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

[grilledcheesing]

Now do the same thing with Marquis of Death.

Now, there’s a storyline that deserves to die….

[Darkshadow]

Now, there’s a storyline that deserves to die….

Does it though? Doesn't it ultimately elevate Doom as nigh immortal with power that...disappeared because it made him too hard to write.

[Iron Maiden]

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.

You mean where Doom passed the purity test by Bast? Yes, I can see why some would not like that.

BTW, I recently re-read the Infamous Iron Man series when I bought the collected version of that. This takes place after Secret Wars 2015 where Reed had restored Doom's face at the end of the story. Bendis is usually hit or miss for me but I think he had a fresh take on the character. He relinquishes control of Latveria and tries to live as a private citizen. The problem is neither the heroes nor the villains trust his motivations. Unfortunately when the series ended and his story was picked up in Dan Slott's Fantastic Four, there was very little follow up.

[grilledcheesing]

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

I’m curious, what specifically do you dislike about Waid’s Doom? Is there anything in the manifesto that stands out to you?

[The Cool Thatguy]

I’m curious, what specifically do you dislike about Waid’s Doom? Is there anything in the manifesto that stands out to you?

Not really, and that's the problem.

I want to stress that Waid an excellent writer, but his villains leave a great deal to be desired.

When he wrote Doom, there was no line Doom wouldn't cross, against the FF or Latveria.

In his final arc, he implicitly placed Reed over Doom in genius, with Reed fixing Doom's machine to reach Heaven, reasoning that was where Doom was looking first.

Which is odd, as Doom was intending to rescue her from hell.

Waid's villains are, almost exclusively, either sociopath masterminds who will cross any line or thugs with little motivation

[gurkle]

One thing that stood out to me in "Unthinkable" is Doom telling Reed he will soon be emperor of "this undeserving mudball." Years earlier Waid co-wrote the "Onslaught" event and one of his issues has Onslaught say more or less the same thing, "mudball" and all.

I guess Waid might argue that having embraced his mystic side, Doom calls earth a mudball because he now sees himself as above humanity, but Doom is human, he lives on the Earth and in a country with day-to-day duties, and it doesn't seem to me like something he would say; it sounds like he's an alien invader.

[grilledcheesing]

One thing that stood out to me in "Unthinkable" is Doom telling Reed he will soon be emperor of "this undeserving mudball." Years earlier Waid co-wrote the "Onslaught" event and one of his issues has Onslaught say more or less the same thing, "mudball" and all.

I guess Waid might argue that having embraced his mystic side, Doom calls earth a mudball because he now sees himself as above humanity, but Doom is human, he lives on the Earth and in a country with day-to-day duties, and it doesn't seem to me like something he would say; it sounds like he's an alien invader.

I’d never actually given that line any thought. I agree that it doesn’t sound like something your average person would use in day-to-day conversation, but it didn’t really feel “off” to me; it’s just Doom expressing his utter contempt for the little people.

Also, Waid’s take is that Doom is actually deeply insecure, so it kind of makes sense that he would go way over the top in overcompensating by trying to sound as detached and all-mighty and contemptuous as possible, but in the process just ends up sounding awkward and almost like a parody of the ultimate overlord he’s trying to be/sound like. After all, this is a man who thinks speaking in the third person and cosplaying as a medieval king is peak badass and epic and grand. Meanwhile, everyone else would be laughing at how ludicrous he is if they weren’t genuinely terrified of what he could do to them….

[Iron Maiden]

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.

So why haven't the Hazareth demons appeared anywhere else since if they were that important?

And you are forgetting that Doom's history with the demonic forces goes back to Astonishing Tales #8, long before the character of Mephisto was created. In Roger Stern's forward to Doctor Strange/Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, he states that this story inspired him.

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.

Where did I say that Waid's story didn't happen? That's not the same as saying that the storyline rarely if ever gets referenced in stories dealing with Doom.

[Doom'nGloom]

Unthinkable was Doom doing bad things for a bad cause. I like it more when Doom does good things for a bad cause or bad things for a good cause. For the former see Valeria's birth.

RCO021_1469006863.jpg

If Reed can hug his daughter whenever he wants, it's all thanks to Doom but Doom didn't do it out of the goodness of his heart. If some random americans asked Doom to save their daughter I don't think he'd care much but since it was the Richards family it gave him an opportunity to rub it in Reed's face. He did a good thing to spite Reed, to show Reed that he could be a better husband to Susan and a better father to Valeria than Reed was.

For the latter see Doom and Bast's conversation in Doomwar.

