilliant mechanical and electrical engineer, taught by the greatest minds and admired by Tony Stark. Doom’s vast knowledge is his greatest weapon and extends to almost every scientific avenue.

Doom’s mystical abilities varied throughout his time as a sorcerer, as his power source primarily came from the demon trio, the Haazareth Three, before they removed most of his powers. He was such a powerful sorcerer that he was chosen as a potential candidate for the Sorcerer Supreme when Dr. Strange stepped down, something not many Marvel characters have achieved. Through magic, Doom could nullify other individuals’ powers, summon entities, absorb power, manipulate elements, achieve interdimensional travel, time travel, cast spells and portals, create force fields, banish his enemies, teleport, and more. Doom even had psychic abilities, although it is unclear which ones he still has.

As well as his level of genius and use of magic, Doom trained himself to have the peak human physique, having trained for years in preparation for his fateful battle with Mephisto. He has achieved great equilibrium and reflexes and has built up incredible agility, strength, and speed. Doom is a master of martial arts, having been trained in many types of combat by the monks and by the world’s greatest sword masters. Doom has defeated many heroes through his combat skills alone. As well as his physique and combat skills, Doom has diplomatic immunity as ruler of Latveria, which, combined with his status with high-influence individuals and unwavering willpower, helps him hugely when pursuing world domination.

Dr. Doom’s armor has seen multiple upgrades and tweaks, increasing his already impressive abilities and helping him reach his most powerful form. Firstly, his suit is composed of strong titanium, which is enhanced by magic, greatly increasing Doom’s protection while wearing the armor and his strength, so much so that he has fought the Hulk, taken a blast from the Infinity Gauntlet, and more. Different survival-system mechanics are implemented into his suit so that Doom can still see during harsh weather or in dark environments, survive underwater or in space for days, and be protected from threats through force fields and electrical shocks. The suit has been upgraded with temporary gadgets for different missions and to battle enemies with different abilities, reflecting his ability to plan for every situation.

Doom’s Role In Secret Wars

Doom achieved his goal of world domination at a time when the Multiverse was destroyed

Although Doom has been a major part of many Marvel Comics events, arguably his most important role was as the Multiverse’s savior in 2015’s Secret Wars. With the Multiverse on the brink of absolute annihilation, the Beyonders, beings who exist outside the Multiverse, sought to destroy it by placing Molecule Men in every reality like seeded bombs. In attempts to stop this, Doom and Earth-616’s Molecule Man began eliminating these alternate Molecule Men – inadvertently causing incursions. Before long, only Earth-616 and Earth-1610 were left. While Reed Richards managed to save a few of Earth’s heroes, the others seemingly perished… but awoke on a new world, Battleworld, ruled over by God Emperor Doom.

Doom had saved the Multiverse and achieved his goal – world domination. Doom brought together pieces of the Multiverse by stealing the combined power of the Beyonders, saving iconic Marvel locations to create a planet inhabited by superheroes and supervillains. This was the ultimate version of Doom, with his goals completed and powers unrivaled. When a rebellion of heroes defeated Doom, the Multiverse was rebuilt by Reed and Franklin Richards with the help of the Molecule Man. Doom returned to his Latveria castle, missing the scars that once ruined his face.

The MCU is heading towards Secret Wars, and with Robert Downey Jr. confirmed to be portraying Dr. Doom in the upcoming Avengers movies, it will be very interesting to see how it unfolds and how this iconic villain comes to absolute power on the big screen.