Mark Waid's Doctor Doom Manifesto (plus extra material)

[grilledcheesing]

So I've been literally all over the internet searching for people's opinions on Waid's Doom, braving more well-known places like 4chan, Reddit, Quora, Tumblr, Dreamwidth, TV Tropes, Wikipedia Talk, Comicvine, CBR Forums, etc., all the way to dozens of obscure gaming forums and random one-off blogs (plus comment sections) that haven't been updated since 2009. So far, if I had to put a ratio on "liked Unthinakble Doom":"disliked Unthinkable Doom", it would probably currently be around 60:40 in Waid's favor. With that in mind, I was curious to what extent (if any) people's opinions would change if they could hear Waid himself explain his take on the character, and since I seem to be one of the few people in possession of his Fantastic Four Manifesto (seriously, did I get the only copy of the book where it was printed?), I figured I would post it here for a more direct analysis (in addition to some extra stuff that I took into consideration while first digesting Unthinkable). For your consideration:

[[[The most insecure man in the history of the world. That fool Reed Richards! He couldn't STAND the idea that the great Victor von Doom was smarter and better than him, so in a fit of jealousy, that idiot tampered with Victor's machines and caused them to explode, scarring Victor's face and destroying his academic standing and blah, blah, blah. Doom can bitch until your ears bleed about how Reed MUST have sabotaged his calculations, but it's pretty obvious to everyone—including, at his very core, Doom himself—that Reed was right and he was wrong and that proves Reed is smarter and so Doom will hate him with the heat of a white dwarf star until the end of time.

It's funny, and golly, I just can't explain it, but for some reason, ever since I moved to Florida, I've gained a whole new insight into the kind of man Doom is. Regardless of whom he's evaluating, there are only two measurements on Victor von Doom's yardstick of success: Best and Worthless. He tells himself he's the lord of all he surveys, the rightful ruler of Earth, and the smartest being to ever walk the planet, but every single thing he does every waking moment of the day is about trying to convince himself that this is true when he knows it's not. (This, by the way, is magnificently reflected in Doom's speech pattern, thank you, Stan; you can tell you've got Doom's voice "right" when every single sentence contains at least one pompous adjective. Doom never has a plan, he has a BRILLIANT plan. He doesn't wear armor, he wears MIGHTY armor. And so forth and so on.) Guy can't even look in a mirror without being reminded of this. No wonder he's nuts. The only place he can be and not hate himself is in a world where there's proof that he's smarter than Reed Richards.

This is hardly A Great Insight, but the reason Doom became king of a nation and wants to expand his sovereignty is because the most expedient way to fool yourself into believing you have power is to control everything you see and pretend that nothing else is important. Despite his rep, Doom doesn't really, genuinely, at heart believe that he's the rightful ruler of humanity; it's the opposite. He believes that by becoming ruler, he will be instantly validated, that it will prove he is the best and smartest man alive, and all his doubts and insecurities will vanish. Some genius.

By the way, the truism that Victor von Doom is, despite his villainy, a noble man is absolute crap and I can point to about a thousand moments in Stan and Jack's run that bear this out. A man whose entire motivating force is jealousy is ridiculously petty, not grandly noble. Yes, Doom is REGAL, and yes, whenever possible, Doom likes to ACT as if he possesses great moral character, because to him that's what great men HAVE, and yes, we HAVE seen Doom exhibit a sense of honor from time to time—

—but when I hear Doom say "it does not SUIT him to" do this-and-such, what I hear is, "it has nothing to do with my hatred for Reed Richards, so it's not worth my time." Remember, most of the reportage we've heard about what Doom will or won't do COMES. FROM. DOOM. I think "Doom the Noble" would tear the head off a newborn baby and eat it like an apple while his mother watched if it would somehow prove he were smarter than Reed.

Why has even the pre-scarred Doom always been driven to be the smartest, the most clever, the best? Look at how he grew up! Gypsies are outcasts, derided and shunned; of course Doom grew up eager to prove himself.

Side note: that machine that Doom built to communicate with his dead mother, the one that blew up and scarred his face? I'm not convinced that in the half-second before it exploded Doom didn't see or hear something (literally) hellish that he's repressed since then but which is beginning to gnaw its way out of his subconscious.]]]