RCO023_1468870640.jpg

Bast and Doom both agree that by judging solely his actions, Doom isn't a good guy. Doom was destabilizing Wakanda and plunging it into chaos during that story. These are not the actions of a good guy. However they also agree that despite all of that Doom truly believes what he's doing will eventually benefit mankind. It doesn't matter whether or not his autocratic rule will turn the world into a utopia. That's not why Doom passed the test. It's because he truly believes what he's doing is for the greater good.

The online discourse around Doom gets tiring at times. I've seen some people argue that Doom's a misunderstood angel whose ambitions are too grand and long term for heroes to appreciate. I've seen others argue that he's an irredeemable monster who discarded his humanity long ago. I don't agree with either. I think he's somewhere in the middle and that's the beauty of the character. He isn't Steve Rogers or Cletus Kasady but he carries bits and pieces of both.

[grilledcheesing]

When he wrote Doom, there was no line Doom wouldn't cross, against the FF or Latveria.

True. But that's actually one of the things I (and many other people who liked Unthinkable) appreciated about his take on Doom. It added a layer of unpredictability that made Doom genuinely terrifying; neither the audience nor the heroes could guess at the depths of his depravity, and that makes for a very tense and riveting storyline. I think that's one of the biggest downfalls of "sympathetic" villains -- you know there are lines that they won't cross. There's an element of predictability. You can trust them to play by the rules of the game, and so can the heroes, and thus their repertoire of actions (and impact on the heroes/storyline) is more limited. With Waid's Doom, even when his defeat was inevitable, I had no idea how many people he was going to drag down with him, or the level of destruction he was going to leave in his wake. The answer, of course, ended up being "a lot", so much so that we needed two entire arcs (Authoritative Action and the Heaven arc) to deal with the fallout. Now, that's an effective villain.

In his final arc, he implicitly placed Reed over Doom in genius,

True. But Reed has always been smarter than Doom, even if the difference is only by a few decimal points. That's the whole point of Doom's hatred for him. Him blaming Reed for the accident is just a convenient excuse he uses to justify attempting to eliminate the one person who can effectively and consistently outthink him.

with Reed fixing Doom's machine to reach Heaven, reasoning that was where Doom was looking first.

Which is odd, as Doom was intending to rescue her from hell.

Agreed. That was an odd revision on Waid's take. It would have made more sense for Reed to spew some comics technobabble about how he "changed/reversed the setting/coordinates" to reach for heaven instead of hell (what the machine was originally intended for) while fixing it, instead of just implying that was what the machine was designed for in the first place.

[Darkshadow]

True. But that's actually one of the things I (and many other people who liked Unthinkable) appreciated about his take on Doom. It added a layer of unpredictability that made Doom genuinely terrifying; neither the audience nor the heroes could guess at the depths of his depravity, and that makes for a very tense and riveting storyline. I think that's one of the biggest downfalls of "sympathetic" villains -- you know there are lines that they won't cross. There's an element of predictability. You can trust them to play by the rules of the game, and so can the heroes, and thus their repertoire of actions (and impact on the heroes/storyline) is more limited. With Waid's Doom, even when his defeat was inevitable, I had no idea how many people he was going to drag down with him, or the level of destruction he was going to leave in his wake. The answer, of course, ended up being "a lot", so much so that we needed two entire arcs (Authoritative Action and the Heaven arc) to deal with the fallout. Now, that's an effective villain.



True. But Reed has always been smarter than Doom, even if the difference is only by a few decimal points. That's the whole point of Doom's hatred for him. Him blaming Reed for the accident is just a convenient excuse he uses to justify attempting to eliminate the one person who can effectively and consistently outthink him.



Agreed. That was an odd revision on Waid's take. It would have made more sense for Reed to spew some comics technobabble about how he "changed/reversed the setting/coordinates" to reach for heaven instead of hell (what the machine was originally intended for) while fixing it, instead of just implying that was what the machine was designed for in the first place.

I may be mistaken, but did Doom know of the "situation" between his mother and Mephisto when he started? Perhaps that was something he learned later, and of course a devoted son would expect to find his mother in heaven.

[Darkshadow]

So why haven't the Hazareth demons appeared anywhere else since if they were that important?

And you are forgetting that Doom's history with the demonic forces goes back to Astonishing Tales #8, long before the character of Mephisto was created. In Roger Stern's forward to Doctor Strange/Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment, he states that this story inspired him.








Where did I say that Waid's story didn't happen? That's not the same as saying that the storyline rarely if ever gets referenced in stories dealing with Doom.

