Originally Posted by
The Overlord
Stack up the best Dr. Doom stories and the best Wizard stories and I think I know which ones most people would prefer, how many great Wizard stories are there?
Except what makes his motives compelling in the first place? You rag on Doom's back story, but what's Wizard's back story ''decided to throw away a comforable life and become a public super villain who will be hated by the public and will be in and out of jail for the rest of his life, because he was bored''. That is a crappy motive and if they can't give him something better after over 50 years, it makes him a crappy villain.
His character motivation might as well be ''Mwa, ha, ha I am an evil villain who hates the Fantastic Four because.....Mwa, ha, ha!'' I don't hate Wizard, but I am bored with him and would be interested in a story where he is the main villain if the writers put so little effort into his motives. He is too evil to sympathetic, but not evil enough to be scary or creepy or truly menacing. There are no real stakes with Wizard generally, all he did was try to kill the FF and fail because the FF have the Frightful Four beat in almost every category, he poses no real threat to the FF or the world at large, so he is this box that doesn't make him menacing. The only time they added stakes with him is when the added the mental break down and again, that went no where. Like why was ranting about God when he was crazy, is he religious, where did that come from?
Do you want these villains to stay in the same boxes they were created in back in 60s, even though the world has changed a lot in the past 50 years and something that was fresh 50 years can seem old and stale now, like how times can Wizard create a Frightful Four to oppose the FF, before he realizes he should form a Frightful Fourteen instead.
Frankly I would make Wizard different from Doom, by ditching his rivalry with Reed, have him be Torch's enemy again and give a better motive for his villainy.
I am going to agree you in one aspect, Doom is over exposed and it be nice to give some of these other villains. However you do really not want to take these boxes they have been in the 60s and have them do something new? Red Ghost has to constantly be a Cold War relic (even though the Cold War ended in 1991) because that is what he was in the 60s? Wizard has have the same thin motives (either boredom or one note jealousy of Reed Richards) who constantly forms Frightful Four groups because that is what he was in the 60s?
Heck I think Mad Thinker was a better realized character in the New Warrior comics then the FF comics, but the writers seem to love dragging him back to his old stale Silver Age characterization.
Can't give some of these villains better motives or put them out of their box and make it stick? Like I said, the mental break down for Wizard was a good start, but had no explanation or follow through and they reset him back to zero. If DC can expand their B-list villains beyond their starting places, why can't Marvel? Not only should these B-list FF villains be given more detailed rivalries with other FF members, their characters should be expanded so their some dynamics to these rivalries beyond ''bad guy does bad things, hero stops him/her''.