Aaaannd that's the whole thing. Some final notes on Waid's take on Doom:

- He mentioned in a Reddit AMA thread that his tactic for writing characters was to either a) go way back to their origins and write them as they were initially, or b) go a completely new direction with them. As you may have guessed, with the F4 and Doom he chooses the former because, as he states in his F4 manifesto (the rest of which I'll post later), these guys were wildly popular back in the sixties, so clearly Stan and Jack were doing SOMETHING right. Basically, don't reinvent the wheel, don't repaint the Mona Lisa, etc. This is why he relies so heavily on the original Lee/Kirby Doom content from the sixties when interpreting Doom's character, as opposed to the more recent "Noble Demon" material.

- Considering the recent evidence coming to light that Jack Kirby may very well deserve far more credit than Stan Lee when it comes to the conceptualization of the Fantastic Four, I do believe that Waid put more credence into what Kirby had to say about the character than Lee, and after wasting WAY too much time scouring the absolute dregs of the internet for Kirby quotes/interviews/art/diagrams, I found that Waid's perspective on Doom aligns remarkably well with what Kirby had to say about the character. If this becomes a point of significant curiosity/debate, I'll happily make a Kirby Doom thread (since there's really too much content there to post in a reply, and it honestly deserves its own discussion imo).

- Waid elaborates on his perspective of Doom in this podcast, which I found enlightening. Specific Doom content starts around the 56-minute mark. Link: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts...o-s4D8-m6qcoN/

- Couldn't find a source for this one, but according to TV Tropes Waid once stated (approximately) that "Doom's need to be a leader who's feared and revered is just to forget that as a boy he was penniless and miserable". Again, couldn't find an interview/podcast for this, but it tracks with everything else he's said about Doom, so.

- This isn't Waid's, but I thought this guy had an excellent review of Unthinkable that ultimately changed my mind from disliking it to liking it. Link: https://comfortfoodcomics.wordpress....le-by-kevin-m/

- The comments on this post also have some good Waid-Doom discourse, if this is a portrayal/debate that you're interested in. Link: https://mightygodking.com/2011/07/29...-doom-writers/

- If you like Waid's Doom, then I would highly recommend the Marvel Wastelanders: Doom podcast, which Waid co-wrote. It stars an older Doom and an adult Valeria in a post-apocalyptic earth where the villains won, and has some truly hilarious, intense, and well-written stuff. You can watch it for free on any podcast app (at least to my knowledge, as that's what I did).

- FINALLY, in order to preempt any unproductive comments saying "Well CLEARLY Waid didn't read Byrne's Doom/Triumph and Torment/Secret Wars 1985/Emperor Doom wherein Doom does [insert moral grayness here]", yes, he did in fact read all of these things, which he either confirms within his F4 run itself or in the rest of his F4 Manifesto. I'd be happy to post the relevant panels if you're curious, and I intend on posting the rest of the F4 Manifesto in a separate thread anyway where you can read at your leisure. Waid made a conscious decision to write Doom this way, not an uninformed one lacking in background on the character, and I'd prefer if we stuck to discussing which version of Doom you prefer/you think is better, not which one is supported by THIS specific panel/interview here, because Doom has been written so wildly inconsistently over the decades that you can find panels supporting practically ANY take on the character at this point.

Anyway...let the discourse begin!

[Darkshadow]

This was an interesting, and thorough, read.

I liked Unthinkable when it came out, and have continued to. I did understand the dislike from others though because it seemed to fly in the face of his more recently than Lee/Kirby developed moral ambiguity. It's interesting to know Waid intentionally ditched the newer character "development".

Regarding the character "reversion", I often like to see less moral ambiguity in villians and more in heroes. Shock to some people, there are just genuinely evil people out there. The heroes tend to be more grey area denizens because there's no real Steve Rogers' in the world.

Regarding, the Kirby vs Lee input on Doom: I'd offer that in this case particularly, the dialogue is what defined Doom more than a script with a defined beginning and ultimate conclusion. IMO, there's a lot more character development in the bubbles than in the sequence of images that frame the overall story. I'd further offer that it was Doom's way of speaking that made him stand out in issue 5 and 6 rather than the admittedly hokey overall story of a guy after time lost jewels and surviving latching onto a passing comet after a disastrously failed plan.