Simply because, outside of Strange's or Rider's well established rogues gallery, named demons aren't all that common in Marvel. Also, why should they be reused just to prove their relevance? That's ridiculous when you think of some of the very powerful entities who have been one and done in 60 years of comics. Ever hear of Ebon Seeker?

Sigh, that one story doesn't give him experience with all the machinations of the underworld.

Yeah and FF200 rarely ever gets referenced either. What's your point?

[grilledcheesing]

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.

True, he did receive mystic training from Strange in T&T. But if you'll recall, he doesn't end up actually using much magic beyond some simple energy blasts. The device he uses to free Strange is distinctly technological, and his grand showing against Mephisto at the end is an anti-matter missile, not a powerful magical attack. Not to mention the fact that he literally never used magic against the Fantastic Four or anyone else outside of T&T and other books focusing on him trying to save his mother (like Astonishing Tales #8). So it's impossible to know just how powerful/adept Doom's magic skills really are at the time Unthinkable was published and whether or not he was a match for the Haazareth, because there is simply no context (to my knowledge) of him actually demonstrating his level of skill/power post T&T.

Also, I dispute the idea that the Haazareth are just "minor demons"; Strange himself couldn't do anything against them either when he ended up trapped in Hell with Franklin, and he seemed familiar with them when Reed asked him what/who they were, implying that they were infamous enough that they'd caught the Sorcerer Supreme's attention. And they were the ones who granted Doom his newfound level of power in Unthinkable, implying that they had control of/possessed that level of power themselves in order to be able to bestow it on others. So that automatically puts their power level on that of the Sorcerer Supreme's level.

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.

But today's writers don't write Doom as an antihero. Just off the top of my head, Slott, Cantwell, Fraction, Aaron, whoever wrote Doom during the Children's Crusade (where he murdered teenaged Cassie Lang and seduced an amnesic and therefore unable-to-consent Wanda), the Power-Pack book where Latveria and Doom are essentially knock-off North Korea, Millar's run where Doom tells his Doombots to execute the first citizen(s) who stop clapping for him, Doomwar's everything (despite that ridiculous scene with Bast), Ryan North's F4 run where Doom essentially throws a colossal temper tantrum and uses his time machine to go back in time to repeatedly murder the Avengers unprovoked, thus creating various timelines where the Earth is vulnerable to alien threats... the list goes on.

I would even dispute Hickman's Doom being a morally-gray antihero. Under his pen, Doom is blatantly misogynistic and daydreams about brutally strangling his ally Namor for no other reason apparently than he felt like it in Dark Reign: The Cabal. In Secret Wars 2015, he is blatantly mutant-phobic (referring to mutants as "scum"), was about ready to murder the entire royal family of one of the houses on Battleworld just for one baron fucking up before Sue talks him down from it, at which point he decides a public whipping is more suitable (how humane). An astute reader can extrapolate that without Sue there, he would have gone through with it, with very poor implications for how he ruled over Latveria previoulsy without Susan Storm there restraining him. Battleworld itself is a dystopian mess, with warring and scheming houses/provinces and an entire zombie horde held at bay only by Ben Grimm as the wall, with a police squad of Thors enacting brutal justice.

Meanwhile, rather than use his literal omnipotence to solve these problems, God Emperor Doom instead spends his time musing about his perfection (or lack thereof) high in his ivory tower with a Sue who is completely in the dark about his (or Battleworld's) past, and never would have consented to being with him had she known. He also murders colleague and ally Stephen Strange without a second thought despite Stephen's lengthy history of supporting and serving Doom, refuses to feed Owen (whom he owes his power to) for no other reason seemingly than he just didn't feel like it, and even when admitting to Reed at the end that Reed was better than him and could have done a better job rebuilding the universe, rather than handing over his power to Reed and accepting his loss gracefully like an honorable man (and in the interest of Battleworld's population), he instead tried to kill Reed for the umpteenth time out of sheer spite and pettiness. I'm not sure how anyone reads a story about Doom enslaving the remnants of the multiverse to his ego and ruling over them as an uncaring, cruel, and capricious god while they war with, backstab, and kill each other for his favor, and comes away thinking that he's a morally-gray antihero.

That's not the same as saying that the storyline rarely if ever gets referenced in stories dealing with Doom.

