Wolverine vs Doctor Doom Gets Official R-Rated Answer from Marvel

Across Marvel’s comics and movies, Doctor Doom is in ascendance, now taking on many of Marvel’s most iconic heroes, including the Wolverine himself. Even as Marvel was announcing Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doctor Doom in the MCU, it was also declaring the new era known as One World Under Doom, coming to Marvel Comics in 2025. To celebrate what Marvel is calling “Doctor Doom’s pop culture dominance,” the new Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe will be appearing across Marvel’s titles this October.

Marvel just announced a new series of Doctor Doom variant covers to be released across October, showing the Latverian dictator mixing it up with many Marvel icons. While the covers are full of great art, the most grisly is Francesco Mobili’s cover to Wolverine #2, which shows Doom dragging the body of Wolverine, whose face and arms have been burnt down to the smoking, adamantium-coated bone by Doom’s power.

The covers aren’t just a celebration of Doom’s current prominence, but of his new power level as Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme, having replaced Doctor Strange. While fans may have debated Wolverine’s chances against Doom before now, Mobili’s art shows Doctor Doom’s mastery of science and magic is simply too much for the X-Men’s resident brawler, healing factor or not.

Doom Obliterates Wolverine as Marvel Celebrates ‘One World Under Doom’

During the events of Blood Hunt, Doctor Doom managed to outplay Doctor Strange. Having arranged all the conditions he needed to end the vampire attack on Earth, Doom revealed that he needed to be Sorcerer Supreme in order to actually put his spell into effect. Strange handed over the title and its power-boosting artifacts, only for Doom to twist the wording of their agreement to keep them indefinitely, until he is fully satisfied that he has “saved the world.” As a result, Doom is now in contention for Marvel’s most powerful mortal alive. Marvel’s Doctor Doom variant covers will be released as follows:

Wolverine and Doctor Doom have battled many times in Marvel comics, but Logan usually comes off worse. Doom has no moral compass and has dedicated his life to accruing power, whether it be mystical, technological or even political. The dictator has countless contingencies ready to defeat his enemies, and has a long history of nullifying or stealing the powers of Marvel’s heroes. As potent as Wolverine’s healing factor is and as deadly as his claws can be once he’s in range, Doom is a master of the mystic arts and possesses bleeding-edge weaponry, so it’s easy to see how he could burn Logan down to the bone as in Francesco Mobili’s art.

However, if Wolverine thought that fighting Doom was bad, worse is coming. One World Under Doom will see Marvel’s heroes forced not to fight Doom but to serve him, with even Spider-Man becoming Doom’s personal enforcer. It’s likely that given the choice, Wolverine would indeed prefer to be burned alive by Doctor Doom than to serve him, but with the powers of the Sorcerer Supreme now at the villain’s command, sadly Logan isn’t going to be given a choice.

Wolverine #2 is coming October 16 from Marvel Comics.