[gurkle]

Waid's take on Doom reminded me of Grant Morrison's take on Magneto from around the same time. You have a 1960s Marvel villain who was created as just a simple, card-carrying evil villain (Magneto even more so than Doom), who later writers gradually started to treat as a more sympathetic and sometimes noble figure (again, Magneto more than Doom), and you write a story where they are once again portrayed as total monsters -- but since it's early 2000s Marvel and Bill Jemas was always wanting the comics to be edgier, their villainy is a lot more gruesome than it would have been in the Silver Age.

This is something no one is ever going to resolve, because their moments of nobility have become an established part of their characters, but on the other hand the only reason they haven't committed mass murder is because their mass-murder plans are always foiled. So it makes sense for Waid to remind us of what Doom really is but it also makes sense for people to dislike the reversion back to a one-dimensional Silver Age villain with 2000s violence.

[Iron Maiden]

I think using Mark Waid's take on Doom is limiting. For one thing, he gets a couple of things wrong in his Unthinkable arc. For one thing, Waid "forgets" or just ignores the Lee/Kirby origin story. In Waid's Unthinkable, the main reason for Doom's attack on Reed the rest of the FF is that Doom blames Reed for the damage done to his face from his failed experiment in college. That is simply not the case, as shown in the panel below.



So Waid gives us a false premise in Unthinkable plot since young Victor does not blame Reed for the the failure of his experiment in college. Waid is the only writer that does this

[grilledcheesing]

This was an interesting, and thorough, read.

Thanks–I spent a lot of time putting this fannish nonsense together, so it’s nice that someone appreciates it, lol

I liked Unthinkable when it came out, and have continued to. I did understand the dislike from others though because it seemed to fly in the face of his more recently than Lee/Kirby developed moral ambiguity.

See, despite “switching sides”, so to speak, and going from disliking Unthinkable to liking it, I almost have less understanding for those who cling to the idea of “noble Doom”. The idea of a benevolent dictatorship/noble dictator is neat and edgy when you’re 14 (I was ~16 when I first discovered Doom), but after maturing out of that and appreciating the actual real-life horrors perpetuated by authoritarian regimes (and also, y’know, just the basic fundamental way that human beings operate), that portrayal just comes off as incredibly ignorant (whether willfully or not) and lazily simplistic to me.

The quote “absolute power corrupts absolutely”, or that line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about how the people who seek power are the last ones equipped to have it, both come to mind, because Victor von Doom is the LAST person in the world to admit to his mistakes, accept input from others, take criticism well, put himself in others’ shoes, put others’ well-being above his personal wants and needs, and has a serious lack of empathy to boot–not exactly the qualities of a good leader in ANY political system, never mind an absolute monarchy. And especially not when his motivation is not actually protecting and advancing his people, but rather propping up his own fragile ego for the sake of his vanity.

Maybe I’m getting too invested in this politically, but considering everything going on the world right now, it just seems wildly inappropriate, irresponsible, and just downright disingenuous to past, present, and future victims of these regimes to be promoting the ridiculous concept of “benevolent authoritarianism”–an oxymoron in and of itself, which does not and cannot operate on any actual understanding of human behavior, psychology, politics, and hierarchies, ESPECIALLY not in the area of the world Latveria is typically portrayed to be in, which has ethnic and religious tensions from here to Mars.

There’s simply no way Doom is reconciling such wildly divergent opinions “benevolently” without forcing some people under threat of death/imprisonment to do things they don’t want to do, or using magic/tech to brainwash them into doing it–the same way we have not been able to “benevolently” solve many of the political tensions in real life, in any part of the world. Hence either political debate, cooperation, and gridlock (democracies), where support for the leader tends to be abysmally low because everyone’s mad that they had to compromise instead of getting their way 100%, or oppression in favor of one side or the other (autocracies), where support tends to be incredibly high because the group that got the short end of the stick is silenced, while the group that got what they wanted sings the leader’s praises. If anything, all of Doom’s people loving him at all times is an indication that he’s an incredibly repressive ruler, not the magnanimous father figure that some writers/fans insist that he is. See: Vladimir Putin having an 80% approval rating at the time of this reply.

Anyway, existing in comicsland might add more variables to the political table, what with the advanced magic and tech, but it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of human beings. At least, it shouldn’t, because that would make for boring and overly simplistic storytelling if humans could magically agree on everything when the writer finds it convenient for their specific portrayal of Doom.