But there have been multiple references to Unthinkable and its fallout over the years. In Zdarsky's Two-In-One, Johnny makes a reference the the heaven arc, and there's a panel showing Infamous Doom next to an alternate-universe self wearing the Weiringo skin armor. Cantwell spends most of his third issue in the Doom 2019 series addressing Doom's murder of Valeria. Jason Aaron's Avengers, as poorly written as it was, obviously featured the skin-armor thing a lot. Sue tells Reed that they can't trust Doom because "this...creature took our son" in Fantastic Four Vol 1 551: “Epilogue Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End”, and in the 2014 F4 Robinson run, where the Fantastic Four are being grilled over why on earth they're letting their toddler daughter hang out with Doctor Doom, there's a panel showing Doom in the skin armor holding a screaming baby Valeria. Franklin also mentions to a prospective baby-sitter how he got dropped in Hell once in an issue of F4 (don't remember which one, but you can see the panel for yourself in this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1OwoZZyhSo] F4 analysis video, just skip to the Franklin section). So Unthinkable is definitely not lost to the wind as you seem to imply it is.

Anyway, the point of this thread wasn't to start a reference panel battle, it was to see what people think about Waid's take on Doom and their reasoning behind why they do or don't like it (not whether or not it aligns with x panel from y series published in 19-what-have-you), and also maybe change some people's minds (or at least understand each others' perspectives). You clearly are not fond of Waid's take, so I'm curious as to what your reasoning behind that is (beyond it not aligning with certain panels) and what your preferred interpretation of Doom is, and why.

[grilledcheesing]

I may be mistaken, but did Doom know of the "situation" between his mother and Mephisto when he started? Perhaps that was something he learned later, and of course a devoted son would expect to find his mother in heaven.

"Unclear", it what I'm going to go with here. Because you're correct; before Books of Doom (which came out after Waid's run was published), none of the retellings of Doom's childhood (that I can think of) showed him knowing that his mother was in Hell or even trying to rescue her at all until he got to America. But I could be remembering wrong, because God knows Doom's backstory has been retold a million times, with each writer/artist adding their own little nuances to it.

For what it's worth, the Lee/Kirby and Triumph and Torment retellings only have him trying to contact "the netherworld", but don't specify whether or not that refers to a heaven or a hell.

[grilledcheesing]

Unthinkable was Doom doing bad things for a bad cause. I like it more when Doom does good things for a bad cause or bad things for a good cause. For the former see Valeria's birth.

RCO021_1469006863.jpg

If Reed can hug his daughter whenever he wants, it's all thanks to Doom but Doom didn't do it out of the goodness of his heart. If some random americans asked Doom to save their daughter I don't think he'd care much but since it was the Richards family it gave him an opportunity to rub it in Reed's face. He did a good thing to spite Reed, to show Reed that he could be a better husband to Susan and a better father to Valeria than Reed was.

For the latter see Doom and Bast's conversation in Doomwar.

RCO023_1468870640.jpg

Bast and Doom both agree that by judging solely his actions, Doom isn't a good guy. Doom was destabilizing Wakanda and plunging it into chaos during that story. These are not the actions of a good guy. However they also agree that despite all of that Doom truly believes what he's doing will eventually benefit mankind. It doesn't matter whether or not his autocratic rule will turn the world into a utopia. That's not why Doom passed the test. It's because he truly believes what he's doing is for the greater good.

The online discourse around Doom gets tiring at times. I've seen some people argue that Doom's a misunderstood angel whose ambitions are too grand and long term for heroes to appreciate. I've seen others argue that he's an irredeemable monster who discarded his humanity long ago. I don't agree with either. I think he's somewhere in the middle and that's the beauty of the character. He isn't Steve Rogers or Cletus Kasady but he carries bits and pieces of both.

I don't mind Doom doing good things for a bad cause -- I loved the naming-Valeria scene. However, I do have a harder time swallowing the idea that Doom has/acts on good intentions. Remember, this is a character who is so petty, spiteful, and downright psychopathic that he insults, stalks, spies on, humiliates, tortures, slanders, attempts to murder, and has even straight-up murdered Reed and co. just because he cannot stand to be, like, 3 IQ points dumber than Reed. I'm not sure how possible it is to square that sort of behavior with him simultaneously also having altruistic intentions, especially considering that the Fantastic Four themselves are a force for scientific progress and good, so simply by opposing them Doom is contradicting his supposed motivation to "benefit humanity/save the world". If that were really his predominant motivation/intention, he would work with them, not against them.

