How Are They Not Purely a Supervillain?

[Ghost Rider TheHellfireDemon]

That interview was done around the time of Unthinkable. There are some elements that IMO Waid gets wrong there but that's another discussion.



I think that is one case where Waid should stick to being the Superman expert because with Stan and Jack, Doom never blamed Reed for his problems. In fact, not many writers do and that is not the nature of their rivalry.

FF annual #2 by Stan and Jack is where Waid should have looked....notice that Doom himself says "What have I done?" not what Reed has done.




Later in a follow up story in the present we see another reason, which is a typical supervillain motive....eliminate the guy who's a threat to your plans. But at no point do you have a statement saying anything that happened in this life is all Reed's fault. Many things that shaped a young Victor Von Doom happened before they even met.

So your telling me Tvtropes.org has made a huge mistake by putting under the trope "Not my fault" Doctor Doom with blaming most Mr.Fantastic for most of his problems?

[t hedge coke]

So your telling me Tvtropes.org has made a huge mistake by putting under the trope "Not my fault" Doctor Doom with blaming most Mr.Fantastic for most of his problems?

I think she's saying it doesn't happen in any Kirby and Lee comic. Obviously it's happened in other comics. Sometimes in lazy ways. Sometimes to great effect. (In my opinion, naturally.)

[Iron Maiden]

So your telling me Tvtropes.org has made a huge mistake by putting under the trope "Not my fault" Doctor Doom with blaming most Mr.Fantastic for most of his problems?

Yup. Because there is not that much out there to support that and I always consider Stan and Jack the final authority. Instead of depending on the opinion of some blogger or other websites, it's best to go back to the source. So for those first 10 years of the Fantastic Four when they were the main authors or biographers if you will, Doom does not blame Reed for the accident and obviously for anything thing else. As I mentioned earlier, a lot the events that shaped Doom happened before they even met. He would have attempted to contact the Netherworld even if he never went to the U.S. on a student visa.

The one author that explored things a bit further was Marv Wolfman in FF #196-200, which culminates in Doom becoming so traumatized by seeing thousands of reflections face that he has a complete mental breakdown. The events that lead up to it is a battle with his own clone, Victor von Doom II.



After Doom kills his clone then his mind starts to unravel. He faces Reed in a one on one battle and then starts to shift the blame to Reed





Doom does not return to power until the early part of John Byrne's run, after his mind is restored to him by some of his underlings in an FF annual. Later when the memories of Doom are implanted in young Kristoff Vernard, he has the same memory of the accident in college as we saw in the Lee/Kirby story. In the memory implant playback, once again Doom is shown saying "What have I done to myself?"

Now much, much later when Fraction added a different spin to Doom's origin that is the most radical rewrite I've ever read. Books of Doom is the best work that pulls all the various elements together. In my head canon, Fraction's story never happened. *wink*

[ed2962]

Yup. Because there is not that much out there to support that and I always consider Stan and .Jack the final authority. Instead of depending on the opinion of some blogger or other websites, it's best to go back to the source. So for those first 10 years of the Fantastic Four when they were the main authors or biographers if you will, Doom does not blame Reed for the accident and obviously for anything thing else. As I mentioned earlier, a lot the events that shaped Doom happened before they even met. He would have attempted to contact the Netherworld even if he never went to the U.S. on a student visa.

The one author that explored things a bit further was Marv Wolfman in FF #196-200, which culminates in Doom becoming so traumatized by seeing thousands of reflections face that he has a complete mental breakdown. The events that lead up to it is a battle with his own clone, Victor von Doom II.



After Doom kills his clone then his mind starts to unravel. He faces Reed in a one on one battle and then starts to shift the blame to Reed





Doom does not return to power until the early part of John Byrne's run, after his mind is restored to him by some of his underlings in an FF annual. Later when the memories of Doom are implanted in young Kristoff Vernard, he has the same memory of the accident in college as we saw in the Lee/Kirby story. In the memory implant playback, once again Doom is shown saying "What have I done to myself?"

Now much, much later when Fraction added a different spin to Doom's origin that is the most radical rewrite I've ever read. Books of Doom is the best work that pulls all the various elements together. In my head canon, Fraction's story never happened. *wink*

I have not read Matt 's FF. What did he change?

[Iron Maiden]

I have not read Matt 's FF. What did he change?

It's pretty extensive and IMO unneccessary. It starts out in Fractions Fantastic Four #8-9 with Ben making a confession that Doom's machine blew up in his face because it was his fault. Ben tells Reed that the two of them had a minor confrontation while Victor is in the final preparations to use the device to contact the Netherworld. Ben and some buddies are tossing around a football on the campus grounds and Ben runs into Victor and knocks him over. Naturally Victor gets pissed off and insults Ben and his buddies, calling them thugs, etc. Ben decides he does like that and later sneaks into Victor's room where his stuff is set up and ready to go.