(Jesus, this turned into War and Peace. RIP word count)

It's interesting to know Waid intentionally ditched the newer character "development".

I think Waid’s philosophy (at the risk of putting words in the man’s mouth) is that Doom as initially conceived (forgiving the anachronisms of the 1960s, of course) was already a brilliant, complete character; he didn’t need additional contradictory motivations/behaviors that other writers tried to tack on/shoehorn in after the fact, which only served to muddle and dilute what Waid thought was already a perfectly serviceable character.

Frankly, I’m inclined to agree; I feel like writers trying to square “stalker/murder/dictator/torturer/child abuser” with “noble honorable tortured momma’s boy” is one of the biggest reasons there’s so much division in how Doom should be/is portrayed, and has led to a lot of gross stuff re: what I said above, and also obnoxious inconsistencies that sometimes impede on the enjoyment of the story.

Regarding the character "reversion", I often like to see less moral ambiguity in villians and more in heroes. Shock to some people, there are just genuinely evil people out there. The heroes tend to be more grey area denizens because there's no real Steve Rogers' in the world.

Completely agree. I’m okay with sympathetic villains, but, as you say, some people are, in fact, just evil. That doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting characters, just that we should avoid excusing their behavior in-universe because they had a traumatic childhood, or trying to give them half-assed redemption arcs after they murdered an entire universe, or whatever.

Regarding, the Kirby vs Lee input on Doom: I'd offer that in this case particularly, the dialogue is what defined Doom more than a script with a defined beginning and ultimate conclusion. IMO, there's a lot more character development in the bubbles than in the sequence of images that frame the overall story. I'd further offer that it was Doom's way of speaking that made him stand out in issue 5 and 6 rather than the admittedly hokey overall story of a guy after time lost jewels and surviving latching onto a passing comet after a disastrously failed plan.

True. I didn’t intend to discredit Lee entirely–obviously, a huge component of any character is their speech pattern, and that was (in most cases) all him in the Lee/Kirby run. I just thought it was interesting (and relevant to Doom specifically) that apparently Kirby would in many cases write the plot/“stage directions” in the margins explaining what was going on to Lee, and that sometimes Lee would deliberately ignore whatever Kirby wrote to pursue his own idea.

Also, there’s the fact that they have extremely differing views on what Doom’s scarred face looks like, which depending on which version you take as cannon does impact the character pretty majorly.

Thanks for responding! I really appreciate this input.

[Darkshadow]

I think using Mark Waid's take on Doom is limiting. For one thing, he gets a couple of things wrong in his Unthinkable arc. For one thing, Waid "forgets" or just ignores the Lee/Kirby origin story. In Waid's Unthinkable, the main reason for Doom's attack on Reed the rest of the FF is that Doom blames Reed for the damage done to his face from his failed experiment in college. That is simply not the case, as shown in the panel below.



So Waid gives us a false premise in Unthinkable plot since young Victor does not blame Reed for the the failure of his experiment in college. Waid is the only writer that does this

This might be true, I'm not going to "Waid" through every issue I have with Dr. D to prove or disprove, but I think blaming Reed for interfering is MUCH, so much, more in line with Doom's perspective of self perfection. The only time he fails is when interfered with by "simpletons" too detached to understand the forces they deal with. Blaming himself for the disaster seems far more out of character for the last decades than blaming Reed. That said, if Waid was serious about going all the way back to Lee/Kirby, then yeah, Doom blamed himself. But I seem to recall there was a lot more claim laid to Reed's interference, even in their era.

[grilledcheesing]

Waid's take on Doom reminded me of Grant Morrison's take on Magneto from around the same time. You have a 1960s Marvel villain who was created as just a simple, card-carrying evil villain (Magneto even more so than Doom), who later writers gradually started to treat as a more sympathetic and sometimes noble figure (again, Magneto more than Doom), and you write a story where they are once again portrayed as total monsters -- but since it's early 2000s Marvel and Bill Jemas was always wanting the comics to be edgier, their villainy is a lot more gruesome than it would have been in the Silver Age.

