Victor Von Doom: Dr Doom Appreciation 2020

[Master Planner]

Yeah, I don't think sales was really any reason for finishing it early. They might say so, but I'm not buying it. I think they look at a series like this and they're only giving it a shot even while counting on it to fail.

I've always wondered why we never got that young Doom trilogy series from some years past. The excuse was that the artist had some personal issues and fell behind, but that's not all of it. It wouldn't have been the first time that Marvel started with one artist and finished with another (or two or three others). What was weird about that story was that they were actively promoting it... we had covers for all three issues, their were story blurbs out for all three, the story had to have been already written, why not get a substitute artist to finish?

I sometimes think that Marvel doesn't really know how to handle Doctor Doom. He's a villain, or he's not ... he's not a hero, not an anti-hero, he's a king but morally ambiguous? (no more than any other politician) He's powerful and smart, but he can't be too powerful or too much smarter than the heroes who have to ultimately defeat him. I think they have him wrong as often as not, and if with Disney now calling the shots they have to worry about his cinematic presence as well ... don't want to influence the little kids or teach them that sometimes men do bad things for good reasons. But Marvel comics has put out nauseatingly bad portrayals too, so I can't really blame the coming cinema universe. My worry is always that the next generation of fans will only see the bad versions, and not understand that there is more than that to know. But Marvel doesn't want him to be a popular hero-type character, the way Venom took off, or the Punisher, or even Magneto. They need him to be the big bad.

I do hope that Marvel doesn't Disney-fy Victor Von Doom into someone or something unrecognizable so that they can have an end-game villain for the multitudinous Marvel heroes that now crowd the movie franchises. I will hold out hope, but I wouldn't want to give odds.

The problem with Doom, at least for me, is that he had a growth after the ending of Secret Wars. He achieved his ambition to be the top being of all existence, he became the closest thing to a true God and for a time, he tought Reed Richards dead. After the restoration of the multiverse, Doom had only one choice and that was to be a good guy(with shades of gray). But that road meant that we must forget Dr Doom, the tyrant and would be conqueror and focus into a new developement and a new road for the character. With the potential usage of Fantastic Four as an MCU film, Marvel needed Doom as a villain, so every direction into a new and heroic Doom was...doomed. Doom is too popular as a villain and Fantastic Four as a franchise will need Doom's popularity to start anew.

As for the Cantwell's run, while rushed, i enjoyed the finale. I'm one of the few Doomfans that i really prefer Doom as a guy who is brilliant,but too self-centered and proud to accept that he is wrong, even in his petty grudges. So, if you want Doom as a villain, have him as that(of course, if we saw levels of villainy equal with that of,let's say Red Skull, yes, that would be too much).

[Mist@doom]

By the way.....enjoy the King In Black tie-in Iron Maiden!
Salvador might be one of my favorite Dr Doom pencilers....and from the impression i got,it might be a pretty cool story! (symbiote Santa!)

[babyblob]

So here is a dumb question. Doctor Doom got expelled from college, did he finish somewhere else? Or did he just name himself Doctor Doom?

[Iron Maiden]

So here is a dumb question. Doctor Doom got expelled from college, did he finish somewhere else? Or did he just name himself Doctor Doom?

We really don't know for sure if Doom got any other formal education to earn a doctorate. I doubt it. Once he got expelled he exiled himself for a number of years in a hidden monastery in Tibet learning more of the mystic arts. In Brubaker's Books of Doom there is a scene were after being in Tibet for a few years he begins to monitor events in the outside world. He comes across an TV broadcast interview with Reed on a news program where he is referred to as Doctor Richards and it sets him off. His servant/assistant Larin recounts that from that point on Victor insisted all the monks address him as Doctor Doom. Some fans have just theorized that once he became monarch of Latveria, he could have just awarded himself the title.

[Doombot]

I'm sure he ended up giving himself all kinds of honorary doctorates and degrees from Latverian universities once he returned home from abroad.

[Jabare]

you alls hould pick up Avengers #40

[Iron Maiden]

Thanks....I was wondering about that.

[Abe]

Doomscribe and JustaDoombot

I have just read a lengthy Doctor Doom series "exit interview" Cantwell just gave this morning at Adventures in Poor Taste and I feel more enlightened by what he was conveying with that ending. Whether you agree with Cantwell's thoughts or not you have to admit you have to appreciate that he did give us one of the most thought provoking takes on Doom out there.

I think this quote that occurs towards the end in a discussion about how Reed can be as petty as Doom is probably the most insightful....

AIPT: And while Doom has never been able to kill Reed, he has no problem destroying his more successful doppelganger and everything he helped build just for making our Victor confront hard truths about himself. At the end of the day, do you think Doom’s greatest enemy will always be himself?



CC: Yep. Always. And that’s how I justify this evil act in my head. Some readers were mad that Doom killed an entire universe, which included his kids. It included every nice person you’ve ever met in Marvel history. It included Aunt May. I mean think about it. He killed everyone. Morgan Le Fay. The West Coast Avengers. He killed Ms. Marvel. He killed Power Pack. He killed all the Watchers. Eternity. Thanos. He killed your dad. He killed bacterium in the water on Mars. F-----g everything.

