I'm confused with the current Dr. Doom...

[Raye]

I can understand where people are coming from when they say they're upset about always going back to the same old same old, but on the other hand a lot of the times when villains are made into heroes it takes away a lot of what made them interesting to begin with. Change isn't always a good thing. Making somebody like Dr. Doom a goodguy deprives you of an excellent villain and all it gives you in exchange is a lesser watered down version of what you already had.

I can see where you are coming from, but I don't really agree there for the most part. Sometimes, but only when it comes to certain villains, usually ones that are presented as basically irredeemable, which Doom was not.

Mostly because villains are by definition guest stars in a protagonist's story, they are there to give the hero something to fight against. While the best villains have motivations you can understand even if you don't agree with them, and they see themselves as the heroes of their own story a lot of the time, they are still there to serve someone else's story most of the time. This means that villains are a LOT easier to create new ones of, you don't have to keep the same ones around, because most people are reading for the hero, not the villain. Not every new villain will capture the imagination, sure, but there is always the next arc. And while some villains are interesting because of a deeper connection to the hero, I don't think that means the connection has to remain always the same. Look at Thor and Loki, since that is the one I know best. First off, Thor has not exactly been lacking in the villain department for the past 10 years with Loki no longer in that role of primary antagonist, there have been new ones like Gorr, and old ones brought back from obscurity like Malekith, and I don't think the stories have suffered because he isn't fighting Loki again. And they have been able to mine that relationship for more drama now than they would have been able to in the past, different kinds of drama, and they are apparently working together after WotR concludes, which should be interesting. So they may have lost him as a villain, but he is still a part of Thor's story, his supporting cast. And Loki himself is more viable as a character now than he was before. He's getting his second crack at a solo, (third if you count JiM. And both of them ended for plot reasons before, not because they weren't selling) you think they would have been able to do that if he had stayed a mustache twirler constantly plotting to attack Thor in some way? So the net result there was additive, new villains for Thor to fight, the relationship with Loki is still there, it's just different, and they have a 'new' character that can sustain a book.

Much the same situation with Magneto and the X-Men, though he is still a villain sometimes. But the walking the line between hero and villain rather than full on villain has in general resulted in more interesting stories, and he has the ability to carry his own story now in a way that he would not have been able to before Claremont made him more sympathetic.

And all of that could have applied to Doom as well, quite easily. Him turning face didn't have to mean losing him as a supporting character in FF, it just meant the exact way he participated would have changed. And the change could have exposed new facets of both his and Reed's characters that we haven't already seen repeatedly.

[SuperiorIronman]

I can understand where people are coming from when they say they're upset about always going back to the same old same old, but on the other hand a lot of the times when villains are made into heroes it takes away a lot of what made them interesting to begin with. Change isn't always a good thing. Making somebody like Dr. Doom a goodguy deprives you of an excellent villain and all it gives you in exchange is a lesser watered down version of what you already had.

And so that means we have to keep retreading the same issues between Victor and Reed? Go ten issues and have Victor do something because the Fantastic Four readership is so brain dead it can't comprehend a new villain? I think we deserve better than that and Slott's plot.

And to that end, I don't think anybody was ever asking for a wholly heroic Doctor Doom, Infamous Iron man had the right idea. He's acting in a heroic capacity, but the things he does are not always going to be seen as good as it may be, and to that end with Victor's history who is going to outright trust his judgement? It's an extension of Victor viewing himself as a hero and breaking away from the narrative dead end that is screwing around with the Richard's family. He's been god, he's ruled the Earth, he got the family he wanted and got one up on Reed. What more do we need to do with him?

And even still, watered down? Slott's Doctor Doom feels that way and it was a revert to type from decades prior.

[Michael Watkins]

As long as Reed is good, Doom must be evil. Magneto can get away with it because Xavier's fallen from grace.

[protege]

And so that means we have to keep retreading the same issues between Victor and Reed? Go ten issues and have Victor do something because the Fantastic Four readership is so brain dead it can't comprehend a new villain? I think we deserve better than that and Slott's plot.