This is something no one is ever going to resolve, because their moments of nobility have become an established part of their characters, but on the other hand the only reason they haven't committed mass murder is because their mass-murder plans are always foiled. So it makes sense for Waid to remind us of what Doom really is but it also makes sense for people to dislike the reversion back to a one-dimensional Silver Age villain with 2000s violence.

I agree that’s it’s not something that writers are ever going to agree on. However, I would argue that there’s at least some element of moral responsibility here to not portray dictatorships as a good thing, and that making Doom a dictator by default puts him in the “ignoble” category, because noble men, as a general rule, do not trample all over the human rights of others, whether their intentions are altruistic or selfish.

That doesn’t mean he has to be a cartoonishly bad ruler–I don’t need him to pull a Caligula and gleefully torment his citizens for kicks–but the actual issues with autocracy need to be realistically portrayed, and yes, that does mean showing oppressive tactics towards those who speak out against his rule. And since you can’t please everybody, there are inevitably going to be citizens who are dissatisfied with his governance but who can’t speak their minds or enact change without swift, unjust retribution, and that should be honestly portrayed.

This might be a weird comparison, but my ideal Latveria would be like the Other Mother’s world in the Coraline movie–it’s TOO perfect. There is something horribly, profoundly wrong underneath all the plentiful food and beautiful landscape and magical infrastructure. And if you’re familiar with the movie (or book), then you know that the price for living there is incredibly high–too high.

I think Waid has Reed sum it up fairly perfectly in the Authoritative Action arc, where he calls it “the Disneyland of horrors”. That’s Latveria in a nutshell–the creepy, twisted, disturbed version of something that should be beautiful and ideal, but in reality is far from it. It also aligns nicely with how Waid portrays Doom–honorable and appealing on the surface level, but absolutely monstrous underneath the mask. A sad, tragic mockery of what Latveria and Victor von Doom could’ve been, but never will be.

Thanks for responding! I love discussing nerdy stuff like this.

[Darkshadow]

Thanks–I spent a lot of time putting this fannish nonsense together, so it’s nice that someone appreciates it, lol




See, despite “switching sides”, so to speak, and going from disliking Unthinkable to liking it, I almost have less understanding for those who cling to the idea of “noble Doom”. The idea of a benevolent dictatorship/noble dictator is neat and edgy when you’re 14 (I was ~16 when I first discovered Doom), but after maturing out of that and appreciating the actual real-life horrors perpetuated by authoritarian regimes (and also, y’know, just the basic fundamental way that human beings operate), that portrayal just comes off as incredibly ignorant (whether willfully or not) and lazily simplistic to me.

The quote “absolute power corrupts absolutely”, or that line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about how the people who seek power are the last ones equipped to have it, both come to mind, because Victor von Doom is the LAST person in the world to admit to his mistakes, accept input from others, take criticism well, put himself in others’ shoes, put others’ well-being above his personal wants and needs, and has a serious lack of empathy to boot–not exactly the qualities of a good leader in ANY political system, never mind an absolute monarchy. And especially not when his motivation is not actually protecting and advancing his people, but rather propping up his own fragile ego for the sake of his vanity.

Maybe I’m getting too invested in this politically, but considering everything going on the world right now, it just seems wildly inappropriate, irresponsible, and just downright disingenuous to past, present, and future victims of these regimes to be promoting the ridiculous concept of “benevolent authoritarianism”–an oxymoron in and of itself, which does not and cannot operate on any actual understanding of human behavior, psychology, politics, and hierarchies, ESPECIALLY not in the area of the world Latveria is typically portrayed to be in, which has ethnic and religious tensions from here to Mars.

There’s simply no way Doom is reconciling such wildly divergent opinions “benevolently” without forcing some people under threat of death/imprisonment to do things they don’t want to do, or using magic/tech to brainwash them into doing it–the same way we have not been able to “benevolently” solve many of the political tensions in real life, in any part of the world. Hence either political debate, cooperation, and gridlock (democracies), where support for the leader tends to be abysmally low because everyone’s mad that they had to compromise instead of getting their way 100%, or oppression in favor of one side or the other (autocracies), where support tends to be incredibly high because the group that got the short end of the stick is silenced, while the group that got what they wanted sings the leader’s praises. If anything, all of Doom’s people loving him at all times is an indication that he’s an incredibly repressive ruler, not the magnanimous father figure that some writers/fans insist that he is. See: Vladimir Putin having an 80% approval rating at the time of this reply.

