Victor Von Doom: Doctor Doom Appreciation 2019

[Coatl]

Well, maybe too lighten things up a bit, I did bring along a blank cover version of his Avengers #1 to sign at C2 E2. And I didn't even tell him to add the Doom part

Hey, congratulations, it's awesome...and you should have left a kind of impression since was able to identify you as a Doom fan.

[Iron Maiden]

Hey, congratulations, it's awesome...and you should have left a kind of impression since was able to identify you as a Doom fan.

I've kind of made myself known but the lines to see him are much, much longer than the first time I saw him at C2E2 back when it was much smaller. Now it's really bad just finding parking and it's in one of the larger convention settings! His fanbase is undoubtedly much, much bigger now.

But I was there for his first appearance at the convention and when he had just begun writing the FF. He signed my copy of his first issue. Then I was there for the Secret Wars panels in 2015 and that is when I showed him my color guides and inked portions of some pages of the GN Triumph and Torment. He was really surprised to see those and said those were the most amazing things he's seen there at the con. He also sketched Doom on one of those blank covers I bought back home at my local comic shop to sign. I was lucky the shop had one of New Avengers #1, the first appearance of his character the Black Swan.

[comicscollector]

I have not read Fantastic Four#8 yet, but to me Doctor Doom by Dan Slott been being written well. I find it very difficult to see the most prominent characters of Marvel being badly written by him. After all his use of previous continuity of the marvel stories is something that is interesting in his stories.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I have not read Fantastic Four#8 yet, but to me Doctor Doom by Dan Slott been being written well. I find it very difficult to see the most prominent characters of Marvel being badly written by him. After all his use of previous continuity of the marvel stories is something that is interesting in his stories.

Slott talked about doing "the most iconic version" of a character versus "doing the one in the stands", i.e. the character that a writer remembers from their years as a fan and what they see as their classic role and function, even when the current comic has them in a different space altogether. That kind of explains how Doom went from a Hickman and Bendis space to the one we see here with little explanation and hints about this sudden change. i.e. no Arc Welding, from where the character was to who and where the writer wants him to be.

And Slott in general doesn't do fill-in-the-blanks and all the stuff the likes of Stern and others believe in.

[SuperiorIronman]

God forbid we create new characters, expand on old ones, or write plans that actually make sense. The Doctor Doom from "Brain drain" is laughing at this.

Who knew Bendis would make it work right? Granted a mostly fresh slate at the time, but he made it work.

[comicscollector]

As a returning reader of the Fantastic Four stories and as such as a returning reader of Doctor Doom stories i am finding the characterisation of Doctor Doom in the current story arc quite interesting. It´s a more over the top story of Doctor Doom but i think Dan Slott is great in those stories.So to me the current story in Fantastic Four is quite entertaining.As i said i have still not read Fantastic Four#8 but from the first stories,it´s looking to be a must read story arc of Doctor Doom.

[DoomScribe]

At the time when I was driving to Chicago I was thinking of one of my all time favorite Doom panels from Byrne's Terror in a Tiny Town story. One minor detail I liked that Byrne did is that he showed Doom playing without his gauntlets. Not being that gifted myself I thought it would be pretty hard to hit the keys with those bulky gauntlets!

I have seen that scene at least a hundred times. I was thinking to myself as I looked at them at how richly detailed John Byrne made the furnishings surrounding Doom's piano, and how the digital pages are so much brighter and sharper than print. And then, I saw it for the first time ever. There's a face in the blue detail on the furniture on the left side of the panel! It looks like Doom's face (not the mask). Can't believe I never noticed that before.

hmph,
DS

[Iron Maiden]

Wow....just noticed that myself Doomscirbe. IIRC, the Bristol boards the artists used back then might have been the older, larger versions. I've never been able to buy one of those but I've seen a few at vendor booths at C2 E2. I just don't know when they stopped using them and went to the smaller size they use now.

[MichaelC]

Why doesn't Doom fix his skin, anyway? We can do a lot about that sort of thing even in the real world. Why not clone his skin and graft it onto himself? That's barely even sci-fi at this point. We're close to being able to do that in the real world.

Edit: scratch that, it's already real-world. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/heal...cess-1.1068947

[XPac]

Why doesn't Doom fix his skin, anyway? We can do a lot about that sort of thing even in the real world. Why not clone his skin and graft it onto himself? That's barely even sci-fi at this point. We're close to being able to do that in the real world.

Edit: scratch that, it's already real-world. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/heal...cess-1.1068947

There's no point. Doom knows anytime his face is fixed it just gets messed up again.

[Iron Maiden]

There's no point. Doom knows anytime his face is fixed it just gets messed up again.

Exactly. He was completely restored at the end of Secret Wars and then still ended up getting his face messed up by whatever demon was possessing the Hood. So even when he was being heroic, he still payed for it in the end. No wonder it drives him nuts. I think the major reason is that TPTB at Marvel editorial wanted to restore the status quo so he can be the FF's big bad one more time. But since this newest injury is more magic based than before, I don't see why Doctor Strange might be able to do something about that.

[SuperiorIronman]

I don't think its editorial since there are two perfectly valid forms of Victor's disfigurement and we hadn't gotten a proper look at his face up until Secret Wars 2015. Sure we knew he was messed up but we didn't know how much until then. To me it's likely more of a Slott thing since Bendis didn't imply it was nearly this bad, and when he returned in FF#1 (the issue where he is almost naked) we didn't see the scars nor was he covered in burns. We even saw his face and while a bit warped from the burn, the injury was in the right spot. The faceplate was off and so naturally the wounds are in the place where the plate should've been.

So it's either Slott wanted Victor to look like he received a full body burn or the artists can't keep consistent despite the fact they only had to draw one part on Victor injured. I'm inclined to believe either one, or both, both seems perfectly valid.
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In-universe, part of the reason he couldn't was that doctors refused to work with him, and Victor's face was at various points almost horrifically damaged. Doctor Strange however if I'm not mistaken thought he could've used a disguise spell which would accomplish much of the same thing so that's not out of Victor's wheel house. Magic or not, the wound still can be covered up with a bit of makeup/disguise spell.

[nj06]

Someone fill me in: How did Doom go from being somewhat of a hero to now being a villain again? Does he remember his time as a hero? Also, how did his face get disfigured again?

[SuperiorIronman]

Someone fill me in: How did Doom go from being somewhat of a hero to now being a villain again? Does he remember his time as a hero? Also, how did his face get disfigured again?

At the end of Bendis's Iron man he got disfigured by a demon possessing The Hood when it struck his face.

Doom was Infamous Iron man right up to Fantastic Four #1 where out of nowhere some rando sneaked into his castle and somehow convinced him to return to the throne. Never-mind how so much of this doesn't add up with things like Invincible Iron man, Infamous Iron man, and Marvel Two in one, Victor is just back to his old ways now and arguably making worse decisions. And while it could be because he was mentally altered, he was still active as Iron man after he found that out so he's just a villain again with a plan no better than Wizard's or the Mad thinker's.

[Doom Answers to No Master]

Well besides Slott wanting to do a classic type F4/Doom story, I think Marvel wanted to restore Doom to the status quo (for which I am grateful...sorry while it was interesting to see Doom briefly as the Infamous Iron Man, I never wanted it to last...Doom should be Doom...character growth has happened but lets be honest, Doom is at his best, when he thinks he better than everyone, wants to rule the world/universe etc) and I am sure Marvel saw the writing on the wall that Disney was going to get Fox and realized Doom needs to be classic Doom when he gets integrated into the MCU...he needs all the classic traits intact to make a memorable impact....