After Ben tells Reed all this, he makes Ben feel better by downplaying his actions and gives his view on things. So even though Victor lost both his parents due to the terrible conditions his tribe has had to endure, Reed seems to dismiss all of that and views them as just some claims that Victor made.



Reed tells Ben they can travel back in time as observers and revisit that moment to see if Ben's actions were the cause of young Victor eventually transforming himself into Doctor Doom. At the same time, an assembly of alternate reality Dooms have also decided to visit this key moment, the Nativity of Doom because they consider this Doom as the prime Doom or something like that. Ben goes against Reed's advice and comes out of observation mode and interacts in this moment of time instead and starts to destroy Victor's equipment. The AU Doom's step in to stop Ben while Reed grabs young Victor to take him away from the fight. Victor breaks away and tells Ben and Reed to leave. He mocks Ben's concern and tells him he has nothing to do with his actions. He's prepared to go through with this as if he knows what the consequences are. The AU Doom's then take him somewhere (it's not clear where) and go through the same ceremony we've seen when Victor was in Tibet and the monks build him his armor and place the mask on his face. As they are ready to place the hot mask on his face he tells them to hurry up and do it. Another odd part is even though he never used the machine in the dorm room, his face now has a scar along side his face.





I tend to doubt that many writers will embrace this as the new canon.

[Abe]

Some really informative - and highly enjoyable - readings, Iron Maiden !

Thanks a lot !

[Iron Maiden]

Some really informative - and highly enjoyable - readings, Iron Maiden !

Thanks a lot !

You're welcome. And I am sure you would agree with me when I say "Marvel, quit messing with Doom's origin"

[MyriVerse]

And right now everyone in the MU owes him for preventing the Beyonder's plan from being successful.

And his solution: destroy everything before they can and create an unworkable fake in its place that was based entirely upon villainy. Okay. Thanks Doom, ole buddy.

[Iron Maiden]

And his solution: destroy everything before they can and create an unworkable fake in its place that was based entirely upon villainy. Okay. Thanks Doom, ole buddy.

His solution was the only workable one anyone came up with. His team traced back the source to the Molecule Man (the Mad Thinker's analysis helped there) and if you recall correctly that with the Molecule Man's input they needed to kill as many of him as possible thereby setting off the some of the MMs early so everything would not go *poof* all at once. You saved what you could. Reed and the rest were just saving a small group in the two rafts. They would have saved maybe a hundred or so. MM and Doom saved millions if not a billion or so. No one gave out the total population of each of the chunks of the surviving worlds. Even Reed admitted he saved more people that he did....and then he got Doom to admit he had a better vision to manage things from there. But Reed would have had nothing to work with otherwise.

[YounG03]

My 1st thought as well.
Punisher
Lex Luthor

The trademark of a great villain is when he's not totally wrong/evil but you can relate to his political views to a certain degree. Villains who are in it for the money/power or are always foaming at their mouths... not so great villains.

I agree with Punisher. His comics are good but who made him God.

[Iron Maiden]

I agree with Punisher. His comics are good but who made him God.

Yes, that kind of vigilantism is dangerous. And conveniently in fiction the Punisher always gets the guilty party. But even in the RW people get wrongly accused. I think there was a piece of fiction or TV show where someone was the victim of a horrible crime and became convinced that their new neighbor was the one that did it, or someone they saw on the subway. So long story short, vigilante guy kills the person. Then the victim sees someone else and says "that's the one!" That was the gist of it anyway. Has the Punisher ever been wrong in one of his kills?

[Iron_Legion87]

Like many have said Punisher and Magneto. But both are justified in what they do honestly.

[Carabas]

Like many have said Punisher and Magneto. But both are justified in what they do honestly.

And how exactly are they justified?

[Iron_Legion87]

Well Magneto is more of a anti hero I would say. I mean his backstory is pretty tragic and you see why he does what he does. Outside the comics just look at the recent X Men movies and tell me Magneto isn't somewhat justified in his actions. As for Punisher, it is wrong to murder people and Frank goes the extreme but honestly his method kinda works. The Punisher would have killed someone like the Joker long ago and saved countless lives. Like I said, it sucks kill people but some of these criminals are only going to get out of jail and do the same things again like rape, murder etc. So that my reason for say they are kinda justified.

[MyriVerse]

And how exactly are they justified?

Punisher just administers justice.

All Magneto's done is in retaliation for what humans do to him and his kind.

How isn't it justified?