Anyway, existing in comicsland might add more variables to the political table, what with the advanced magic and tech, but it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of human beings. At least, it shouldn’t, because that would make for boring and overly simplistic storytelling if humans could magically agree on everything when the writer finds it convenient for their specific portrayal of Doom.

(Jesus, this turned into War and Peace. RIP word count)



I think Waid’s philosophy (at the risk of putting words in the man’s mouth) is that Doom as initially conceived (forgiving the anachronisms of the 1960s, of course) was already a brilliant, complete character; he didn’t need additional contradictory motivations/behaviors that other writers tried to tack on/shoehorn in after the fact, which only served to muddle and dilute what Waid thought was already a perfectly serviceable character.

Frankly, I’m inclined to agree; I feel like writers trying to square “stalker/murder/dictator/torturer/child abuser” with “noble honorable tortured momma’s boy” is one of the biggest reasons there’s so much division in how Doom should be/is portrayed, and has led to a lot of gross stuff re: what I said above, and also obnoxious inconsistencies that sometimes impede on the enjoyment of the story.



Completely agree. I’m okay with sympathetic villains, but, as you say, some people are, in fact, just evil. That doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting characters, just that we should avoid excusing their behavior in-universe because they had a traumatic childhood, or trying to give them half-assed redemption arcs after they murdered an entire universe, or whatever.



True. I didn’t intend to discredit Lee entirely–obviously, a huge component of any character is their speech pattern, and that was (in most cases) all him in the Lee/Kirby run. I just thought it was interesting (and relevant to Doom specifically) that apparently Kirby would in many cases write the plot/“stage directions” in the margins explaining what was going on to Lee, and that sometimes Lee would deliberately ignore whatever Kirby wrote to pursue his own idea.

Also, there’s the fact that they have extremely differing views on what Doom’s scarred face looks like, which depending on which version you take as cannon does impact the character pretty majorly.

Thanks for responding! I really appreciate this input.

What the Doom controlled Latveria boils down to is that people sacrificed their freedom for security. They're safe so long as they grovel. The Latverian shepherd will never become the next Eastern European billionaire though.

[Iron Maiden]

Waid also had Doom locked into an agreement with the demons that enhances his mystical skills. When he is tricked into denying their assistance, he is dragged down into the Marvel version of Hell. One could say since Doom had received additional training in the mystical arts by Doctor Strange already, he should not have been bested by some minor level demons like the Hazaareth in Waid's story, who've not appeared anywhere since.

IMO in the final analysis Waid's Unthinkable has very little effect on how Doom is written in the comics today. When Doom does return from Hell in J. Straczynski's Fantastic Four #537, he does in an almost heroic fashion battling demonic creatures. One gets the sense the Straczynski is somewhat negating Waid's version of Doom.






Doom does hold a level of respect from both heroes and other villains in the comics. In Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars arc, it was Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange and the Molecule Man that were able to save chunks for the Multiverse that the Beyonders tried to destroy. I get the sense that Waid's version of Doom just doesn't hold much weight with todays writers who tend to write Doom almost as an anti-hero.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Waid can write some damn good stories, but he simply cannot write villains with meaningful depth.

As someone once remarked, his Kingpin, Dr. Doom and Red Skull are all the same, sociopaths who are defined by their hatred for the hero

[Iron Maiden]

Is Mark Waid even relevant to Marvel anymore these days? When was the last time he wrote a major title?

[grilledcheesing]

I think using Mark Waid's take on Doom is limiting. For one thing, he gets a couple of things wrong in his Unthinkable arc. For one thing, Waid "forgets" or just ignores the Lee/Kirby origin story. In Waid's Unthinkable, the main reason for Doom's attack on Reed the rest of the FF is that Doom blames Reed for the damage done to his face from his failed experiment in college. That is simply not the case, as shown in the panel below.



So Waid gives us a false premise in Unthinkable plot since young Victor does not blame Reed for the the failure of his experiment in college. Waid is the only writer that does this

I didn’t want to turn this into a “well THIS panel said x” kind of thread, and I still don’t, but in this case there are panels that objectively show Doom blaming Reed outside of Waid’s run. I’m on mobile, so I can’t add them right now, but both Wolfman’s run and Books of Doom off the top of my head do have explicit panels of Doom blaming Reed. And I’m pretty sure there are more; I’ll have to go back through my collection. So Waid is not “the only writer that does this”.