Why?

Because in that split second moment, he saw it all as a reflection of himself. A reflection of himself that was admittedly being a little condescending (and thusly not perfect). A reflection of himself he worried he could never reach. A reflection of himself that in order to become he would have to invalidate who he was.

Was he thinking universal genocide? No.

He was shattering a mirror out of momentary rage.
Despite the scope of the crime, I only think it was murder in the second degree. It was a crime of passion. It just included an entire existence. Like… imagine Captain America biting into a subway sandwich and just being instantly nullified. No idea how it happened. The Thing going to the bathroom and there’s no toilet paper left. Blink. He killed Kang again. He killed Victorious, wherever she was.

But he wasn’t thinking about any of that in that moment. He was thinking only of himself.

And that is — now literally — his most fatal flaw.


AIPT: While you show plenty of signs of humanity within Doom throughout the series, your final statement on the character appears to be that there is no good in him — he is Death’s greatest servant (as she suggested he would be in Doctor Doom #3). Is this an accurate read, or are these final proclamations yet another mask Doom hides behind?

CC: That’s not my statement. That’s Doom’s statement. It’s funny how often people get that confused in comics. Doom says there’s no good in him. But we just read 10 issues where there seemed to be quite a lot in him. He’s feeling sorry for himself in this final page. He’s justifying what he just did. He might even be covering up some real guilt. And yeah, Death got him on a technicality, but I don’t think it’s a title he’ll privately be proud of, even if later he touts it as a threat or boast to his enemies down the road.

So yes. He’s totally retreated back behind his mask at the end. If anything, this doesn’t prove he’s eternally evil. It proves that he has a strong streak of cowardice he has yet to overcome or even acknowledge.



Me again... I have to admit I did not consider that last statement by Doom about himself this way and took it as the author saying that Doom had no good in him. I should have known better than to take it at face value. You have to go back to the ending of Triumph and Torment. Doom's plan for redeeming his mother's soul worked because she had to believe that he was allied with Mephisto and betrayed Doctor Strange. He was willing to have her despise him in order to set her soul free.

I've finally read Doctor Doom #10, fully aware of the content because of the spoilers, and I must confess that I liked it. And this interview is probably the reason why.

"He was shattering a mirror out of momentary rage."

This is quite brilliant in fact : Cantwell built all his story on the idea of a mirror universe to enhance that classic old trope of Victor confronting his image. And the writing of the all issue enlightened that theme quite well!

So even if I don't really like where it puts our good doctor for now - and all the considerations here about Disney and the Marvel editorial seem correct so I fear a little bit for the future - it's a good conclusion to a very interesting series, in the end an ambitious study of the character.

[Abe]

About Avengers #40 and the Doctor Doom and Iron Man story, I won't read them in 2020, so I guess it's just time to wish you all all the best for the New Year's Eve !

[Iron Maiden]

About Avengers #40 and the Doctor Doom and Iron Man story, I won't read them in 2020, so I guess it's just time to wish you all all the best for the New Year's Eve !

Thanks Abe! I'm going to start a separate review thread for the Iron Man/Doctor Doom KIB story but anyone can post in here too if they feel like it. It's not really spoilery stuff in there as far as I know.

Here's the link to the review thread with minor (to me anyway) spoilers

[FRC Coazze]

Happy new year everyone!

[Iron Maiden]

Happy New Year to You too! Well, this thread is going to be closed in a few hours since the rule is that large, ongoing threads all get rebooted for the new year. With any luck, I will have a new one prepped to start things over again. I hate to lose such great posts but you can still go back and read them. You just have to bookmark the older thread.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

2020 has one last tragedy.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...-dead-1109072/

The rapper and hip hop star MF Doom passed away at 49.

He was a huge fan of Secret Wars 1984 and he based his entire stage gimmick down to wearing a mask, on Doctor Doom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdgO...ature=emb_logo

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about him and the implications of Doom's influence on hip hop and his connection and appeal to African-Americans.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...w-flesh/68108/

Doom was born a [Romani]—which in another place, is another way, of all the many ways, to say he was born a [N-word]. Put differently, he was one of us. His aspect was scarred from his attempts to transcend himself, and so he donned a mask...Comics are so often seen as the province of white geeky nerds. But, more broadly, comics are the literature of outcasts, of pariahs, of Jews, of gays, of blacks. It's really no mistake that we saw ourselves in Doom, Magneto or Rogue.

When I was young, all of this was dismissed as trash. I think that's changing some now. But it's one of the reasons why I'm so slow to write off hip-hop--and pop culture at large—even today. I saw things in Saturday morning cartoons that stick with me to this day. If I can be here at The Atlantic, on the wings of Mattel gimmickry, who knows what some kid is out there making of Airbenders and Rick Ross?

By the way I substituted some words in TNC's article that is fine for him to write originally but isn't for me to excerpt here in good conscience.

[Iron Maiden]

I know what you mean. I was going to post the news myself. I think once we get the new thread going you can add it over there too if you want as a post. I did link the interview some years back in earlier threads. Come to think about it , and it might be a good think to start....a page with links to creator's interviews on Doom. I'd like to link the recent Cantwell interviews there too.