And to that end, I don't think anybody was ever asking for a wholly heroic Doctor Doom, Infamous Iron man had the right idea. He's acting in a heroic capacity, but the things he does are not always going to be seen as good as it may be, and to that end with Victor's history who is going to outright trust his judgement? It's an extension of Victor viewing himself as a hero and breaking away from the narrative dead end that is screwing around with the Richard's family. He's been god, he's ruled the Earth, he got the family he wanted and got one up on Reed. What more do we need to do with him?

And even still, watered down? Slott's Doctor Doom feels that way and it was a revert to type from decades prior.

They’re trying the same thing with Otto Octavius,so maybe they don’t want to have more than one morally ambiguous hero in play at one time.

[kilderkin]

I am generally very disappointed with doom in the new FF book, he had become something more after secret wars and his run as 'iron man'

But that's mostly lost now

For what I felt was a poor showing of a poor version

Imo

[your_name_here]

Doom had grown and evolved. Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a villain later down the line due to different circumstances, but there’s so, so much untapped potential there with the FF getting back. I was really hyped for his reunion with Reed now they had some form of understanding but nope.

[MagSeven]

I'm glad Doom is back to what he's supposed to be. I hope they even plan an event around him. I don't want him as an even vainer Tony Stark. I want third person speaking Dr. Doom.

[Iron Maiden]

Doom had grown and evolved. Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a villain later down the line due to different circumstances, but there’s so, so much untapped potential there with the FF getting back. I was really hyped for his reunion with Reed now they had some form of understanding but nope.

I was really hoping for a different reunion myself but the advanced solicitations killed that right off. BTW, what is this act that was supposed to happen in last week's issue that was supposed to change the relationship? According to that in issue #9 we were supposed to see:

WHAT PRICE VICTORY?"
• One cruel act will forever change the relationship between the Fantastic Four and Victor Von Doom.
• The fate of Latveria and of the world and the balance of Cosmic Power in the Universe all rests on one decision!
• All will be revealed in the terrifying final chapter of "Herald of Doom"!

Now, the easy answer is that the preview text is wrong and that this already happened in issue #8. But does that mean that Sue was guilty of the cruel act? Will it lead to some future act of revenge against her personally? Or was it Doom's death traps?

Did Slott really need to hit the reset button hard to bring Doom back into the Fantastic Four after his turn as Infamous Iron Man had ended? What we got here from Slott was a retread of Doom from 1965 that disregards not only Infamous Iron Man but even Secret Wars and Hickman's Fantastic Four. ( I disregard the other retread Doom that Fraction used in his FF of secondary FF members). What's also bad is how quickly he has Ben and Johnny forget that they had formed a sort of Fantastic Four of their own in MTIO along with Rachna Koul. Several times one or the other was given aid by Doom; once Ben encountered the false conjuring of Doom's mother created by Mephisto, then in gladiator arena of the evil AU Spider-Man. Ben was even gifted with a residence in Europe in "Infamous" At least Zdarsky showed a conversation between Ben and Reed about what was going on with Doom during Reed's absence. We do get a meek apology from Ben when Doom tells him that Mount Doom was named after Doom's father.

But the worst offender is Slott himself when this death sentence is imposed on the Fantastic Four.....just because Slott has to come up with something to cause drama.

[SuperiorIronman]

Well we can plainly see the problem here based on his comments about Spider-man on Twitter. He simply will not allow the character to change because he has a different view on how these characters exist. That's a little vague, but suffice to say it comes back to character development and holding these characters hostage because he's not looking to move these characters forward, he's interested in keeping them in what he feels is there most marketable personage.

That's not a bad thought to have, but a good writer can make anything work. Literally anything. That's horrible in some cases but its true, there is no such thing as a bad idea in writing so long as you have the skill to pull it off. Infamous Iron man was not a difficult thing to pull off and other writers did well with it. However here we come back to the marketing machine and the starvation of the FF fanbase. Doom fans will pick up content with him in it, that much is a given. So you can rely on those sales to prop you up, you can also rely on FF fans who are looking for a return to status quo (as foolish as that is) to boost sales numbers because to them they are living in a bizzaro world where Doom has moved beyond the FF book. So combine that with writers bias and Slott's need to market his books to stay afloat and here we are continuity be damned. It's bad writing justified by marketing gimmicks and starvation for content.