Regardless, Waid also includes Victor loving his mother and a reference to him saving her in the Authoritative Action arc, both of which were later additions/contradictions to the character that did not appear in Lee/Kirby’s run. However, just based on your activity in other threads, I don’t think this is an element of the character you would want removed just because it didn’t appear in the original run, so Waid’s take on Victor blaming Reed should be just as valid in that respect as Waid including the details about his mother.

That’s why I don’t think source material contests are worthwhile, because every single take on Doom at this point has more or less been done. The argument here isn’t which panel is “correct” (because you’re bound to find an equally valid and contradictory panel in a different run), it’s which version you think is objectively the best.

Also, I guess the word “blame” here is kind of tricky; technically, Waid’s Doom does “blame” himself in the sense that he knows deep down that it was his fault and that it was his own inadequacies that led to his downfall; it’s just that rather than do anything helpful with that information, he instead denies it to high heaven and decides to use his accident as an excuse to eliminate his only superior, Reed, in order to restore is sense of identity and self-esteem–hence him outwardly blaming Reed, even though he knows it was actually his own fault.

[grilledcheesing]

Is Mark Waid even relevant to Marvel anymore these days? When was the last time he wrote a major title?

I mean, I don’t know about the man himself, but Doctor Doom as a character has never been more popular. And the Unthinkable arc DOES continue to influence how both writers and readers view the character. There are plenty of modern writers–Hickman included, and I’ll edit this with the relevant panels later when I’m not on mobile–who do not buy the altruistic noble demon take on Doom, and as I stated in the OP, the majority (albeit not by a lot) of readers across the internet do seem to agree with Waid’s take. I literally saw a Reddit post not too long ago with 50+ individual upvotes saying how they could never take Doom’s redemption seriously unless/until Unthinkable was addressed, and several other posts/comments using Unthinkable as proof that Doom as a morally gray anti-hero is ridiculous when he has stuff like that on his track record.

And that’s on top of growing complaints that Doom increasingly comes across as an obnoxious Mary Sue/Villain Sue that I’ve seen in multiple forums, as well as entire threads with hundreds-thousands of upvotes absolutely ripping into more “benevolent” takes on the character, specifically a certain infamous scene from Doomwar.

[Darkshadow]

Waid also had Doom locked into an agreement with the demons that enhances his mystical skills. When he is tricked into denying their assistance, he is dragged down into the Marvel version of Hell. One could say since Doom had received additional training in the mystical arts by Doctor Strange already, he should not have been bested by some minor level demons like the Hazaareth in Waid's story, who've not appeared anywhere since.

IMO in the final analysis Waid's Unthinkable has very little effect on how Doom is written in the comics today. When Doom does return from Hell in J. Straczynski's Fantastic Four #537, he does in an almost heroic fashion battling demonic creatures. One gets the sense the Straczynski is somewhat negating Waid's version of Doom.






Doom does hold a level of respect from both heroes and other villains in the comics. In Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars arc, it was Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange and the Molecule Man that were able to save chunks for the Multiverse that the Beyonders tried to destroy. I get the sense that Waid's version of Doom just doesn't hold much weight with todays writers who tend to write Doom almost as an anti-hero.

Minor level demons? Please. They were introduced as more than that. Doom never became Sorcerer Supreme so he didn't have as much interaction with that side of the coin, even if that is what he wanted most. He was vulnerable and naive to it. His ONLY previous interaction with that realm was Mephisto. So, in his hubris, he immediately underestimated (in character) anyone who wasn't Mephisto.

Second, Unthinkable was 20 years ago. You say Unthinkable has no play on his current depictions, yet it's still a part of his gallery of feats. He couldn't have the triumph over Hell mean squat if the Hazareth was as junior league as you claim. He'd still be dead in a lover's skin suit. If anything, Waid's take elevated Doom's stature. Look, it's ok to dislike a short storyline, but to pretend the whole thing was so bad that it never happened is absurd.

And the OP is right. As time went on, there was more shift to Doom blaming Reed.

[Darkshadow]

Now do the same thing with Marquis of Death.