I also, personally, find Doom just wanting to "save the world" a very generic, straightforward, and one-dimensional take on him, because there's really no depth there. He thinks he's the best, so he thinks he should rule. That's it. If he believes in himself so completely, then there are no insecurities or vulnerabilities to exploit or explore, no deeper layers to the character beyond sheer ego. Versus Waid's take, where the character actually doesn't believe in himself completely and is cripplingly insecure but presents himself otherwise. This implies a fundamental dissatisfaction with who he is, and deeper layers of self-hatred and maladaptive perfectionism that I find fascinating and tragic. Like, he could be a hero and earn the genuine love and respect of people (rather than ruling by fear), and I do believe he genuinely wants these things, but that would require facing up to his imperfections (no, he is not the smartest man on Earth, Reed is) and a willingness to address his flaws.

But because he cannot bear to live with himself if he is anything less than perfect (it's best or worthless with him, as Waid says in the manifesto, and Kirby concurs, I'll put the quote below) he has no choice (in his mind) but to deny it and continue the farce and kill anyone who won't play along -- after all, if you hate yourself so much deep down that you don't think you deserve/are capable of improving, then why bother trying? Hence why he proceeds to ruin his chances for true love (murdering Valeria), trashes his reputation on the international stage (he has no friends and the other heroes hate/fear him), refuses to actually improve his intellect by learning from his mistakes....etc. These are all atrocious, obnoxious, and ridiculous behaviors, but beyond hurting innumerable innocents, they also hurt him. It's almost like a foster kid who is convinced that their latest parents are going to kick them out, so they act out as much as possible to ensure that outcome so that they can have control over the situation. Similarly, Doom can't bear to face/be called out on his insecurities because he demands absolute perfection of himself, so he purposefully acts out/sabotages himself so that no one (not even himself) can accuse himself of failure. Another comparison is that kid who is insecure about their ability to actually succeed academically, so they purposefully cripple themselves by not studying, so that if/when they fail a test, they can just brush it off by saying "well, I COULD'VE gotten an A if I'd studied; it's not that I'm stupid, I just didn't study", in the process self-destructing by refusing to study to get good grades because they can't stand the idea that even if they study, they might be too stupid to make an A. Doom can't stand to be at the mercy of other's judgement, because deep down he fears he might come up lacking, so he must rule by fear. He must purposefully behave villainously so that people can't accuse him of not doing enough to "save the world", as the heroes do. He must put his energy towards the most absurd, ridiculous, and petty things because he fears that if he did genuinely try to be helpful and advance humanity, his accomplishments would simply fall short compared to Reed's, thus proving his own imperfection/inadequacies next to the man (e.g., he isn't as intelligent as him). I actually think this Redditor put it a little more succinctly than I can, albeit unnecessarily harshly:

[I'll never understand why people like honorable Doom who "just wants to save the world" (or whatever they say his motivation is). Ignoble Doom who needs to believe that he's actually the noble hero to justify his pettiness/atrocities, and pretends accordingly while deep down knowing that he's actually a pathetic piece of **** (and knowing everyone else knows it, too), but being unable to change for the better because he can't admit to fault so he just keeps digging himself deeper, is 5000x more interesting to me than "he's fundamentally a good guy with altruistic motivations, he's just a little rough around the edges/his execution is just flawed".

Why would you take such a brilliant, tragic, deliciously self-destructive character archetype, and reduce it to a generic Noble Demon/morally gray anti-hero/feel-good redemption arc?"]

Finally, I think Waid's take aligns a little better with Doom's childhood. This was a guy who was persecuted since birth for being a part of a minority ethnic group, and on top of that was ostracized within his own community for his mother's witchcraft. He was spit on left and right just for existing, and treated with suspicion, contempt, revulsion, fear, and even hatred just because of his parentage, his ethnic heritage, and his interest in magic. The idea that he endures an entire childhood of this maltreatment and comes out thinking that he's the hottest **** on God's green earth just doesn't make sense to me.

Kirby quote: "Doom is a very tragic figure, but Doom has got a lot of class. I like Doom. And he's got a lot of cool. But Doom has one fallacy. He thinks he’s ugly, see, and he’s afraid to take that mask off and he thinks in extremes, you know. He can’t think, well, I got a scar on me, but that doesn't make me repellent. Actually, Doom is a very handsome guy with a scar on him that he got from acid when he was a child. But Doom is an extremist. He’s a paranoid. To him, he’s extremely ugly. If Doom were to lose one hair, he’d put on a wig, see. And if Doom had an enemy, he’d have to wipe him out, and if Doom felt that anybody was smarter than himself, he’d kill them because Doom would have to be the smartest man in the world. He’s an extremist."

At any rate, I do understand where you're coming from, and there's obviously material to support your take. I appreciate your input.