And even at the end of the day if this was to be revealed to be a doombot and Victor was still off doing Infamous Iron man stuff, the arc was still bad. It still wasn't good enough to justify itself and played a section of the fanbase to gain sales.

[Raye]

Yeah, I remember reading similar thoughts from him about that a while ago. Something about how all fans deserve to experience the characters at their most iconic, or something like that, right? Or that new fans would be so confused if they came into a story unable to recognize the characters? So I knew when FF started, there was likely going to be a lot of reset button hitting from him, because he's been saying similar things for years. While it could be argued that he technically wasn't the one to hit that button with either Doom or Galactus, it is probably safe to assume that editorial had requested those changes in anticipation of his run, because he wanted to do that 'classic' take. And Doom's case was vague enough that he didn't HAVE to come back out of that castle all villainous again, so I'd still lay it mostly at Slott's feet, especially given his well documented opinions on this sort of thing.

Anyway, needless to say i am not a fan of this take. I think it really underestimates the intelligence of the audience, and the audience's desire to see stories with actual consequences. We're living in an era now with TV shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones where characters experience a lot of change over time, and people love it. While I concede that comics can't be quite as dramatic as that because those shows are intended to be finite (even if they are long running) and comics ar not, I still think it shows that people don't necessarily want characters to remain in one place forever, and they are accustomed to watching dramatic character developments happen and stick. And given that, I think they'd be able to understand that the Dr Doom they see on a poster is different than the one on the comic book page because he's had character development. And also it's not like it's hard to get a classic take if you want to. TPB's and back issues have never been easier to access thanks to the wide availability of all manner of older content in trades, and Marvel Unlimited. It's not like anyone is being denied classic Doom if they allow character change to stick, all those old stories still exist.

[Snoop Dogg]

Slott's comments on Spider-Man today are about the character needing to still be able to make big mistakes and be fallible because that's what makes him interesting and he needs to stay interesting.

[Raye]

And that's fair, but that doesn't preclude allowing character development. Allowing a character to make mistakes (I mean, that applies to all characters, really, it's hardly something unique to Spider-Man) doesn't mean he has to remain pretty much the same overall. And he's also said things about maintaining status quo for marketability and such. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards...ovels/69746198 While that is in response to legacy characters specifically, I don't think it's hard to see how much he finds maintaining status quo to be 'comforting'.

[Snoop Dogg]

It was a unique response to Spider-Man because since the motto about responsibility is so important to the character, people don't give much leeway for him failing to live up to it even though sometimes he should (like when he was flaky on his Aunt when she needed him last month).

The earlier statement about allowing future fans to enjoy the character was about not crashing everything down so Spider-Man could not be Spider-Man because everyone deserves have some Spider-Man. Not really about character development since most of Peter's character development happened in, er, the 60's.

[Raye]

But don't you think it's a problem that his character development happened in the 60's and then basically stopped? Why continue to follow the book if it's basically assured that nothing big can ever happen in his life ever again without being undone a little while later? and I mean he'd still be Spider-Man with character development, and Doom would still be Doom. They may be different, but as long as the character development made sense in the context of the story and their characterization at the time, it would still feel like them. I'm not arguing for Peter Parker to lose his responsibility thing and completely upend his moral code or anything, or for Doom to suddenly stop being arrogant and over confident, you can do other changes while keeping the characteristics that make them feel like them intact.

[SuperiorIronman]

Slott's comments on Spider-Man today are about the character needing to still be able to make big mistakes and be fallible because that's what makes him interesting and he needs to stay interesting.

Yes, but status-quo does not mean that you play hardball on just one trait despite as "marketable" as it may seem. Also that's a bizarre thing for Slott to say in the first place, because modern Spider-man's failures are because of him rather than it being a trait of the character. Dan Slott was on that book for about 10 years, he in that time can damn well change that. As someone who spearheads the character, you are allowed to make those choices. It's a trait of modern Spider-man because Slott made him that way continuity be damned.